The Pinkprint shows how much Nicki Minaj has crossed-over. Over the years following her rise to fame, she has abandoned any allegiance to the Hip-Hop genre and has instead become a strange and unpleasant amalgamation of cheap Pop music, tacky video aesthetics, and exaggerated body parts. The album begins with “All Things Go” the first track in a long list of nasty, cheap, wannabe Pop songs all firmly aiming for the middle-of-the-road market. Nicki raps “Just yesterday, I swear it was ’06” and with her dumbed-down lyrics and slow-flow scattered all over The Pinkprint; you’d swear it was still the noughties too. The album weaves through a checklist of things to attain Pop fame; accessible sounds, easily repeatable singing choruses, simple lyrics, and featured Artists intended to attract a wider audience; but unfortunately these elements converge to make one of the worst albums of 2014.

The second track “I Lied” with its crappy laid-back R’n’B sound is best forgotten, and the third song on the track list isn’t much better. “The Crying Game” features dreadful Hip-Pop verses complete with a lame singing hook, and unlike the film of the same name, we don’t find out that Nicki is really a man, in fact there’s no twist here; just your average filler track. Next up there’s “Get On Your Knees” which sports a mellow trashy sound with a hint of synths, and for the tweeny-twatty crowd there’s the inclusion of Ariana Grande who adds nothing special to the overall underwhelming song. After listening to this crap, nobody in their right mind would “get on their knees”, and the only thing the listener begs for is for this shit to end.

“Feeling Myself” with the now (metaphorically and literally) old-ass Beyoncé singing and rapping in a uninspired way, has a faux G-Funk whine playing in the background, but the corniness doesn’t end there. In “Only” Nicki raps “So what if my butt fake?” and also “I’d let them eat my ass like a cupcake” (and that’s one overfilled, big-ass cupcake) in fact, if anyone could reach her anus through the huge amounts of fat and flesh, they must have a jaw like a digger. But crappy similes and foul lyrics aside, the featured Artists on this track read like a list of the most shittiest Rappers and Singers of today; Lil Wayne, Drake, and Chris Brown all appear on this track which seems to be an attempt at bringing some “harder” sounds to an album heaving with R’n’B garbage. This effort fails miserably however, since this clique of cunts are not representative of credible music in any way at all.

The next track is entitled “Want Some More?” And the answer is a firm… NO!

Then comes “Four Door Aventador” a below average, and instantly forgettable song. This is followed by “Favorite” which brings us some autotuned garbage mixed with some more shitty synths. With Minaj rapping “I just wanna be a writer” it ironically sounds like she’s never written anything in her life; the lyrics on The Pinkprint in particular are so lame they could have been put together by a toddler with letter blocks.

“Buy A Heart” is yet another corny mess, bringing up “G5’s” and other noughties contrivances, and although “Trini Dem Girls” at first feels like a break from this Hip-Pop fluff, Nicki can’t help adding some radio friendly dumbed-down lyrics and some horrible R’n’B to the mix; another opportunity missed.

“Anaconda” then samples one of the worst Hip-Pop songs of the early nineties. I mean the Producers could have sampled “Who’s Dat Chick” by The Edge but no, these fake fucks have to bring up Sir Mix-A-Lot; it’s like referencing Vanilla Ice or MC Hammer. Great work Polow Da Don and Da Internz, and how brilliant that you spell your names in an obsolete nineties way. With Nicki rapping about Alexander McQueen, “Anaconda” shows how far Hip-Hop has fallen, and bringing up a slow late eighties Rap flow mixed with a novelty song plucked from the Golden Era, it’s as if this song was created with the intention of masking and glazing over all the good Hip-Hop music of that period.

“The Night Is Still Young” has a fast tempo, but with its crap chorus it sounds like a failed eighties soundtrack. “Pills N Potions” is just as lame as when we first heard it, and “Bed Of Lies” features wannabe Rock, but firmly Pop; Skylar Grey for a dose of more Poppy pith. Then comes “Grand Piano” which sounds like something Elton John wrote after he stopped taking coke. The regular version of the album closes with this travesty of a song, but if you’re a fan of torture (and many Americans are) you can get the extended or so-called “Deluxe” Version with an extra five songs! But by the time you’ve listened to those extra pieces of excrement, you’re ears may begin to bleed from all the out of style noughties bubblegum pop you’ve been subjected to.

The Deluxe Version adds a few additional tracks, the first being “Big Daddy” featuring Meek Mill who gives us some more of his generic out-of-style raps… I mean, who cares what his “Net Worth” is?  Still rhyming about Rolex’s and money; these twats need to check the calendar, and trying to be relevant by bringing up “Vine videos” isn’t how you do it Nicki; nice try. But the noughties throwback trash doesn’t end there, “Shanghai” features some horrid autotuned vocals and contrived oriental-sounding synths like the worst kind of Fruityloops demo. Then we have “Win Again”. At this point you may be compelled to scream “please no more!!!!” as you chuck your headphones across the room. It is surprising how much of this album is filled with agonisingly similar tracks, and it’s even more surprising how Nicki Minaj‘s fans still buy into the same-same Hip-Pop she keeps peddling. The next song “Mona Lisa” (another ruination of a Neil Jordan film title) then brings us back to the mellow trashy sound from the beginning of the album, and The Pinkprint closes with another dire track “Put You In A Room”.

The Pinkprint is one hell of a pH Neutral album. Every time you think there’s a reprieve from all the below-average sounds, some more R’n’B floods the airways, and on a side note, for something released in December; the soundscape of this album is completely wrong, sounding more like a package beach holiday soundtrack or a lacklustre Summer release. The whole album is an example of what happens when a Rapper completely sells out and begins to create horrid radio friendly, kiddie friendly muzak. The Pinkprint in its standard edition is a bit too long and the Deluxe Edition feels excruciatingly dragged-out. The songs themselves sound too alike, the rapping sports the worst kinds of flow and delivery, and the lyrics are just awful.

A Massive Arse.