Nicki Minaj Takes a Beach Holiday
Last week I was in L.A. for a few days, which means I was doing two things that I normally don’t: I was driving a car, and I was constantly listening to pop radio while driving that car. And it’s only when you experience the perilous, delicate roller coaster that is “constantly listening to pop radio” that you begin to understand why people can get so worked up about the strict rules of the singles churned out by the Faceless Hit-Making Machine rather than enjoying their warm comforts. Because once the hits are stacked up against each other, or played over and over and over — I heard Nicki Minaj’s “Spaceships” 10 billion times — you begin to resent all the bits cribbed from other, earlier (but not that much earlier) radio successes. On “Spaceships” every segment sounds recycled, but the real bumout is that it’s Nicki Minaj doing the recycling. Yeah, she was kowtowing to radio tastes on her first album, but here you can practically hear the reference track (the song has four other credited cowriters, including RedOne of Lady Gaga fame) for the cheesy lyrics under Nicki’s phoned-in wacky voices. At one point, Nicki sings, “Ain’t paying my rent this month / I owe that,” and you can understand it as a calculated entrance point, something for the masses to latch on to. But when Kanye West did the same thing on “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” — “Wait till I get my money right” — there was enough ambiguity and residual anger from when he was broke for us to believe it. For Nicki, it just comes off as the most glaringly awkward bit of this Frankeinstein’d single. On the plus side: lots of pretty colors in this video.
Filed Under: Music Videos, Nicki Minaj
More from Amos Barshad
-
We Went There: Blur Finally Makes It to Madison Square Garden
-
We Went There: Jay Z and Tidal Bring Beyoncé and Friends to Barclays Center
-
A Homecoming for Astronaut Jones: Tracy Morgan Returns to ‘SNL’
-
‘The Facts Are the Least You Can Rely On’: Director Danny Boyle Talks ‘Steve Jobs’
-
A Killer Trump, Miley’s Dead Petz, and Hillary Two-Times: Your ‘SNL’ Season Premiere Check-in
More Music Videos
-
DRAKE DANCE REVOLUTION: The ‘Hotline Bling’ Video
-
The Weird and Wonderful Career of ‘Power/Rangers’ Director Joseph Kahn
-
The Opulent Majesty of Hakeem’s Music Video on Last Night’s ‘Empire’
-
Jessie J, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj’s ‘Bang Bang’ Is a Pop Song From Another Era
-
Haim, A$AP Ferg, and a Whole Bunch of Celebrity Guests Have a Few Things to Get Off Their Chest
More Hollywood Prospectus
-
Brand Echh: Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton Can’t Save the Lame ‘Our Brand Is Crisis’
-
50 Scenes That Do Not Appear in the Fox ‘X-Files’ Revival
-
In Praise of Beach Slang, 2015’s Best, Most Sincere Rock Band
-
Who Was Missing From Taylor Swift’s Miami Squad?
-
Happy ‘Halloween’: The Best Horror-Movie Monsters