Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven

In October 2013, Kid Cudi announced that he would be releasing the long-awaited third and final part of his Man on the Moon series in 2015, with an extended play (EP) due to follow as a "prelude" between his third album Indicud (2013) and the album. By January 2014, Cudi had expanded the EP into an album, which he surprise released the following month as Satellite Flight: The Journey to Mother Moon. In January 2015, he hinted at the possibility of releasing another album before Man on the Moon III in an interview with Billboard at the Sundance Film Festival. On April 4, 2015, Cudi announced on Twitter that his next album, titled ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven'', would be "coming really really soon". Later that month, he confirmed the album would not be a surprise release. On April 10, 2015, the American drummer Travis Barker revealed he was in the studio with Kid Cudi and praised his upcoming album. On May 25, 2015, Cudi announced that ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven'' would have no guest features. On July 4, 2015, Cudi reported the album to be "98% finished" and said that its first single would be released by the end of the month. A week after tweeting that he was finalizing the album's tracklisting, Cudi confirmed the album's release date on October 27, 2015. ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven'' was recorded at Chalice, Conway and Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles, and Red Barn Recording Studios in Big Sur. Cudi produced the entire album himself and performed all of its bass and guitar parts; he said that the album contained no "synths or electronic sounds" and that the only other person involved in its production was Plain Pat. and recorded everything using two-inch tape "for a richer and warmer sound quality". ==Music and lyrics==

(pictured); Kid Cudi also credited the documentary film Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015) with inspiring the album.|221x221px ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven'' is a 26-track double album, with its first disc ("Side A") containing the main, 18-track album and the second ("Side B") containing 8 bonus tracks of demos and outtakes. Musically, the album marked a departure from the hip-hop sound of Cudi's previous albums. grunge, punk rock and lo-fi. Cudi employs singing, and crooning In discussing the album, Cavaseno mentioned Cudi's past admiration for the band's frontman Kurt Cobain, Darryl Sterdan of the Toronto Sun also viewed the album as Cudi's "answer to Montage of Heck". Lyrically, ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven explores themes of mental health, Compared to those from his earlier albums, which "focused on escape on terrestrial terms", Ex described its themes as "more internal—the flight is more about Cudi breaking free from his mortal coil than anything around him." He would later call the period surrounding its writing and recording one of his darkest times, more than that of Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager (2010). In 2020, Cudi described the album as a "cry for help", saying that he "was literally screamin out to the world that I was hurting deeply and just wanted so badly to be understood." In the documentary A Man Named Scott'' (2021), Cudi refused to discuss the album or its songs, but said of his state of mind at the time: "I felt like I was living the right way, but I still felt empty inside. People look up to me, but I'm not a happy person. [...] I felt like a fraud, and that's what drove me to the dark side of what I was dealing with." == Songs ==

''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven opens with "Edge of the Earth/Post Mortem Boredom", which Mench describes as a "folksy, mesmerizing tune". "Fade 2 Red" centers around a looping, droning riff and "shout-sing[ing]" vocals from Cudi, whose lyrics Adam Kivel of Consequence'' described as "mashed together with unrhymed lines about dealing with idiots." Cavaseno and Tart respectively compared the song's music to Sebadoh and the Deftones. "Judgemental Cunt" features a "classic stoner stomp" featuring a "warm" and "entrancing" two-chord pattern. Cudi's lyrics describe how he is treated like "rotting meat" by his girlfriend and his memories are being eaten by maggots. Tart compared its "absolutely miserable" vibes to those of Elliott Smith. On the album's title track, Cudi softly sings about manic depression over a "nostalgic" breakbeat, per Ramirez. Mench compared the song and "Insides Out" to Cudi's earlier songs "All Along" and "Mr. Rager". The title track also appears as an acoustic demo at the end of "Side B". Mench described "Embers" as "a fever-dream of quiet existentialism". Kivel compared the "groaning-over-acoustic-guitar" song "The Return of Chip Douglas" to a joke warm-up by Gordon Gano at a Violent Femmes rehearsal. ==Release and promotion==

On May 12, 2015, Cudi posted a low-quality preview of a song via his Twitter account, which he quickly deleted. On August 1, 2015, he released "Confused!" as the lead single from ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven. According to Alex Siber of Complex'', initial reactions to the song on social media were varied, with comments on Twitter and Facebook "suggest[ing] disappointment". On September 29, 2015, he revealed that it would be released as a double album. On October 3, 2015, following delays related to iTunes and his record label, On November 13, 2015, Cudi revealed the track listing to the album's first disc (Side A). Four days later, he unveiled its cover art. Cudi was due to embark on a concert tour of the United States, the Especial Tour, from November 30 to December 22, 2015. Following its first show in Denver, Cudi cancelled the rest of the tour for various reasons, such as production and personal issues. He wrote: "I got a lot I'm dealing with at this time in my personal life too and in order for the shows to be the best experience possible as well as keeping my sanity intact, I need to regroup. I have to." To make up for postponing the concert tour, Cudi released the album's title track as the second single the following day. On January 5, 2016, he released an acoustic version of "Confused!". The Especial Tour dates were later rescheduled to January 31 to March 12, 2016. ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven'' was first released through digital music platforms on December 4, 2015, with its physical release arriving on December 18. It was Kid Cudi's first album to not chart within the top 10, Mench said it was the "first true flop of his career". The album was reissued on cassette in 2016, and on vinyl in 2025. ==Critical reception==

Publications described the critical consensus of ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven'' as mixed, negative, or polarizing. On the review aggregator website Metacritic, the album holds a score of 44 out of 100, based on reviews from five critics, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". Vices Adam Downer considered ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven'' to be a work of "so bad it's good" art, comparing it to Tommy Wiseau's 2003 film The Room. In a review for Complex, Mench thought it was messier and more challenging than Cudi's previous work but felt it had "admirably unique" qualities. Kanye West, ASAP Rocky later named it his favorite Kid Cudi album. In 2019, Cyclone Wehrer of The Music called the album "underrated". In a 2022 listicle covering "Hip-Hop Albums That Didn't Live Up to the Hype", XXL wrote that most of the album's songs lacked "enough oomph to make them remarkable" and remarked that although "Day-one Cudi fans would argue that his project wasn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be", fans that "[knew] the full extent of his artistic talent […] would say otherwise." In 2024, Mosi Reeves of Rolling Stone dismissed the album as "bland, Afropunk-baiting alt-rock". == Aftermath ==

In an April 2016 interview with Billboard, Cudi said that he would no longer be releasing Man on the Moon III after ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven. which Uproxx described as a "musical mea culpa" for Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven. Cudi later revealed that the album was intended to be Man on the Moon III'' but wanted to "be in a better place" when he ultimately released the final installment of his trilogy, which arrived in 2020. In 2022, "Confused!" and "Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven" were included in Cudi's first greatest hits compilation, The Boy Who Flew to the Moon, Vol. 1. Cudi's 2025 single "Neverland" was described by HipHopDX and Uproxx as recalling ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven''; the former considered it to be one of his "most experimental songs" since the album. ==Track listing==

All songs are written by Scott Mescudi; all songs are produced by Mescudi, except where noted. Notes • All Beavis and Butt-Head interludes written by Scott Mescudi and Mike Judge. • "Confused!", "Amen", "Wait!" and "Melting" are stylized in all caps. == Personnel ==

Credits for ''Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven'' adapted from liner notes. • Scott Mescudi – vocals, guitars, bass, production, executive producer, art direction, creative art • Oladipo Omishore – bass (B4) • Mike Moore – live drums (A2, A3, A5, A8, A11, A12, A14, B1, B4) Production • Patrick Reynolds – production (A6, A8, A14, A17) • Dennis Cummings – executive producer • Iain Findlay – engineer (A3–5, A9, A15, A18, B3–6), mixing (A18, B3, B4, B8) • Anthony Kilhoffer – engineer (A1, A2, A6–8, A10–14, A16, A17, B1, B2, B7, B8) mixing (A1–17, B1, B2, B5–7) • Gavin Lurssen – mastering Studios • Chalice Recording Studios – recording (A3, A5, A9, A15, A18, B4, B5, B7), mixing (A2, A5, A6, A8, A10, B7) • Conway Recording Studios – recording (A1, A2, A10, A13), mixing (A1, A3) • Henson Recording Studios – recording (A4, A8, A11, A12, A14, A16, A17, B1–3, B6, B8), mixing (A4, A7, A9, A11–18, B1–6, B8) • Red Barn Recording Studios – recording (A1, A2, A6, A10) Artwork • Sandy Brummels – creative art • Vada Mescudi – City Heart sculpture, Daddy portrait • Kyledidthis – art direction ==Charts==