Pink Friday
| Nicki Minaj
Pink Friday
Pink Friday is the debut studio album by Trinidadian-born American rapper Nicki Minaj. It was released on November 22, 2010, by Young Money, Cash Money and Universal Motown. After signing a recording contract with Young Money Entertainment in 2009, Minaj began planning the album that same year and work continued into 2010. Minaj enlisted a variety of producers whose efforts resulted in a primarily hip hop record, which sees additional influences from R&B and pop music. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
One of the most exciting new voices in hip-hop makes her proper full-length debut, doing a lot of singing and not nearly enough rapping.
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The Washington Post
It’s by no means a bad album, just not up to the standards of her mixtapes and cameos.
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Independent
Brash and brusque, [Nicki Minaj]'s raps are strapped to brittle electro snarebeats, buzzy synths and elegant pianos.
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MTV
[Pink Friday] falls short, with no verses as memorable as those she dropped in other projects, but this Barbie can certainly compete with the big boys.
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Rolling Stone
Minaj aims for a Rihanna-style crossover approach, singing R&B choruses over electro floss and toning down her nasty side.
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NME
Hip-hop's A-list guest but rap's new filthy-mouthed First Lady outshines them all.
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The Guardian
[Nicki Minaj] seems to have brought something different to the world of mainstream hip-hop: role-playing.
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Pretty Much Amazing
The first three tracks of Pink Friday, are exactly what we wanted from Nicki Minaj. The next ten are exactly what we feared.
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Consequence of Sound
The bar’s been set extremely high for Nicki Minaj and her first solo release. Unfortunately, she didn’t quite get there.
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Hip Hop DX
There’s room for growth, and Nicki Minaj has both the skills and the following to keep moving up.
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Muumuse
Pink Friday ends up feeling and sounding more like a solid streak of grey.
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LA Times
“Pink Friday” shows Minaj is on the cusp
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BBC
Pink Friday isn't a classic by any means, then, but when Nicki Minaj is on fire, nobody in hip hop can extinguish her talents.
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Southwest Shadow
Not all of the songs are hit list material, but the music stays true to who she is, and holds her spot as a new, well-loved female emcee.
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Entertainment Weekly
Rap’s first lady may never get the appreciation brashly expected from the aforementioned “she.” But Minaj has certainly earned it here.
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LA Music
Nicki’s talent is not only undeniable but so much fun to listen to, especially if you’re interested in different genres of music.
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Spin
Ultimately, the album is a budding artist’s love letter to pop — well-wrought and exuberantly penned.
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The Scotsman
In trying to muscle in on the tween market, Nicki Minaj has neglected the most important part of her otherwise engaging act – writing songs.
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Drowned in Sound
‘Pink Friday’ wins merely on points, rather than the knockout punch it should have been.
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Minnesota Daily
Unfortunately, the sparsely scattered moments of greatness just aren’t enough to hold the record together.
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Uproxx
“Pink Friday” bows to what a major label commercial urban album should sound like.
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The Urban Daily
Overall the album is better than decent, not great but for a rookie- but it deserves respect.
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The Feminist Griote
“Pink Friday” is a heap of tracks that doesn’t flow well seamlessly.
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The Line of Best Fit
It’s not the classic nor the out-there record that some may of been hoping for however it’s one that will cement her as a commercial success.
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Mel in the Milky Way
Pink Friday shows how it cannot be denied that there’s a reason why Nicki Minaj calls herself “the best”.
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Baller Alert
This album follows very high expectations but don’t expect the buzz surrounding Nicki Minaj to die anytime soon.
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ZOMG Talk
‘Pink Friday’ brings a much-needed respite to the current state of music, especially Rap music which has become incredibly generic and auto-tuned.
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Blare
Pink Friday indeed shows a challenger poised to claim a title, but one unaware of its direction.
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Essence
“Pink Friday” does not disappoint. It entertains.
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Bust
As Pink Friday is the debut of an already established artist, it’s evident that Nicki’s successes cannot be quantified by albums.
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Beat
Pink Friday won’t dent her ascent – it’s merely a painful hiccup from an artist who’s been a little bit greedy.
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The San Diego Tribune
While Minaj's proven she can jump on someone's song and get the job done, on her own songs, she struggles to make something to call her own.
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Chicago Reader
On Pink Friday, the fear of being defined seems to have made [Nicki Minaj] unwilling to say anything of interest at all.
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Yin and Yang
After a string of successful guest features and unmeasurable anticipation Pink Friday just doesn’t deliver that fire that I was expecting.
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Boston Globe
Once you accept that, you can appreciate “Pink Friday’’ for what it is: a brash pop album brimming with Minaj’s various personae and Technicolor rhymes.
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No Ripcord
Pink Friday perhaps isn’t what everyone had hoped for. However, with plenty of head-nod-ability, great emotion, varied and inventive rhymes and wordplay.
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AV Music
Pink Friday displays flashes of brilliance.
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Paste
Pink Friday, while certainly far from profound, is neatly rooted in predictability and vulgarity.
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Slant
Pink Friday is an often wobbly first effort that shows enormous promise.
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Prefix
Pink Friday’s songs split the difference between crass lyrical smack talk, doe-eyed teen pop fodder, vulnerable ballads, and wholesome motivational anthems.
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Music OMH
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.
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All Music
In 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.
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Beats Per Minute
Minaj follows in style by putting out an album interested in both hip hop and music that simply sounds great.
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Soul In Stereo
“Pink Friday” wasn’t the exciting, flaming 8-car pileup I expecting. It’s just a boring, annoying fender bender instead.
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Popmatters
Pink Friday is a real shame, albeit a very well-marketed one, and since it’s found its niche, it’s no surprise the album was a fair success for Minaj.
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Sputnik Music
The "bad bitch" part of Nicki Minaj must have been out to lunch for the recording of her album Pink Friday.
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We Got This Covered
‘Pink Friday’ does not live up to Nicki Minaj’s potential as a deadly femcee and instead comfortably sits her in the category of talented artists.
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Black Youth Project
You can compare Pink Friday to Eminem’s Recovery, or Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream, and both would be apt.
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Dutch Charts
"Pink Friday" is a work of pure brilliance.
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Metro
Pink Friday is a hot antidote to a blue Monday; Minaj means big business.
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Rap-Up
Even though her roots are elsewhere, Minaj sounds better on the Pink Friday tracks that are more squarely in the club R&B vein
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