Kid Cudi – "Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven" Review: The Man on the Moon Crash Landed
- Jay Jewels
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Quick Verdict
Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven is Kid Cudi's fifth studio album, a 91-minute, 26-track double album of lo-fi grunge and alternative rock with no rap, no guest features, Beavis and Butt-Head skits throughout, and production so raw it sounds recorded on a phone. Pitchfork gave it a 4.0 and called it a failure, and not even a noble one. Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop gave it zero out of ten — his worst score for any album in 2015 — calling it the musical equivalent of walking a mile on hot coals. Metacritic: 44. Vice compared it to Tommy Wiseau's The Room as so bad it's good art. The album caused such reputational damage that Cudi abandoned his planned Man on the Moon III entirely to pivot to Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin' instead. Defenders exist. They are few. Rating: 2/10.
At a Glance
Album Details
Table of Contents
Context: Man on the Moon III That Never Arrived
In October 2013, Kid Cudi announced that he would be releasing Man on the Moon III, the long-awaited conclusion to his trilogy, in 2015. His fans — who had followed him through Man on the Moon: The End of Day (2009) and Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager (2010), both landmark albums of emotional hip-hop — had been waiting years for the trilogy to close. What arrived instead was Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven: a double album of self-produced grunge rock with Beavis and Butt-Head skits, no rap, no features, and a 91-minute runtime that critic Anthony Fantano gave a zero. The reception was so damaging that Cudi abandoned Man on the Moon III entirely, pushing it back indefinitely to release Passion, Pain & Demon Slayin' as a course correction in 2016. In 2024, Cudi credited the Brett Morgen documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck with inspiring the album and expanding his mind as an artist. That explanation does not make the music better. It does make the biographical context more sympathetic.
The Kurt Cobain Connection
Cudi's admiration for Kurt Cobain predates the album — HotNewHipHop noted his longstanding admiration for Nirvana's frontman, who receives a direct shoutout on Man in the Night. The parallels between Cobain and Cudi are not entirely superficial: both artists positioned emotional vulnerability and depression at the centre of their music in genres where that was unconventional. But the execution gap between what Nirvana achieved with lo-fi rawness and what Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven delivers is the album's most painful element. Multiple critics compared the album to Nirvana — not as a compliment. One Rate Your Music reviewer compared the chaos here to Swans and found it lacking. Cudi's voice and lyricism are not suited for grunge, and the attempt to channel Cobain's aesthetic produces something that sounds less like tribute and more like imitation at its most vulnerable.
Production: Self-Inflicted Chaos
Cudi produced the entire album himself and performed all of its bass and guitar parts. He stated it contained no synths or electronic sounds. The result is a lo-fi, raw production aesthetic that either reads as intentional artistic rawness or simply as poor recording depending on your perspective. Pitchfork called it unfiltered, unpolished, and uncomfortable. AllMusic described it as minimal. Metacritic reviewers called it some of the worst production imaginable. A Rate Your Music reviewer confronted the central question directly: if Cudi's definition of chaos is skipping the mixing stages and recording from a cheap iPhone mic, is it chaos or just cheapness and laziness? The production on Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven sounds amateurish not in a deliberate way but in a way that suggests the album was never finished. At 91 minutes across 26 tracks — including 8 bonus demos and outtakes — the album tests patience in ways that no clear artistic purpose justifies.
The Beavis and Butt-Head Problem
The album's tracks are interspersed with four skits featuring Mike Judge voicing Beavis and Butt-Head. An Album of the Year reviewer identified these as godawful, unfunny as hell skits that totally break up the flow and vibe of the album — and crucially, noted they aren't separated from the songs they follow, making several tracks unsuitable as playlist material by proximity alone. The skits represent the album's most baffling creative choice. They are not funny. They do not illuminate the album's themes. They do not provide structural context. They exist as a nostalgic reference to 1990s MTV that the album otherwise invokes through its Nirvana-influenced aesthetic — but unlike the music's emotional rawness, the Beavis and Butt-Head interludes read as arbitrary quirk rather than purposeful design.
Best Songs on Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven
Confused! is the album's most cited highlight across multiple review outlets — a track where the rawness of the production and the emotional directness of the lyrics align in a way the album rarely achieves elsewhere. It was one of only two official singles and benefits from being more focused than most of the surrounding material. Embers is consistently named the album's strongest track by fans who defend the record, with a melody and structure that demonstrate what the album could have been with more editing. The title track builds to a climactic intensity that gives Cudi's vocal performance genuine weight. These three tracks are the album's case for its own existence. They do not fully make it.
Weakest Moments
Wedding Tux was singled out by Pitchfork as having an unengaging refrain that exemplifies the album's incoherence. The Return of Chip Douglas is frequently cited as the album's most embarrassing track. But the deeper problem is the 18-track main album's relentless length — as an Album of the Year reviewer noted, if you clean up this tracklist to only its best 5-10 tracks you have a half-decent project. The core 18 tracks time out at a little over an hour, and that gives Cudi so much room to miss. Add 8 bonus demos and outtakes that should never have been released to the public and the album extends to an endurance test that most listeners cannot complete without frustration.
Final Verdict and Rating
Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven earns a 2/10 rather than lower because Confused!, Embers, and the title track are genuine moments where the artistic intent and the execution briefly align. But Fantano's zero and Pitchfork's failure verdict are not wrong. This is a 91-minute album that needed to be 30, produced with a rawness that sounds like incompleteness rather than intention, featuring Beavis and Butt-Head in place of guests, and arriving in place of the Man on the Moon III that Cudi's fanbase had been waiting for since 2013. Vice compared it to The Room. The Room has genuine fans. So does this album. Neither comparison reflects well on the quality of the art. Final Rating: 2/10.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven really that bad?
Pitchfork gave it 4.0 and called it a failure. Anthony Fantano gave it 0/10. Metacritic: 44. Vice compared it to Tommy Wiseau's The Room. It debuted at number 36 — Cudi's worst chart position. The album's reception was damaging enough that Cudi abandoned Man on the Moon III to make a different album instead. That sequence of facts speaks for itself.
Why did Kid Cudi make a rock album?
In 2024, Cudi credited Brett Morgen's documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck with expanding his mind as an artist and inspiring the album's direction. His admiration for Nirvana and Cobain had long been part of his artistic DNA — Cobain gets a shoutout on the album itself. The project was also a reflection of Cudi's mental health struggles at the time, which he later spoke openly about when he entered a psychiatric facility in 2016.
What is the rating for Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven?
Our rating is 2/10. Confused!, Embers, and the title track earn the two points. The remaining 15+ main album tracks, the 8 bonus demos, the Beavis and Butt-Head skits, and the 91-minute runtime earn the rest.
References and Further Listening
Comments