Review Summary: Keep moving forward.
We're three weeks deep into the weekly GOOD music releases, and, well... It's tough to pinpoint what exactly happened here. Like, this is easily the best thing Kid Cudi has been associated with, and following up ye, it's absolutely stunning that Kanye's back to form here.
It's been a week now since Kanye released his eighth solo studio album, ye, which understandably divided the fans or anyone that listened to the album in general. I found myself on the fence for it, loving some of the things Kanye was doing with it and at the same time dreading others. And now that the dust is settled, here we are talking about Kanye yet again with the release of his collaboration album with Kid Cudi, an artist of whom I've never been a fan of. His early stuff never peaked my interest past a few songs and I'm pretty sure at this point we're all aware of how infamously bad "Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven" is.
It'd be a complete understatement to say that I was blown away by Kids See Ghosts.
From the opening track alone you get a vivid idea of what to expect going forward with the album, starting off with Cudi's vocals, sang passionately. And then the first and only verse comes in, not rapped by Kanye, but by Pusha T. It's a great verse, pretty much what you could expect especially following up "Daytona". Doesn't stop there, right after the verse we're instantly hit with pounding drums and shouting, producing a beat that almost sounds like something off of "Yeezus". From then on, it's set. I was mesmerized from that point forward, the instrumentals really do not let up from there. Even with the second track being the minimalistic, moaning Cudi vocal type of song that never struck a cord with me beforehand. The production alone is off the god damn wall and makes songs that wouldn't, and shouldn't work into something special.
Surprisingly Kanye doesn't show up too much on the album as a whole, and when he does it's brief. There's not any ridiculous lines coming out of him this time, there's no "I love your tits because they prove I can focus on two things at once" type of lines on here, no filler. Whenever Kanye pops up it's an absolute treat. Then, as we reach the end we get an absolute high note, Cudi Montage. It has Cudi's best vocal delivery throughout the entire album, as well as a closing verse from Kanye that wraps up things nice and well. The song ends with a refrain of 'Stay strong", which going forward I hope that Kanye and Cudi really do.
