The unfairly maligned “Bed” does sound a little out of place, but it deserves to be here more than several of the other songs. She skillfully blends them on the album’s best tracks. Queen’s greatest asset is Nicki’s dual propensity for virtuosic verses and catchy pop elements. And Future’s lethargic style simply doesn’t gel with Nicki on the otherwise enjoyable “Sir”. Lil Wayne’s mush-mouthed verse on “Rich Sex” highlights the distance between today and his last good album, Tha Carter IV, released seven long years ago. The Weeknd shows up to give the same performance he gives in all his features, throwing out some bored ooh yeah, ooh yeahs on “I Thought I Knew You”. If every track that featured a four-minute piano loop was cut, then critics wouldn’t have to complain about the album’s length. And while the music is extremely well-produced, the beats are too often hampered by a lack of variety. Its 19 tracks could easily be pared down to a more manageable number. Although every reviewer has pointed it out, the album, at over 66 minutes, is way too long. Okay, first thing’s first, the hunger is here, yes, but that doesn’t mean that Queen is uniformly excellent. While it seems a bit silly that it took just one other female rapper hitting the big time for Nicki to regain her hunger, these sorts of media-manufactured pop feuds are decades-old at this point, and Queen makes it clear that they’ll have to find their Minaj-killer elsewhere. Back then, in the days before Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow”, Nicki could afford to take her talent and success for granted. She got a little better each time, but nothing thrilled the way that “Monster” did. Then came two more studio albums, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded and The Pinkprint. Nicki had the bars but chose to mask them with silly voices and outfits. If there is anything symbolic to be found there, it only highlights the wasted promise of a talented rapper who often sank beneath the surface of gimmicks. A lot has changed in hip-hop since then, and something that is often forgotten is that Nicki’s debut full-length Pink Friday came out on the same day as My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It has been nearly eight years since Nicki Minaj set the world on fire with her seminal verse on Kanye West’s “Monster” in 2010. Review Summary: Mirror mirror, who’s the fairest?/"You the motherfucking fairest, Nicki."
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