A genre-defining album from one of rap's most unheralded pioneers gets its classic rating.
If emo-rap was a religion, Man on the Moon would be its Bible.
It's been over a decade since Kid Cudi dropped Man on the Moon. Since then his groundbreaking sound has developed into a staple subgenre in hip hop and gone on to inspire an entire generation of melodic rappers.
There's no question of whether or not Man on the Moon is a classic. But there is the tough question of how it stacks up next to other classic projects.
How this works: To even be labeled a classic, a project has to be considered at least a 9 on the 10 point system, so every project that is rated in this series starts at a nine. The remaining point will be calculated by the three categories: impact, replay value and outshining peers.
For example, an album like Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy would get the highest possible score on outshining peers at 0.33, bumping it from a 9 to a 9.33, and that process would repeat for every category.
Impact
The Bible is pretty impactful, right? It sounds impactful; it serves as the basic instructions for the followers of a very large group and shares timeless parables of one of the most beloved subjects ever.
Of course, the Bible is impactful. So here are the real questions: does the Old Testament's existence take away from the impact value of the New Testament? If your argument brings up the presence of Jesus in the New Testament, Jesus was already heavily alluded to in the Old Testament. But would Christianity have ever reached its billions of followers if the New Testament didn't cement the life stories of Jesus?
I promise I have a point.
Kid Cudi wasn't the first artist to turn his mental health issues into an entire project. His boss Kanye West did it less than a year earlier on his own classic project 808's and Heartbreak and even featured Cudi multiple times as either a performer or writer.
So does 808's & Heartbreak's existence take away from the impact value of Man on the Moon? Would emo-rap have never reached its current level of popularity if Man on the Moon didn't share the life stories of Kid Cudi?
There's no universally correct answer.
Some artists like Lil Uzi Vert credit 808's and Heartbreak with changing their life. Some artists like Logic credit Man on the Moon's vulnerability with helping them gain their confidence in rap. And then some artists like Travis Scott credit both projects in making them the artist they are today.
If the subgenre of emo-rap could speak for itself, I imagine it would preach a message similar to Travis Scott.
Score: .33
Replay Value
To be completely honest, some of the verses in the Bible don't hit like they probably did in the early AD's.
The same goes for Man on the Moon. Minus "Hyyerr", each hook still forces a karaoke performance over a decade later, but the once-revolutionary, gloomy introspective verses don't emotionally connect as much as they did in 2009.
This is Cudi's own doing, considering his aforementioned role in sparking emo-rap. Although he helped create the subgenre, his pioneer status doesn't earn him any points in the replay value category.
It's a common situation that every creator has to deal with.
Just as Michael Jordan dunking from the free-throw line stripped Julius Erving's free-throw dunk of some of its magic, replays of Jordan dunking from the free-throw line loses some of its luster when Zach LaVine does the same thing while going between his legs.
The Erving and Jordan dunks are both iconic and will live on forever in the minds of those who watched live, but you can't expect anyone who has seen LaVine's dunk to choose the past great dunkers over the dunkers of today.
The same goes for Man on the Moon.
It's hard to imagine anyone who didn't experience the project when it initially released to revisit it in a time of emotional need, causing it to lose its very point of creation. Luckily, those who did experience the project in the moment and the project's great hooks and melodies keep it from leaving this category with no points.
Score: .10
Outshining Peers
2009 was a pretty good year in rap.
Drake delivered his revered So Far Gone mixtape, Gucci Mane released his own classic album with The State vs. Radric Davis and Jay-Z returned to rap with the last installation of his legendary Blueprint series.
With that being said, at the time, Man on the Moon was considered the best project of 2009. Complex agrees.
Relistening to what was considered some of the top projects of 2009 shows how special Man on the Moon really is. Even with verses that naturally can't stack up to today's emo-rap, the music in general on Man on the Moon still shines bright in 2020 while the other 2009 projects are dimmed from the cringe sounds of The Black Eyed Peas-era.
Kid Cudi outshined his peers then, and his classic album is still outshing their work now.
Score: .33
Current Classics Leaderboard:
1.) Man on the Moon 9.76
2.) PARTYNEXTDOOR 2 9.35
3.) Lil Uzi Vert vs. The World 9.33
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