Nicki Minaj - The Pink Print (2014)

and that arguing that nicki's objective is subverting power dynamics in a song where she is repeatedly stating that she's "on some dumb shit" is... well, maybe not disingenuous but at the least indicative of a very selective way of appreciating the work?

i mean bully to you for getting something positive out of tanaconda lex but this sounds DOA to me and it's primarily cause nicki's verses are not so good, the production is outstandingly lazy and the various young money tics throughout are maddening
it's not so much that you're wrong so much as why bother in support of something this pedestrian

plus i would add don't forget fart remix subverts the subversion of the subverting subversiveness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv--npievoI

yeah, was really hoping that wouldn't show up here

Whatever your opinion of this tune this song does actually. seem to be a success. Why is that? Is it just the video or does the actual song have anything to do with it?

perfect storm: nicki, deathless sir mix track, catchy enough, papiconda, nicki's butt, teens, etc.

it's the video

or that

actually "nicki's butt" is a more complete analysis since the song popped off the itunes downloads which in turn popped because of the single cover

the song is pretty weak, imo, those who say it's a build-up to nothing are otm, it doesn't actually go anywhere

also i think she's saying "i'm not some dumb shit" rather than "i'm on some dumb shit"

song sounded like a hit the first time i heard it over dodgy wifi in a remote town square in romania. it's a bit of a mess structurally but since when has that mattered

forks' argument basically = "i don't like this so why are you analysing it" - i'm not usually one to really conflate success with importance but i think in the current pop climate it's certainly pushing back against a few things in a healthy way, and the fact that men are wanking over it doesn't really change that

wtf of course she's saying "i'm on some dumb shit"

yep my mistake

I like this song more every time I hear it but I like ice-t's "the girl tried to kill me" and other dumb shit like that

in the current pop climate it's certainly pushing back against a few things in a healthy way, and the fact that men are wanking over it doesn't really change that

new board description

this song is really bad

the first out-of-context thing that popped into my head after reading that sentence was "bronies in a nutshell"

it's not really good but it's not really bad either. lots of it really, really works. it's the kind of thing that only improves with ubiquity, too - an embarrassment if it flops, the kind of thing you cave to when you hear it in the wild a lot. a bit like "starships" in that regard!

okay I'm finally listening to this and this is some lazy mid-90s-Puffy-throwback shit

the video and the pre-release hype from the single cover both contributed to its success. it started climbing rhythmic and urban radio charts rather quickly basically from the get-go, so it's not *just* the video making this song a success.

i'm generally skeezed out by overt sexuality/pornographic imagery in music (obviously this is my problem, not the artist's) & i can't really comment on whether this song is actually profound or subversive, but i like nicki's rapping on it

xp think it's also the sir mix-a-lot sample. i mean fuckin EVERYBODY knows this tune. my uncle got married at age 50-something and his bride danced to that tune

and my white brother-in-law who went to dartmouth knew every single word

i for one love how she flips from "oh my god, look at her butt" to "stop looking at my ass"

nothing about this song or video says "stop looking at my ass" at all. jesus this is some next level apologetics even for you lex

Personally, I prefered this's songs use of a "Baby Got Back" sample from earlier this year.

I like it, but I was kind of bummed when I heard it that it's just that tiny sample over and over and over and over. I was hoping for something a little more, idk, imaginative. Maybe that's the wrong word but anyway it was kind of boring

If anything the song could do with being filthier + more banging + less obviously cobbled together in 10mins.

nothing about this song or video says "stop looking at my ass" at all

I dunno, after a couple of minutes I got a bit bored and wanted to go and do something else.

I dunno, after a couple of minutes I got a bit bored and wanted to go and do something else.

So it's like aversion therapy?

forks' argument basically = "i don't like this so why are you analysing it"

i'm sure lex will be beyond delighted that he's being held accountable for my choice of words!

the hot 100 points are mostly because of the video

Following the release of its video on Aug. 19, "Anaconda" makes a 42-1 lunge on Streaming Songs with a 1,287 percent surge to 32.1 million streams; 95 percent of its total is from Vevo on YouTube. The overall sum is the highest since Miley Cyrus' "Wrecking Ball" drew 36.4 million streams (Sept. 28, 2013) following the first full week after its video premiered. The greatest streaming total since the chart launched on March 2, 2013, and the only other song (in addition to "Wrecking Ball") to tally more weekly streams than "Anaconda": Baauer's "Shake" peaked with 103 million (powered heavily by user-generated clips featuring the song's audio) the week that the survey debuted.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6229439/taylor-swift-shake-it-off-no-1-hot-100-nicki-minaj-anaconda

like it probably would have been top 10, but definitely not ahead of the other song about butts in the top 5, without the video

A song has to have a popular video to go #1 these days, right?

Meanwhile in Canada, it only got as high as 20 while "All About That Bass" took the number 2 spot.

How do the Canadian charts incorporate YouTube views?

it doesn't have to have a popular video necessarily, but being on youtube/vevo definitely helps, as they are the #1 streaming-music source in the us

crut, i wasn't holding lex responsible for your words, but without putting your our anybody else's words in his mouth, I'm gathering he thinks there's something redemptive/meaningful going on with this track... and i've heard the same from a few other cultural critics but not had it explained, sans video, in a way that i follow

this song is not interesting or fun or charming and if it's feminist, it's only in a negative sense of "flipping" tropes and doesn't model any kind of appealing view of gender dynamics. "fuck the skinny bitches in the club", seriously?

i realize a lot of rap is offensive, and i don't want to hold nicki to a higher standard than her male peers, but it's confusing when this sort of thing is held up as progressive. if the song was good, i'd probably still be into it as a piece of pop music, but it sounds like a mixtape track and the sample is the most boring, played to death early rap song of all time.

xp obviously it's true that the video contributes the vast majority of the song's hot 100 points for this week, which will almost undoubtedly be its chart peak, but it also started gaining very quickly on radio very quickly compared to other nicki songs (especially "pills n potions" which despite doing okay in the long run was not exactly rapturously received and had to climb playlists pretty damn slowly). same goes for its sales too. the general radio-listening public likes this song regardless of its video. if one is to accept that video streaming is the only or even largest determinant of this song's success based on the proportion of points during its chart peak, we'd have to also accept that "drunk in love" was only or mainly successful due to its video (it also peaked at #2 for one week, driven disproportionately by video streaming following the grammys compared to its strong-but-not-huge sales that week).

i'm of two minds when it comes to the influence of youtube streams on hot 100 placing. on one hand, video has always been a big influence on radio since the dawn of mtv (i.e. would "november rain" have gone Top 10 without the clip existing?), so why shouldn't we be representing that influence directly on the charts before its felt on radio? on the other hand, sometimes it's not even a video but a parody or some dickweed singing bon jovi at a celtics game that gets a song bumped up 78 notches.

also where mtv was ignored by billboard because of the monopolistic control over rotation, youtube is at least in the hands of the people. imo i'd just like to see more effort to acknowledge the difference between "kanye fucks kim kardashian on a motorcycle to his new song, gets on top 40" and "content lackey dances for her resignation letter to old kanye song, gets on top 40"

yeah it's been a mixed bag. a song made the top 10 one week recently then fell completely off the charts the next week, all because it was featured in the background of a viral fashion ad featuring 'strangers' (who were actually actors) kissing. billboard might have to reweigh chart components at some point -- which they do reasonably often, to their credit.

oh yeah the soko thing was hilarious

blurred lines was a case where the song shot to the top thanks to vevo but stayed there thanks to radio

drunk in love didn't really set pop radio on fire

wrote a v long post last night in response to lex but literally fell asleep while editing it (i was in bed, on benadryl) and when i woke up i didn't think much of the parts about nancy sinatra and the queen of the night so i've cut those and just left in the parts that agree w treeship's queasiness (tho not w his or forks' aesthetic assessment of the song):

don't rly mind the song, think rev has been m/l otm throughout re the merits of its various parts, also understand the concept of owning yr sexuality thx, just think being satisfied (over and over again) by the merest presence of "power" as if every single expression of female semi-agency attained thru its capital-approved acquisition were what we've all been waiting for is -- not crazy or inherently unfeminist but p much exactly where pepsicola wants you to be satisfied. (btw, girl still has trouble getting through a self-affirmation without going scorched-earth on some subset of other women, almost as if capitalist "liberation" is a zerosum game.) unconfused by people liking the song (tho much of that is testament imo to the deathlessness of baby got back) but think the thrilled attribution of subversive political significance to it is some unnecessary self-kidding. it goes down the machine's gullet exactly as easily as everything else does, it doesn't trouble or confuse or muddy the certainties of the fappers for even a second, and the terms on which it allows nicki power are exactly the same terms on which women have always been allowed power: make money for us, keep a lil for yrself, and go ahead and tease the boys some while they look at you. (just make sure they look, or you will be powerless again faster than you can say problematize.) i agree w molly lambert that making a voiced commodity of yr own black body is preferable to making a voiceless one of other people's (and it's not her fault or nicki's that this is the bar) but when she calls a guy getting a lapdance a sexual object that is the sound of tumblr getting carried away w the bliss of convincing itself everything it likes is radical.

embarassed by the length and po-faced marxist-boy explanatory detail of that but my last post itt was glib and cryptic.

^ great post

xp (fortunately) "drunk in love" was massive on both rhythmic & urban radio -- #1 for several weeks on both formats -- which, combined with getting to #13 on pop, brought the song to #6 in overall airplay. so it's not like radio was a non-factor; it was a significant factor along w/ sales and especially streaming. but sadly pop radio is basically done w/ bey nowadays. :(

Thank u difficult listening hour that was great

when she calls a guy getting a lapdance a sexual object that is the sound of tumblr getting carried away w the bliss of convincing itself everything it likes is radical.

^this great nation is teeming with doofus sweatpants boner sex objects if this is true