audio review : Pink Friday [ Roman Reloaded ] ( album ) … Nicki Minaj

Pink Friday [ Roman Reloaded ] ( album ) ... Nicki Minaj

The vapid Matrix-esque title is a clue. Nicki Minaj, it seems, as unique as she may be in the wacky style and personality she projects to the pop world, is no more of a music artist than her average fan. If you randomly put one of them in a high-end studio with established beat-makers and a hefty budget, I bet they would shoot-out, or perhaps shit-out, an album that’s no worse, if not better, than this Pink Friday sequel.

She’s an okay rapper. Her lyrics aren’t special, but I can at least dig her regular rapping voice. That’s “regular” as in when she’s not caricaturing it with goofy inflections. Her talent is minimal though, so even when she sings whole songs, verses and all, over thumping house beats that could’ve been made for Rihanna or Lady Gaga, as is the case for much of this album, the quality of her music is never better than average.

I don’t mind bubble gum pop music, but I demand from it what I demand from music of any other genre. That quality is missing here. Worse is that these songs, some of which are already bad in the first place, are presented without any conceptual order. It starts as a rap album but soon transforms into the aforementioned croonfest. Without any balance or separation lines, the switch is jarring and anticlimactic.

Her singer fans and her rapper fans get only about a half album each. Maybe that’s a good thing because there isn’t really a good song on either set. Roman Holiday, despite its outlandish vocals, does have a tolerable stage-ready chorus, but Come On A Cone sounds like an impromptu; something you’d record for fun but wouldn’t dare put on your album; and Hov Lane is one of the worst songs I ever heard.

The singing songs, which sound not just like one another but generic prototypes for the genre, do better. They, unlike Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne going “ba-bang-bang” on the title track, at least have flat little melodies to latch on to; no worse than Rihanna and Lady Gaga to my ears. They belong on a different album though; one that’s not supposed to be a sequel to an album that wasn’t about songs like these.

my rating : 2 of 5

2012

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