Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded

We're probably still a couple of years away from judging the objective value of songs by their Youtube likes/dislike ratio, but for discussing the new Nicki Minaj album Pink Friday 2: Roman Reloaded, let's pretend we've reached that point. This is the lead single from the album. 43 million views is about right for someone of her reputation and stature, but unusually, the video generates over double the amount of 'dislikes' as 'likes'. You can see why the video and song might irritate people, but, come on, is it really that much more 'dislikeable' than 'Sorry for Party Rocking'?

Maybe it's just too much contrived wackiness for some people; maybe what the people wanted was the hard rapping version of Minaj. The second single gives them what they want, but still generates a huge amount of 'dislikes'. She's all over the radio - listen to commercial radio and you'd think it was in their remit to have her as a guest rapper on every song they play - and her profile is huge, but her own solo career seems to still be scattershot and precarious.

Rappers, including Minaj herself, often address 'haters' and those who supposedly disrespect what they are doing. Her new album basically represents the opposite of this sentiment; 'really sorry haters, I know you find this particular song annoying but I promise in a couple of tracks time there'll be something right up your street.' For someone of Minaj's supposed individuality it's incredibly jarring to have so many popular tastes indulged on one album, and it's not remotely subtle that she's trying to cater to as many people as possible. It's shown clearly even by the singles, and if she started badly with the supposed risky choices of 'Stupid Hoe' and 'Beez in the Trap', she'll clearly recoup her losses with the outrageously bland 'Starships'.

It's clearly a solution to the problem of Nicki Minaj's divisiveness, which might be all nice and fun for a Grammy performance or a 30 second guest verse, but doesn't necessarily make for money in the bank. Whose solution it is exactly is ambiguous - is it Nicki herself trying to spread herself out as much as possible to make the most of her time in the spotlight, or is it her record company afraid to take a risk with someone whose main talent doesn't necessarily equate to consistent sales? It's the most interesting issue raised by this album and there are all kinds of questions about how much sway a 'strong' female figure has in the rap world and how much she can follow her own muse. It is an unquestionably poor album when listened to as a whole, compromising a lot of the credibility Minaj might have had, and it's easy to believe that, just like her debut Pink Friday, it's the result of her being pulled in all manner of different directions to get as much out of her as possible.

The 'hard-rapping' and surreal Minaj is cordoned-off in the first half of the record, presumably for ease-of-deletion for the David Guetta/Miley Cyrus fans who bought the record for the eurodance and the ballads. It contains the album's most redeeming moments. 'Beez in the Trap' is a good example of Minaj seemingly taking risks with her beat-choice, which amounts to in this case to a Neptunes-esque reverbed metronome. 'I Am Your Leader' sees Minaj with Cam'ron and Rick Ross over another spacey beat. As well as these big names, we've also got the obvious collaborators - Drake, Lil Wayne - and, more surprisingly, Nas. Right up until around track 8 or 9 depending on how lax you are, you've got a decent-enough rap album. It's definitely no better than average up to this point, but one of the main things it retains is the illusion that Minaj has stuck to her guns and produced a record that best suits her abilities.

So the best idea at this point would be to turn off the record altogether, because that illusion is utterly shattered, and the first 8 tracks come to look like a cruel trick. There is simply nothing of value in any of these tracks, and they're only worth discussing in terms of how they suggest Minaj has compromised or been compromised in order to appeal to a mass-audience. Two David Guetta copies in a row appear to signal that this is happening. The Eurodance continues to make fleeting appearances, amongst a lot of nothingy ballads and some bargain basement R&B with Chris Brown. You should never listen to this part of the album, although you certainly will have to because this is undoubtedly the source of her next six or seven singles. Two songs on the album - 'Roman Holiday' and 'Stupid Hoe' are annoying if you're in the wrong mood, but at least they're Nicki Minaj songs and have definite entertainment value. The problem with the second half album is that they're not Nicki Minaj songs - they're songs that could be anyone at all featuring Nicki Minaj doing short guest rap verses.

When Minaj says she is the 'female Weezy' on the latter track, she's definitely wrong in one sense and possibly right in another. She's wrong because Lil Wayne would never have to release an album like this, with all the songs that represent him pushed into one small corner whilst the big, bland hits take precedence. At the moment he is releasing music every bit as bad as most of this album, but it still sounds like his music. Drake is another good example of an unusual artist that is allowed to follow his muse, and his is at least not leading him down a dark alley. The only sense that Minaj might be right is by qualifying herself as the female version of Lil Wayne. She's wacky and surreal like him, but she also has to be a Rihanna to sing dirty R&B songs, she needs to be an anonymous vocalist for Guetta-style crap. Maybe it's nothing to do with gender and expectations. Maybe Minaj is just savvy enough that she can be all these things and make as much money as possible. But if that's the right choice to make in terms of maximising profit, it certainly is the wrong option in terms of making a listenable album, and this record, particularly the second half, contains very little to recommend it.