— SpacePack

Yo, what’s good people? After a little weekend hiatus, we’re back to doing what we do best: elevating your music collection to baller status. Starting off the week is the first edition of what we’re calling The Noughties. The ten part series will showcase some of our favourite albums, and the artists that crafted them, of the last decade. Looking back, we’ll check out albums that we (Brendan, Kenny, and myself) found to be particularly influential, creative or that remain staples in our music collections.

This will for sure be the easiest pick out of my selections for the series. Cudi’s debut album was one of those sets you could play through, front to back, knowing every track would be solid. The album spawned several hits and three Grammy nominations to further solidified its spot on the top shelf. The entire concept and themes of the album was fresh to death, making the initial plays seem as if  you were listening to some wild new form of music. This album was the shit.

Starting from the first act, The End Of Day, the listener is quickly introduced to sounds that are not typical of regular hip hop albums. The album opens up with the distant sounds of ‘In My Dreams’ as Cudi mumbles on and off at an almost uneven pace. The opening three tracks set the table for an album that’s focused mainly on the highs and lows of Cudder. Moving on, the album gives way to adventurous tracks such as ‘Solo Dolo’ and ‘My World’ and before more digestible track such as ‘Day ‘n’ Nite’ and ‘Enter Galactic (Love Connection Part 1)’ appear. My take is that album returns to a more steadied, certain sound for the fourth act Stuck. The songs of this section almost serve as a reminder of what you’re listening to after the trip that is the previous two acts. Finishing strong, Cudi brings in Cleveland bud Chip Tha Ripper for one of my favourite tracks from the Man On The Moon, ‘Hyyerr’. Closing out the set is the fun track ‘Up Up And Way’, the signal to light another one up if you haven’t already. Cheers.