"Goodbye Cruel World, I'm Leaving You Today"

Yessssssss!!! It's been a long time since I've felt energized to the point of slow clapping after listening to a new Cudi track. Everything about Goodbye is littered with what makes him such a force when he's on his game. I'm talking about the creepy, cinematic elements, and unorthodox, melancholy storytelling. With help from his right hand man and WZRD collaborator Dot da Genius, they were able to summon the greatness once again.

Off top with the 2pac "You right, I am crazy" sample from the movie Juice, the mood was set. Then came the eerie synths and heavy, forceful bass put Cudi squarely into his element on the mic. He dropped two stellar verses and sprinkled in a characteristically somber hook to for contrast. The Pink Floyd influence can't be understated because the original sample allowed for the duo to create such drastic shifts in mood on the track that forced you to keep listening. Peep the sample below if you aren't familiar with Goodbye Cruel World and stay on the look out for Cudi's new Pain & Demon Slayin album that's coming soon...#GoodbyeCruelWorld

Kid Cudi - Goodbye (prod by WZRD)

"Take it to the Satellite, Tonight"

Of course, the second I start noting a general lack of quality Hip Hop, here comes Kid Cudi out of the blue with a track that you'd swear should have been on Man on the Moon. If his new track, Satellite Flight, is any indication of what his new album is going to sound like, color me excited. Not just because he's getting back to his uniquely chill and melodic form of Hip Hop, but because it sounds like there's quite a bit of vigor behind his new music...

I have been workin very hard to make sure my next musical experience for u is exactly what u need. My powers have tripled since we last met

— Scott Mescudi (@ducidni) December 14, 2013

The mix of quirky synths cooked up by Dot Da Genius and the methodical harmony of Cudi get back to the core of what makes them a formidable duo. They are capable of a form of Hip Hop that no one else can create, which is hard to do these days and what makes new music from them that much more awesome. I now have a good answer to the elusive question of "what Hip Hop album are you excited about?" Satellite Flight: The Journey To Mother Moon, that's what I'm talkin' bout...
#SatelliteFlight

Kid Cudi - Satellite Flight (prod by WZRD)

"Pay All Your Bills, Bet You Are a Zombie"

On Monday, Scotty let loose a freebie out of the blue in the form of Going to the Ceremony...

https://t.co/GUOBJzHuNE

— Scott Mescudi (@ducidni) July 1, 2013

The track is presumably a WZRD throw away, but it's every bit as dark and lyrically depressing as you'd expect from him. The rock flavor of the track explains the WZRD branding, but it serves as a sufficient outlet for him to let out his struggles.

Anybody else itching for a Cudi tour? I missed out on the college tour this spring, so lately I've found myself going to his website more than once over the past month in search of good news, but coming up empty on the tour front. I get that he was trying to get at his younger audience, but I've been hoping for a more large scale effort to get out and share Indicud. I still haven't found a track as genuinely likable as his collabo with the sisters Haim. Someday I will hear that track in concert, you can take that to the bank...#BetDat

Kid Cudi - Going to the Ceremony

Videos of the Week November 23rd

Straight Hip Hop and R&B this week with a wide range of strange and psychedelic videos from some of the most unique artists in the game. Between @NickiMinaj's symbolic, black and white to color video and the two trippy, otherworldly videos from @ducidni and @BigBoi, artistry is on high this week. To top it all off, how about a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas parody from @liltunchi?...#MightAsWell

Nicki Minaj - Freedom (Video)

WZRD feat Desire - Teleport 2 Me Jamie (Video)

Lil Wayne feat Detail - No Worries (Video)

Big Boi feat Kelly Rowland - Mama Told Me (Video)

Trey Songz - Never Again (Video)

Videos of the Week March 9th

Plenty of visual goodness arrived this week in the form of a few official videos and a couple concert videos. Unbeknownst to me, @s_c_ is performing at SXSW and @americanexpress is doing their very best to make you aware of that by releasing some pretty exclusive footage of his concert at Carnegie Hall. Beyond that I was slightly moved by @flo_tweet's new video for her single Never Let Go. Not a big surprise there considering how powerful her music can be. I said it earlier this week, if you're up for an interesting listen, give WZRD's album a chance because it's got a few hidden gems mixed in there. I'm not usually a huge buyer of behind the scenes stuff since I tend to favor posting the end product, but I'm pumped for @thegame's new video for The City with @kendrick_lamar. I loved that song when I first heard it and after a bunch of listens that has not changed, which is strange because I'm quick to fall out of love with even the dopest tracks. Have a good weekend y'all and holla at me if you're in NYC this weekend...

WZRD (Kid Cudi & Dot da Genius) Perform Teleport to Me, Jamie on Conan

Florence and the Machine - Never Let Go (Video)

Jay-Z – Public Service Announcement Live at Carnegie Hall

Robin Thicke feat Lil Wayne - Pretty Little Heart (Video)

Game feat Kendrick Lamar - The City (Behind the Scenes)

Havana Brown feat Pitbull - We Run the Night (Video)

Kid Cudi Channels His Inner Kurt Cobain

The biggest takeaway I was left with after taking my first lap around @wizardcud and @dotdagenius's new WZRD album was "I can't believe they covered a legendary Nirvana track." It was one of the biggest mind (f word)s I've been blindsided by in quite a while when reviewing music. Why was it such a big surprise? For starters, shame on me for having absolutely zero familiarity with WZRD's tracklist. As a result, I missed the Nirvana connection completely prior to listening to it. Second, I can't believe Cudi had the audacity to cover a track that is so legendary. I say legendary because anybody who has seen the haunting and distinctly memorable MTV Unplugged session was moved in some way shape or form by watching Kurt Cobain perform acoustic that night with Nirvana. The video below sums up how memorable the show was as Kurt ended the set with an exclamation point in the form of Where Did You Sleep Last Night...

Before I get into the new school version, you'd all be better off knowing how far back the original Bluegrass version of the track goes. Little known fact (thanks to Wikipedia), the song also goes by the name of In the Pines (Bill Monroe) and Black Girl (Huddie Ledbetter). Even better, the song's origins date all the way back to the 1870s when it was first an Appalachian folk song. To me it's crazy how little Leadbelly's version that was produced back in 1940 has evolved from the version that Nirvana popularized. Crazy, but also awesome to see American folklore unfold through the generations and becoming timeless as a result.

Fast forward to the present and you can appreciate how Cudi has some serious balls for trying to tackle such a challenge on his first rock flavored album. I'm not going to try and gas you all up by saying his cover of the track was near as good as the original, but I will say that I found it noteworthy and memorable that he chose to do his own version. What I really wanted was for him to do was absolutely cut loose on the last part of the track like Kurt did by belting out the eerie "MY GIRL, MY GIRL, DON'T LIIIIEE TO ME, TELL ME WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT?!?!?." Maybe that was part of making it his own, but I feel like if he would have went a little psycho and added a little yelling, I may have gotten a little more hype over it.

In case you missed it WZRD's album just dropped last week and thanks to Cudi's record company, not much effort was made to make the public aware of that. You'd think that would result in the album facing an uphill battle with sales, but 70K sales in the first week is not bad at all. That's right Cudi, you tell Universal what's up. They don't deserve to rake in the profits for being retarded enough to not believe that your rock album would sell. As side note, I hope you take the high road when the dust settles and don't deprive your fans of MOTM 3 in a fit of vindictive rage against your label. Your music speaks louder against authority than any twitter post and if one thing's been made clear through all this, it's that your music is powerful and your fans don't need it shoved down their throat to appreciate it...#PlayOnPlaya

Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Unplugged)
|iTunes

WZRD - Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
|iTunes

Videos of the Week March 2nd

For one, I've evidently been riding the short bus because I totally missed that @JASONDERULO and @jordinsparks were dating. Put it this way, anyone who didn't realize they were dating, definitely does after watching their new remix duet video for It Girl. Other than that little tidbit of knowledge I gained this week, you may have missed @wizardcud's rant vs his record label as a result of the lack of promotion his new album WZRD received. It sounds like his label undersold the potential of his newest record and the estimated 80K sales that it's projected to get first week may even be a little low as a result. As per the usual, I mixed in the obligatory Drizzy concert video and even snuck in a #kendrick_lamar performance. It only their tour looped around to Philly somehow before going overseas...#Fail

Jason Derulo feat Jordin Sparks - It Girl (Remix)

Drake Performs Crew Love in New Orleans

WZRD Listening Sessions in NYC at W.i.P. Feb 23rd

Kendrick Lamar Performs Hii Power in New Orleans

Young Jeezy feat Ne-Yo - Leave You Alone (Trailer)

Jennifer Hudson feat Rick Ross & Ne-Yo - Think Like a Man (Video)

Cudi and Dot Da Genius Are WZRDs of Sampling

Ahhh yes, about a week ago we witnessed @wizardcud debuting the track below in Australia and now today we get the real thing on iTunes today. If there's one thing Cudi and @DotDaGenius have the no other duo in the game possesses, it's the ability to find quality under the radar samples. Single-handedly they have put me on to bands like LCD Soundsystem, Ratatat, Crookers, Band of Horses and now Desire.

Serving as the lead single to their self titled debut album due out Feb 28th, Teleport 2 Me, Jamie is every bit as melancholy and dripped with emotion as you'd expect. What sets the track apart is the sample, which is executed brilliantly by the duo. The sample is taken from the @desireofficial Under Your Spell (below)...

Talk about taking a simple element of an unheard of track and molding it into something that fits your sound to a T. The presence of electronic samples and instrumentation is something I hope continues throughout WZRD's debut studio album. Put it this way, if another @ratatat feature finds a way to surface on the album, I'll be one happy customer. One month til it drops, keep it locked her for more WZRD tracks and they become readily available on the information super highway...#NoSpeedLimit

WZRD - Teleport to Me, Jamie (prod by Dot da Genius)

|iTunes

Videos of the Week Jan 27th

Sort of a slow week for videos, but that didn't stop me from venturing off the beaten path in search of a few gems to post. I've already posted about how re-cot-damn-diculously good @MikePosner's latest mixtape The Layover was and the video below for my favorite track off the mixtape only serves to solidify my feelings about the mixtape as a whole. Still, the Hip Hop game has it a little twisted when @rickyrozay's latest tape (for example) was downloaded over 849,000 times compared to Mike's latest tape's 66,000. I get that Ross is the bigger name (no pun intended...seriously), but c'mon y'all, you can't tell me it was anywhere close to as solid as Mikey's effort.

Anyways, I'm really looking forward to @wizardcud's new rock album from his group WZRD. Feel free to peruse the official tracklist below and check out his full performance of Teleport 2 Me in Australia (below). I'll admit too, I was more than a little mildly entertained by the Bon Joviver mashup by @wearemoms. I'll also concede that I did laugh at their twitter handle and especially appreciated their sarcastically real reason of "Miracles of Modern Science won't fit in Twitter's name box." Have a good weekend y'all!

Mike Posner - A Perfect Mess (Video)

Kid Cudi Performing Teleport to Me in Australia

Florence and the Machine - Lover to Lover (Video)

Sleigh Bells - Comeback Kid (Video)

Nappy Roots feat Khujo Goodie - Pete Rose (Video)

Bon Iver vs Bon Jovi = Miracles of Modern Science

"No Light to Guide My Way"

It's safe to say that chapter one of @wizardcud's journey into the realm of psychedelic rock is now complete. Last night he let loose a flurry of tweets forecasting the release of his new track. The boldest statement is shown below...

Is Break a little different than the usual sound of his music? Slightly, in that the instrumentation is more focused on heavy, tripped out guitar riffs rather than beats and percussion. Content wise though, it's the same brand of loneliness and despair that we've become accustomed to with his first two albums.

It is revolutionary? Maybe in a sense that no other Hip Hop artists have tried to channel their inner Pink Floyd, but maybe that was he and @dotdagenius are going for? Regardless of reason, it's definitely different and I still haven't wrapped my mind around whether or not I'm a fan of it yet. I can tell you I'm excited that I'm cautiously excited to hear WZRD's debut album due out January 30th. Despite the isolated feel of the track below, Cudi hinted at their being radio friendly content on the way. No word on what the new album will be titled, but you can bet the end product will be polarizing in that critics will either hate on it to the extreme or call it revolutionary...#ICallItInteresting

WZRD - Break (prod by Dot da Genius)