Behind The Beat: Kid Cudi Samples MGMT for “Immortal”

By DP on Mar. 7, 2013 in Features | 118 Comments

Last week Kid Cudi released his new single, Immortal from his upcoming album INDICUD and once again the song was produced by him. This marks the 3rd song Cudi has released that has been produced by him for the new album and that looks to be the case for the majority of the music we have yet to hear. Speaking to Billboard in a new interview, Cudi tells them how he came into producing the songs.

Working on this album made me realize that I just have a knack for creating music. It’s a gift. “Indicud” is almost what my first album should have sounded like, had I really been able to channel all of the ideas I had into music. That’s the beauty of this album. The ideas are coming straight from me and me only. It’s exactly what I want to the T. I went out of my way to make “Immortal” sound perfect. “Immortal,” “Just What I Am,” and “King Wizard,” those are perfect beats. Not a lot of people can perform on them. I say that meaning they’re tailor-made for me. That’s the cool shit.

After releasing Immortal last week Cudi explained how the beat came together (he reversed an MGMT song) so we’re going to take a look at the original instrumental, the instrumental reversed and the final song that is Immortal. Hit the gallery to hear all three.

The Beat

As Cudi explained it, the base of the Immortal beat comes from him reversing the instrumental to MGMT’s “Congratulations”. This isn’t the first time he’s done this as last year he released “Dennis, hook me up with some more of this whiskey!” which consisted of the beat to Ghost! reversed and produced over.

Ok, so heres what I did.I took one of my favorite bands MGMT’s song “Congratulations”, put it in reverse, sped it up, and produced over it

— Scott Mescudi (@ducidni) March 1, 2013

ok so what I did was, I took Ghost, reversed it, added new drums and guitar.

— Scott Mescudi (@ducidni) April 26, 2012

Congratulations Instrumental

Before we dive into the reversed version of the song, have a listen to the instrumental of MGMT’s “Congratulations”.

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Congratulations Instrumental Reversed

This served as the base to Kid Cudi’s new single, take a listen to “Congratulations” and see if you can spot the reversed beat as it appears through out “Immortal”. Keep in mind, Cudi did say he sped up the instrumental and of course produced over it.

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Immortal

And finally, the version of “Immortal” that Kid Cudi released last week. What do you think of his sample flip? Do the similarities stand out now that you’ve had a chance to listen to the various versions?

For comparisons sake, here is the reversed instrumental one more time:

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