audio review : Moon ( song ) … Kid Cudi ( featuring Don Toliver + Kanye West )

This, a sky-gazer’s hymn, is the best cut from Kanye West’s Donda album, but it would’ve been even better than it is if it had a more appropriate song structure. It barely qualifies as a song. There should be not one but two Kid Cudi verses with a Kanye West chorus break in-between.

That chorus, which has West conjuring the melodic chops he showcased on the demo/SNL version of Teyana Taylor’s We Got Love, doesn’t come till near the end. It’s a five-star bit though as he outsings both Cudi, who should also be praised for his wailing ad-libs, and Don Toliver.

my rating : 4 of 5

2021

audio review : Donda ( album ) ... Kanye West

Christian Dior Denim Flow ( song ) … Kanye West + Pusha T + Ryan Leslie + Lloyd Banks + Kid Cudi ( featuring John Legend )

MP3

2010

audio review : Kids See Ghosts ( album ) … Kids See Ghosts

audio review : Kids See Ghosts ( album ) ... Kids See Ghosts

Kids See Ghosts is a fine album title, but I don’t see the point of using it as a group name. It seems unnecessary, silly even, to use one at all. Kanye West did an album with Jay-Z, and Jay-Z did two with R Kelly, without any pseudonyms. That this set, one of what will reportedly become several seven-song releases from West’s Good Music label, begins with a verse by Pusha T is even more confusing.

It’s the quality of the music that should matter most, of course, and there it’s mostly a middling affair. The beats, which sound like lo-fi hip-hop experiments, do sound good, but they’re too often met with vastly inferior, sometimes downright annoying, vocals. Freeee and Feel The Love both contain grating examples of the latter. It isn’t until the end, literally the final song, that a memorable chorus arises.

my rating : 3 of 5

2018

video review : Meadowland

video review : Meadowland

A man and woman lose their kid. That’s not a euphemism for death. They literally lose him at a gas station one day. The presumption is that he was kidnapped; the premise for a potentially engrossing story; but director Reed Morano ruins it by skipping to the boring epilogue. That means we’re forced to watch the parents mope as uneventful month by uneventful month goes by.

The movie focuses more on the woman, played by Olivia Wilde, as she goes down a spiral that is odd and a little absurd. Eating old cookie crumbs, smoking crack, having sex with strangers; her naked ass in the sex scene is the best part; and stalking little boys may be a part of her personality, but it seems unlikely simply losing a child of her own would make her do such things.

my rating : 2 of 5

2015

audio review : Cruel Summer

audio review : Cruel Summer

The hooks on the first two songs are annoying. R Kelly, for one, sounds silly stretching the word “world” out to so many syllables. Neither is as bad as on a song called Higher though, which is practically unbearable. There is “GOOD” music here, but most of it is confined to the actual music. The instrumental beats, even without Kanye West at the helm, thump with artistic flair.

The raps are neither here nor there; there aren’t really any stand-out MCs in Kanye’s clique; though feature verses from Ghostface Killah and Jadakiss serve as pleasant surprises. Song highlights include Don’t Like, an updated version of the Chief Keef song, which isn’t at all appropriate as the ending to an album that represents a record label he’s not signed to, Sin City and The One.

my rating : 3 of 5

2012