Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Jan 13, 2011Pink Friday was one of the most highly-anticipated albums of 2010, largely due to curiosity. The reality is that it could have never lived up to the hype it prematurely received. Still, there's room for growth, and Nicki Minaj has both the skills and the following to keep moving up.
-
Jan 13, 2011On the heels of the brilliant My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and the misunderstood Recovery Minaj follows in style by putting out an album interested in both hip hop and music that simply sounds great.
-
Jan 7, 2011Half rapping and half singing, half bragging and half kowtowing, brazening a "punt" rhyme here and proclaiming commonality with "girls that never thought they could win" there, she's proud to be shameless, with the hooks to back it up.
-
Dec 16, 2010For whatever reason, though, the voices in her own head aren't strong enough to out-sway input from others, leading to a few unimpressive moments in the LP.
-
Dec 9, 2010It's not everyone who can give Slim Shady a run for his money, but Minaj more than holds her own here, sounding both menacing and cartoon-like and even dropping into an approximation of a cockney accent at one point.
-
Dec 9, 2010Reinforcing the notion that all female MCs must also sing, Minaj spends half of the album crooning, and while her singing isn't bad, it's dialed into that radio-friendly sweet spot so aggressively that it loses all distinction.
-
Dec 9, 2010Pink Friday, while certainly far from profound, is neatly rooted in predictability and vulgarity. But then again, would we have Minaj any other way?
-
Dec 9, 2010Rap's first lady may never get the appreciation brashly expected from the aforementioned she. But Minaj has certainly earned it here.
-
Dec 9, 2010Pink Friday shows Minaj is on the cusp - considering her facility with accents, she could be the perfect person to find a new patois, one that's built of separate musical languages but without breaking any of them down.
-
Dec 9, 2010In the end, Pink Friday is an ambitious, glossy stunner if fashion week is your favorite time of year, but Minaj didn't earn her diva status this way.
-
Dec 9, 2010On Pink Friday, the year's most anticipated hip-hop debut, she's already rapping about the superstar life.
-
Dec 9, 2010Rap's most hotly anticipated debut works best if you don't think of it as a rap album at all.
-
Dec 9, 2010The gulf between Minaj's public persona and her music here reminds me of the criticism laid at the feet of Lady Gaga -- that for all of her high-culture namedropping, wearable art, and big event videos, Gaga's music rarely reflects the full range of her conceptual constructions.
-
Dec 9, 2010Pink Friday isn't a classic by any means, then, but when Nicki Minaj is on fire nobody in hip hop – male or female – can extinguish her bright-burning talents.
-
Dec 9, 2010No matter how many boasts and taunts she drops, it's clear Minaj is proud of how far she's come.
-
Dec 9, 2010One hopes that with the confidence this record brings, she'll take a more permanent seat at hip-hop's high table. Because when she's at her best, she's the bestest there is.
-
Dec 9, 2010There's nothing particularly wrong with what Minaj has given us - her pipes are worthy of wide-ranging pop stardom - but the album is a misallocation of the talent and quirk that thrust her into the spotlight in the first place.
-
MojoApr 12, 2011Jamaica Queen;s potty-mouth hits rap home run on brutally enjoyable debut. [Feb. 2011, p. 105]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 395 out of 561
-
Mixed: 59 out of 561
-
Negative: 107 out of 561
-
Aug 12, 2011
-
Sep 10, 2011
-
Aug 23, 2011