Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is my symbolic (there I go again) 11th-best album of the year. This means two things: first, that I never fell in love with it, which is to say that it's great whenever I listen to it but I never particularly have the desire specifically to hear it, and second, that any album must be at least as good as Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded to be eligible for my "top ten." This is no small feat.
Judging from the contents of my dashboard throughout the year, I don't need to convince any of you how great Nicki Minaj is, though it is worth noting that one thing I particularly love (that I believe some of you have noted) is that Nicki Minaj is SUCH A THEATER KID. Like, as some of you know, I have an extended defense of Born This Way in me, but at the same time I don't know why anyone gives Lady Gaga the time of day when Nicki Minaj exists. (That's a rhetorical question. I know exactly why that is.)
Since I'm in taxonomical/hierarchical year-end mode, though, I'll include the review from 3lc3lc3lc (aka @moneyworth):
HI HERE’S THE PART WHERE I RAISE MY VOICE A LIL BIT. So I guess everyone wants to act like because there are (gasp!) Pop Songs and (gasp!) Ballads and (the horror!) EDM Elements on “Roman Reloaded,” it somehow diminishes the fact that Nicki is rapping as well, if not better (I’d argue better) than she ever has, ‘07-‘09 Mixtape Nicki included. I’m sorry, but the fact that Nicki is not generally considered one of the best rappers alive right now honestly strikes me as some unavoidable combination of sexist and racist. And to be honest with you—not that this requires any sort of caveat (*waggles metaphysical dick in Pete Rosenberg’s face*)—at this point, I’ve listened to the second “non-rap” (pffffff) half of the album more than the first. Because, you uptight, rappity-rap purists, “Whip It,” “Pound the Alarm” and “Starships” are fucking awesome radio songs that just so happen to have some pretty amazing raps on them too. And if you want to act like “Stupid Hoe” and “Come On A Cone” aren’t straight ETHER sent from the future in a sparkly pink dildo-shaped time capsule, that’s cool, I hope that BAPE camo-print backpack doesn’t make it too hard to thumb your own butthole. And THEN we have “The Re-up,” which was of course unanimously critically ignored, which is tragic because every single new song on there is incredible; “I Endorse These Strippers” is like “Beez In The Trap”s encore, “Up In Flames” is haughty-Nicki-surveying-her-empire at its best, and “The Boys,” a stellar weirdo-pop song as is, low-key has two of the verses of the year. Funny thing is, if “Reloaded” had originally been released with the “Re-up” tracks instead of the original second half, I’m pretty sure it would’ve been wildly critically acclaimed. Fuck it, let em hate; meanwhile Nicki’s in Saint Tropez getting her feet massaged by twin strippers, drinking pina coladas and laughing at you.
(The "everyone" she addresses is really "everyone who is involved in the 'mainstream' critical conversation about rap," of course. And that is a whole other conversation or twenty.)
