As one of the stars of what is quickly becoming one of my favorite tv shows, it’s about time I checked out some of Kid Cudi’s music. Reaction: meh. How to Make It in America is a fantastic show, and Domingo, the classy weed dealer played by Cudi, is a fantastic character. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into this record.
First off, this thing is an hour and eight minutes long. You should know where I stand on really long records by now. They take up more time of my life than I want to give, so they better have a good reason for breaking the one-hour mark.
It’s clear that Cudi thought he had a good reason. End of Day is split into five “acts,” some of which are separated by little dramatic plotline updates spoken by an anonymous narrator. Aside from providing me with a new potential last.fm username (I heard “This is the rise of the Night Jews” in place of “…night terrors” in one of them), these breaks in the action tend to ruin any flow or coherency that this record may have had.
But that’s not even my biggest problem with this album. If you’re going to present a record as a deep, personal, introspective masterpiece, than you had better have some interesting things to say, along with some good stories to back them up. 14-year-olds have already made an infinite number of Facebook statuses about most of the tales on this record. This is the first line of the first song: “I’ve got 99 problems / and they’re all bitches.” That’s what we’re dealing with here.
Not gonna lie, though—“Day ‘n’ Nite” remains catchy as hell.
Swole Ear 
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