Nicki Minaj - The Pink Print (2014)

Honestly the whole in-your-face sexuality element of modern feminism is problematic/doesn't make 100% sense to me given the other stuff they complain about (I mean it makes sense mind, but more on an abstract level imo) and that's part of why I can't view all these popstars latching on to that part seriously, #1 it's a little too convenient and #2 you're not original, Xtina-era Aguilera already made all your same not-very-good arguments

maybe "Anaconda" video or otherwise is a little diff. but don't honestly care

those feminists with their complaining

yeah that was what I mean

smh at some of the reflexive response types here

Here's a shovel. Keep digging

i feel like the critical butt theory that has flourished in the '10s prob has more to do with race than gender

Having grown up with 90s mtv I'm not surprised music videos use sexual content to gain attention (still, hadn't seen the honey-booty thing before) but that doesn't make it an irrelevant issue, same goes for sexism in rap lyrics. Maybe the booty theme can be empowering/liberating but as has been noticed this J-Lo/Iggy song doesn't seem to be doing that. I don't think Nicki is either, but I respect that a lot of people disagree with me.

It shouldn't be necessary, but I'll add the disclaimer that I'm not trying to say that Lopez' self presentation is immoral or wrong, only that I don't think its intention (whatever it may be) can be isolated from the context in which it's interpreted, and I don't think it will help a feminist cause.

Sorry for not just letting this one go, I don't know why I can't get it out of my head.

― niels, Tuesday, 9 September 2014 08:48 (Yesterday) Permalink

Thank you. (Seriously.)

I love it when men tell women how to ~do feminism~. That helps the "feminist cause" so, soooo much.

http://gawker.com/even-nicki-minaj-cant-teach-vogue-models-to-twerk-1632916123

http://cheetahgirl69420.tumblr.com/post/97851461018/dirudo-broderrickstrider-make-this-go
via the singles jukebox cabal

I would just like to note that J Lo's "Booty" debuts at #18 this week thanks to her requiem for a dream homage with iggy

"Anaconda" is at #4, though

and a week later, anaconda moves up to #3, "booty" down to #45

ah well, they tried

lololol

can't say i'm at all surprised that the next single (released tonight/tomorrow?) features three dudes who still manage to have a strong pull at mainstream urban radio, including perennial hookboy chris brown.

what is surprising is that neither of her previous two singles did very well at radio, even on her home format and despite promising starts. like, her features (on e.g. rae sremmurd, trey songz, august alsina, bey) can still help boost a song up urban radio playlists and yet her own songs struggle and thus have to rely on meme videos for exposure.

like, yeah, it's clear that women lately are generally struggling for mainstream urban play, and can rarely get a hit unless the songs have shamelessly zeitgeist-y production or features from men (or, more likely, both, sometimes even multiple men as in teyana taylor's current case). singles by women that deviate from that template are doomed to flop and have indeed been flopping left and right all year (hello jazmine sullivan [already migrating to urban ac, where solo women can actually get played], elle varner, tiara thomas, k michelle's new one most likely). but i thought bey and nicki were basically exceptions to that general pattern. maybe nicki isn't?

yeah "Anaconda" really kinda flopped at radio after all the hooplah -- never got into the top 20 of pop radio OR rap radio ("Pills N Potions" at least went top 10 on the latter, but the arrival of "Anaconda" kinda

"Fancy" was huge on urban radio, Q was mostly incidental to the success of "2 On," but yeah otherwise it's been a really male-dominated year. especially glaring given the record-breaking run of female artists on the Hot 100 lately.

oof didn't finish this thought before i moved on to the other one:

yeah "Anaconda" really kinda flopped at radio after all the hooplah -- never got into the top 20 of pop radio OR rap radio ("Pills N Potions" at least went top 10 on the latter, but the arrival of "Anaconda" kinda ensured its stay was short)

i wish chi-raq had been a bigger hit than it was

would have some excitement for the coming one if chris fucking brown wasn't on it - already imagining the thinkpieces about nicki's "contradictions" that will arise from her having him on a song after the refreshment/feminist reclamation of anaconda

"Chi-raq" went so viral with all the freestyles that i was surprised they didn't try to capitalize on that and push it to radio the way Drake did with "0 to 100"

Nicki and Chris have done a ton of songs together so i would hope the thinkpiece massive wouldn't decide just now to manufacture that angle but who am i kidding that's what pieceniks do

i mean seeing as how itll probably be on a gawker media property or like, salon, chances are they will not be checking past album credits/features too closely, need to work fast and get DEM CLICKZ

def wish she wouldn't invite him on tracks but i also don't think it invalidates anything about her, and i can just see the hot takes and me headdesking in the future

"Lookin ass" got a decent amount of play in Philly

like, yeah, it's clear that women lately are generally struggling for mainstream urban play, and can rarely get a hit unless the songs have shamelessly zeitgeist-y production or features from men (or, more likely, both, sometimes even multiple men as in teyana taylor's current case). singles by women that deviate from that template are doomed to flop and have indeed been flopping left and right all year (hello jazmine sullivan [already migrating to urban ac, where solo women can actually get played], elle varner, tiara thomas, k michelle's new one most likely). but i thought bey and nicki were basically exceptions to that general pattern. maybe nicki isn't?

― dyl, Monday, 27 October 2014 21:15 Bookmark

cant believe how naive i was to think that nicki just put out a series of wack songs ty dyl

she's going to come under more fire for working with dr. luke than chris brown

smh nicki has also put out wack tracks in the past that still got tons of radio play. also the paragraph you are quoting is not an attempt to explain why nicki's recent songs didn't do well w/ a ridiculous conspiracy against women, just that i was surprised that she is not immune to the hurdles faced by other women in her genre as i previously thought she was.

especially glaring given the record-breaking run of female artists on the Hot 100 lately.

i find this interesting too and billboard has made quite a big deal of it. my thoughts on it rn are a bit hand-wavy and shouldn't be taken too seriously, but i wonder if the relative scarcity of crossover into pop radio from other formats lately has allowed women comfortably within the pop format to thrive toward the top of the charts? pop and adult contemporary formats are typically the only ones where women can be found at equal or greater numbers relative to men, while other formats tend to be heavily male-dominated, so i think the natural consequence of a more insular pop format (less crossover from other formats) would be that pop women have a better shot on the charts. the other side to that situation is that the non-pop men who could previously count on having crossover hits (see lil wayne, who just announced the delay of his album one day before it was supposed to come out lol) have to rely even more on their home format for exposure, possibly to the detriment of women at those non-pop formats who now have less space for themselves on playlists. (necessary disclaimer, i don't know objectively whether crossover is rarer these days -- tho my sense is that it is -- so this is all hypothesis.)

omg now her album got pushed back too ;_;

http://hiphop-n-more.com/2014/10/nicki-minaj-only-feat-drake-lil-wayne-chris-brown/

sucks

lol the Drake verse is peak simp

trash

i still have faith the album will be great but this song instils zero confidence as the lead-in single

man in 2014 we're still calling out the contradictions between "hard" and "soft" drake oh wow

but anyway this song is not good

hahaha "blow me...Lance Stephenson" is an incredibly dumb and instantly dated grocery bag line

i do agree that we should be done with the hashtag-punchline style by now but i'm also never not in favor of lance-a-make-em-dance references

speaking of which did anyone hear lance's freestyle over "hot n---a"? not half bad imo

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B1fHG_YCQAI795E.png

r.i.p. album cover design

bad esp by donda's standards

what was the pitch for this? "the cover is gonna be a clump of make up sitting in a make up smear"

i mean

it's better than her other album covers so far lol

her album cover game is britney levels of tragic

hdu insult queen britney like that, nicki

...is merely heir pretender to the tragic cover throne

lol art school

i like this cover but then i also really like the britney s/t cover

you guys don't get it it's her fingerprint

i like all of nicki's album covers! the first two are very ugly to look at but that's sort of the point. distorto barbie doll for pink friday, everything thrown manically at the wall and making a mess for roman reloaded. for a zero-effort itunes-age cover, this one's better than usual - feels quite unusual for a major female artist not to have her face on the cover (er, albeit this is following in yoncé's footsteps). plus i assume the shape of the make-up, esp if a small icon viewed briefly, is intentional

britney's run of terrible covers is probably untouchable

distorto barbie doll for pink friday, everything thrown manically at the wall and making a mess for roman reloaded.

this theory is doing a lot of work for someone who might just have really poor taste in album covers

the distorted barbie doll figure was really cool but the actual album cover itself was bad because... she has bad taste in design and fonts? same w/ roman

who needs album covers – we have mp3s

nothing uglier in the world than a phone playing an mp3 without the cover art

well nicki's aesthetic has been pretty consistent from the punchlines to the outfits to the album covers...they're all self consciously garish, and work on some occasions better than others, but singling out one of those elements for being especially glaring seems a little odd.

otm

i think simultaneously signifying artifice+femalesex+identity in a single glyph and having that much whitespace leftover is p decent design, but maybe she should have gone with herself as a kid