i guess wanting an imperial album from a popstar is a super dated pursuit anyway tho, there'll be 4 hits off it and the rest is random stuff for random people who don't put their hands in their pocket. job done in industry terms
it's kind of like two EPs, one for people who like nicki when she's good and the other for people who like nicki when she's basic, with some half-assed r&b that surely no one actually goes to nicki for shoved in the middle, and then "gun shot" and "stupid hoe" tacked on to the end because you may as well if you're releasing that many songs.
i'm surprised no one's done it before really
― lex pretend, Thursday, 29 March 2012 13:25 (twelve years ago) link
oh my god i didn't see what was up with that picture for at least 15 seconds!
i don't think nicki has the wiring to make an 'event album' even on the functional level of rihanna or katy perry, let alone drake or any other rapper at her level of popularity. i barely can picture her listening to music, like, rapping and singing were things she just heard enough to pick up for herself and then ran with it. her records will forever be this sour squirrely cocktail of talent and second-guessing and dumb zany abandon.
― some dude, Thursday, 29 March 2012 13:34 (twelve years ago) link
doubtful to the extent rihanna & kp are wired for that sort of thing at all let alone to the extent it might be faulty like nicki's
feel p sure she has a fair grounding as a rap listener of the 90s ny variety, maybe not a student of the game like naming her top 5 boot camp klik but enough to ref biggie/busta/beanuts in non-obv ways. don't think any execs are begging her to put cam and nas on either
i also think she has a pride in her rapping that is not purely outta stage school, i reckon she will determinedly battle anyone if anyone actually were to do that sort of thing anymore
― r|t|c, Thursday, 29 March 2012 13:55 (twelve years ago) link
but i agree she probably doesnt tend to look at things in big picture terms yeah. altho it's not like there's any real reward in the music biz for it even if she did
― r|t|c, Thursday, 29 March 2012 13:59 (twelve years ago) link
yeah you're totally right and i was pushing too far in the opposite direction -- but i feel like there's some kind of weird "just put on a crazy wig and rap" blankness to what she does that is all the more offputting because she's not in the fembot puppet mold. obviously katy and rihanna get a lot of help in putting together tight little singles collections but the way they try to be everything to everyone isn't nearly as inherently scattershot as nicki's.
when i listen to "roman reloaded" (the song) all i can think about it is how little she actually rhymes sometimes (like seriously every line either ends with the same word or words that don't rhyme in the slightest) but nobody even seems to notice because her delivery throws you so far off the scent of the lazy/sloppy rapper archetype. it always drove me nuts that imo the catchiest four bars of her "monster" verse don't contain a single rhyme (rookie/pay/album out/climb it).
― some dude, Thursday, 29 March 2012 14:02 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i don't feel like i am being misled in those moments tho, i think it's calibrated for attention rather than sloppy - blame weezy for how it's evolved
'roman reloaded' isn't great anyhow but still i tend to hear it as uninspired rather than sloppy per se
not to hop in the trenches but re the 'monster' verse she is switching to conversational barbie character tbf (and she does rhyme climb it with climate next line)
― r|t|c, Thursday, 29 March 2012 14:19 (twelve years ago) link
also would you not say she's more "inherently scattershot" cos she has to inherently be more everything to more everyone than rih and kp ever do?
― r|t|c, Thursday, 29 March 2012 14:22 (twelve years ago) link
'gun shot' has melted my heart good and proper now
― r|t|c, Thursday, 29 March 2012 14:30 (twelve years ago) link
i dunno. rihanna is doing the reggae and the country adult contempo and the EDM and the swag R&B all back to back and it's still somehow not as flailing and rudderless as nicki just figuring out how many bars to sing and how many to rap in a given song.
i know i know climb it/climate but the way she finally stumbles on a rhyme with the 4th and 5th bars just makes me even more irritated about those 4 bars
― some dude, Thursday, 29 March 2012 14:33 (twelve years ago) link
tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 19... the rest doesnt even exist afaic
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, 29 March 2012 14:35 (twelve years ago) link
yup "gun shot" is on loop. this is partly the weather obv but it's just melting me.
of the basic dance crap, if "pound the alarm" is made a single and becomes ubiquitous, i'll probably cave
― lex pretend, Thursday, 29 March 2012 14:46 (twelve years ago) link
idk whether you'd characterise rihanna's last two albums as particularly coherent (loud especially just seemed like bits of whatever thrown together) but i'll take flailing rudderless roman reloaded over either, just for the highs nicki provides (and if she's not gonna give us an event album, the obviousness with which she's aiming at different demographics at least make the bits you don't like completely ignorable. i'm kind of glad she's aiming for those things over a bloated 19-track album rather than in the same song)
― lex pretend, Thursday, 29 March 2012 14:50 (twelve years ago) link
"Young Forever" and "Marilyn Monroe" are terrible.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 29 March 2012 20:53 (twelve years ago) link
on the other hand she can come on my cone like whenever
16. Young Forever (Produced by Dr. Luke) 3:07
^^haha for a minute i was all sweet luke skywalker is producing nicki but then i googled and i guess it's some dumb guy from the SNL band that produces pop music now
― the penultimate prophets (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 29 March 2012 21:43 (twelve years ago) link
i guess you could call him that, yeah
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 29 March 2012 21:44 (twelve years ago) link
I googled this Obama guy and he's some dumb senator for Illinois who's running the executive branch now
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, 29 March 2012 21:47 (twelve years ago) link
Remember when you went to the ER last week for hummus injuries? Our taxes paid for it.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 29 March 2012 21:51 (twelve years ago) link
This album is one Mutt Lange collab away from being his year's Born This Way.
― Look at how funky he is! (jer.fairall), Friday, 30 March 2012 03:15 (twelve years ago) link
probably will have a similar overall arc, yeah
― some dude, Friday, 30 March 2012 03:39 (twelve years ago) link
"gun shot" on loop
― lex pretend, Friday, 30 March 2012 09:43 (twelve years ago) link
right there wit ya
― r|t|c, Friday, 30 March 2012 09:58 (twelve years ago) link
MAKE THE GYAL DEM KNOOOOOOW
― lex pretend, Friday, 30 March 2012 10:04 (twelve years ago) link
it is so brilliantly constructed tho. like i know i said "becomes a duet" upthread but that doesn't quite do it justice the way it builds with nicki and beenie each having two completely separate scenes to themselves apart from one another (their own different choruses even!), bound by the beat's heart-fluttering hushed twinkling, and how it just ERUPTS with them finally coming together and almost just shouting the chorus at each other with the gunshots BOOM, BOOM, BOOM every line
― r|t|c, Friday, 30 March 2012 10:18 (twelve years ago) link
of course the only kane beatz production on the album - pushing those 'super bass' emotional buttons again
can't believe i had to spend an afternoon defending him from j0rdan's bizarro abuse that time
― r|t|c, Friday, 30 March 2012 10:30 (twelve years ago) link
i didn't realise kane beatz also did "good fucking night"
there's a bonus track, "va va voom", which is okay in a kind of "consciously going for the super bass feel again" way, but rtc otm in that "gun shot" is the one that actually gets there
― lex pretend, Friday, 30 March 2012 10:47 (twelve years ago) link
this is really corny but will probably sound good on the radio
― lag∞n affiliated (The Reverend), Tuesday, February 14, 2012 10:37 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i was v wrong about this btw
― if you feeling frogbs, leap (The Reverend), Friday, 30 March 2012 11:52 (twelve years ago) link
haha
i like the obnoxious "higher than a motherfucker" section of the song but it's not really enough to redeem the rest of it for me
― some dude, Friday, 30 March 2012 13:04 (twelve years ago) link
bound by the beat's heart-fluttering hushed twinkling
those oo-oo-oo-oo-oos are killing me
― lex pretend, Friday, 30 March 2012 13:54 (twelve years ago) link
this isn't going to be a single is it :(
― lex pretend, Friday, 30 March 2012 13:55 (twelve years ago) link
man, does ross sound totally lost on "i am your leader"
― J0rdan S., Friday, 30 March 2012 16:19 (twelve years ago) link
cam is amazing on that tho
― J0rdan S., Friday, 30 March 2012 16:20 (twelve years ago) link
this shit reminds me of like a ludacris album or something, tho i guess it's a bit more pop. also nicki doesn't have a 'back for the first time' under her belt.
i wonder how the push/pull b/w "best selling female rapper of all time! and "but she's never made a great album!" will play out. feel like maybe she'll drop a straight rap mixtape to shut everyone up.
― J0rdan S., Friday, 30 March 2012 16:21 (twelve years ago) link
lol @ your first comments on this album being about...rick ross and cam'ron, not nicki minaj
― lex pretend, Friday, 30 March 2012 16:21 (twelve years ago) link
luda albums seems like a pretty accurate point of comparison
― Eisbaerg Slim (some dude), Friday, 30 March 2012 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
i don't know. i mean i don't have much to say that hasn't been said already. everything up until "champion" is hype as fuck and after that it's all TUPAC PLEASE TALK TO THIS SUCKER CUZ THEY'RE RUINING HIP HOP shit
― J0rdan S., Friday, 30 March 2012 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
the first 17 seconds of "beautiful sinner" are incredible, shame about the rest really... but that's probably the best one out of that whole stretch of songs.
― Peace (peaceful) (The Brainwasher), Friday, 30 March 2012 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
nicki may well outsell missy, lauryn, kim, etc. within a few years but that def hasn't happened yet
― Eisbaerg Slim (some dude), Friday, 30 March 2012 16:26 (twelve years ago) link
some of the pop stuff on here is so bad that it actually makes me appreciate "starships" (which listening to it more is basically an amalgamation of "california gurls" and "til the world ends")
― J0rdan S., Friday, 30 March 2012 16:30 (twelve years ago) link
nicki accidentally emailed "whip it" to birdman instead of the creative director for the mario kart wii sequel, right?
― J0rdan S., Friday, 30 March 2012 16:37 (twelve years ago) link
also kinda disappointed that "hov lane" doesn't turn into the throwback 99 cash money track that it threatens to be in the first three seconds
― J0rdan S., Friday, 30 March 2012 16:57 (twelve years ago) link
also this is sorta nitpicking cuz i do think the rap tracks at the beginning (save "champion" are great) but this reminds me of the ross tape from this year where it feels like the person is really at the top of their game and in a perfect and very singular place with their sound and then they throw half the verses at guest rappers.
i mean, i like ross & cam on "i am your leader" but i need three verse from nicki on that
― J0rdan S., Friday, 30 March 2012 17:07 (twelve years ago) link
i realise how nerdy "alternative track listings" are but this album begs for it
roman in moscowroman holidaycome on a conei am your leaderbeez in the trapstupid hoehov lanepound the alarmva va voomroman reloadedchampiongun shots
THERE, 12 TRACKS, THAT IS ALBUM LENGTH AND WOULD HAVE BEEN SO AMAZING
― lex pretend, Friday, 30 March 2012 17:18 (twelve years ago) link
"whip it" and "automatic" are my two favorites of the pop stuff, i guess
― J0rdan S., Friday, 30 March 2012 17:21 (twelve years ago) link
"Come on a Cone" is fabulous. I've been playing for the kids all morning.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 March 2012 17:22 (twelve years ago) link
i love the finality with which she sings "SUCK A BIG DICK" on the "i am your leader" hook
― lex pretend, Friday, 30 March 2012 17:26 (twelve years ago) link
six people in my office turned around when she sang that hook
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 March 2012 17:29 (twelve years ago) link
then the associate dean of the journalism walked in and said, "Hey guys! What's goin' on?" and I said we were discussing the newly leaked Minaj album.
"Do you think she's talented?" His lips curled as if to suggest the answer was obvious to anyone with a molecule.
"I love her flow and jokes," one of the students said.
"It's not because she's 'controversial' [SCARE QUOTES]? I dunno. It's a dead genre. It needs a new wave."
I said, "Do you want new wave or do you want the truth?" He didn't get the remark and changed the subject.
― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 30 March 2012 17:35 (twelve years ago) link
Kill that dude IMO.
I trust Lex on this so I am going to only obtain the tracks he lists above and order them accordingly.
― Tim F, Friday, 30 March 2012 22:32 (twelve years ago) link