One thing about me, I’m the baddest alive

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

15/12/23 : Pink Friday 2 - Nicki Minaj

This isn't one I'd have visited by choice, but I'm expecting it to be bearable if maybe a bit too much at times.

Actually, I think it counts as better than bearable - I didn't mind it at all.  The only thing that makes it a bit too much is the 70 minute running time, but she just about gets away with it because there's actually a fair amount of variety and no little amount of skill across the album.  I particularly like "Super Freaky Girl" which is lucky because my girls have played it approximately a million times to me.  She also has a good ear for tracks to sample as well, with "Move Your Feet", "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "Heart Of Glass" all jumping out for me.  This album won't be for everyone, but if you like those lady rappers with attitude then Nicki has, in my unknowledgeable opinion, come up with a pretty good example here.

We're at #3 in the charts this week with a new entry and the rest of the top five are The Killers (a new entry for their best-of), Bublé, Tay-Tay and Tate McRae (another new entry which I've heard many times this week) and the next highest new entry is a Porcupine Tree live album (which I imagine is quite the thing) all the way down at #36.

Last week I said that Peter Gabriel would drop to #12 and Christmas very nearly came early for me because he's at #13 - that's two weeks in a row I've been one spot off.  I think Nicki is going to do better than that, but not as well as she would do normally because it's Christmas so let's say #10.  And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top ten, four in the top twenty and nine in the entire chart.

Wikipedia has a lot of text on the album, but very little content - the only thing that jumped out at me was the list of guest artists with J Cole, Lil Wayne, Drake and 50 Cent amongst many others.  The critics were very nice about it and it's done well commercially, although it's only got to #61 in Italy.

"Customers also listened to" Benny The Butcher, Tate McRae, Megan Thee Stallion and Ice Spice - quite where Tate fits into that list is uncertain.  I wouldn't declare myself to be a Nicki fan but I found this to be a lot more bearable and skilful than I was expecting.

08/12/23 - Really enjoyable
22/12/23 - Possibly the album I've heard most this year

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