After the 3rd instalment of the Man on the Moon series and the Entergalactic soundtrack being really enjoyable for me, I was keen on hearing Cudi extend his solid 2020's run with this new album, INSANO.
From the start, I'm going to say, I think INSANO is a real mixed bag. There are some really cool high's, and some pretty disappointing and forgettable lows. Kicking off the record, we have a DJ Drama introduction, and Drama also appears on moments throughout the project, at the end, and at the beginning of songs, sort of just hyping it up, similar to the collaboration on CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST by Tyler, The Creator, and the D-DAY Dreamville mixtape.
The opening portion of the album is my least favourite part of the record. Gone are the sentimental, inspiring, creative songs of Man on the Moon 3, or the charming, charismatic love tunes from Entergalactic, and instead that has been swapped out for mostly moody brag-rap. The energy and feel was much blunter, colder and cynical, and there has been a bigger switch in focus to Cudi spitting verses over heavy, darker, trap-infused production. I think Cudi's a competent enough rapper with some hard flows, but that's generally not why I gravitate to his music, and his vocals and delivery aren't always as crisp as I would want them to be. For that reason, those first 4 tracks on the project have limited replay-ability for me.
There's an upturn in enjoyment with the track WOW featuring A$AP Rocky, which although the production is similar to the songs that came before it, the vocal performance is way more enthousiastic with an infectious chorus and Cudi and Rocky sounding alive and buzzing to be there. ELECTROWAVEBABY follows WOW, and features the best beat on the project so far. Dominated by the flute melody and the funky drum pattern, Cudi flexes his singing abilities on this track to success. A much more accessible song than the ones at the beginning of the album, but equally a nicer, more well-rounded cut too.
As you enter the middle-third of the album, the album really defines itself as a mixed bag, evident from the inconsistency of the tracks in this section. A TALE OF A KNIGHT has quite a jarring horn led instrumental and a grating delivery where Cudi sounds on the brink of being out of breath, making the for quite the uncomfortable listen. CUD LIFE also was a poorer song, with a busy instrumental that fails to create the atmosphere that it think it's creating. Cudi's performance here was way better than A TALE OF A KNIGHT though, I liked his chorus and the fuzzy vocal effects, and he rode the beat really well in the verses too.
Then we have two quick-fire songs that I really liked, first TOO DAMN HIGH featuring Lil Yachty who provided a nice change of colour with his babyish, delicate, and quivering vocals. The crunching 808 hits in the instrumental and the cosmic-sounding overlays were nice, plus Cudi's hook was pretty cool. GETCHA GONE next is a great change of pace with Cudi spitting two really fast-paced verses with an awesome refrain in between that acts as the hook. The short length of the song works in its favour leaving you wanting more but knowing the track shouldn't get old any time just yet.
AFTER THE PARTY is an interesting song with the robotic hook from Pharrell, and some okay verses from Travis Scott and Cudi, but nothing to particularly mention, apart from the Virgil Abloh shoutout in Cudi's verse. MR. COOLA comes next with a beat that hits heavy and would be crazy live, however, the song doesn't move me much. The high piano repetition is mostly irritating and with the huge bass hits, just results in a bit of a mess, the lyrics are mostly party-based lyrics that I cannot recollect at all. FRESHIE contains some of Cudi's best bit of rapping with a long-old verse and Cudi ripping his bars with a relentless flow once more, although at some points he finds himself out of breath again and I don't like listening to him when he sounds like that. I can't help but think DJ Drama's contributions are unnecessary and obnoxious on this song too.
Following this, we have a seven song run which is easily the most successful leg of the album by far. TORTURED is classic Cudi, with an awesome psychedelic sounding chorus, hard, crunching bass (that bit is not necessarily the classic Cudi bit), and Cudi delivering some personal and reflective bars as he levitates within the music stoned in his sombre memories and musings. X & CUD is an enormously sentimental and nostalgic track, hearing X's voice, knowing of his untimely passing, and hearing him sing lyrics like "so nobody wants death cos nobody wants life to end", apparently those lyrics were liften from an X song I have not heard. Both X and Cudi are softly spoken over the lighter drums and dour piano keys, riffing nice melodies and soft cadences into their verses, only in the second half of the track where Cudi's spits with a more traditional flow does the track transform from a sad song into an uplifting and motivational one, Cudi rapping "will he cower? never ever, Cleveland City, born a grinder, watch him ripping, can't stop him".
An the next few tracks from SEVEN down to BLUE SKY are all pretty good too without, having major notes for any of them. SEVEN has a wordy chorus and a short Lil Wayne verse to add another voice there and I like his verse with some mucky flows towards the end of it. FUNKY WIZARD SMOKE has a warped chorus from BYNX which sounds like something you could hear on a Big K.R.I.T. song, and I did like it to be fair, I haven't heard a hook on a Cudi album like that recently. Cudi's post-chorus is quintessential Cudi though with those thick and infectious vocals. Like the previous 3 tracks, RAGER BOYZ is a short and snappy song featuring Young Thug. Though some of the songs that I like here in the last lag don't have major depth as such, they are so much more polished, well rounded and well-written than some of the ones at the top of the album in my opinion, and make for way better listens. BLUE SKY is a more cornier-sounding Cudi track, which I always think Cudi walks the tightrope with sometimes, but always ends up falling on a side that makes him seem endearing to me, rather than overly cheesy. With his perfect humming ability, this happy go-lucky Summer track should have been the way to end the project, rather than the harder-hitting song that did ultimately finish the album, HIT THE STREETZ IN MY NIKES which I didn't like mainly for the goofy delivery of the chorus and the "get money baby baby". Apart from that it's not a bad track in all honestly.
Overall, I was pretty disappointed with this output from Kid Cudi. As much as he did try tap into some newer energies and sounds, I think much of it missed and sounded quite tired or bland. There were some nice moments that did connect towards the middle and end of the project, and the times when he went into his usual bag the quality did improve. On recent Cudi albums I'm usually enjoying 80-90% of the tracks, whereas on INSANO it's looking at a more 50% scoreline. We've heard a fair bit from Cudi over the last couple of years and maybe I just wasn't ready for that itch to be scratched so soon. Time will tell, but my gut reaction is that this album will be listened to and lost.
Star Track - WOW
5/10
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