speriod:

This may very well be my first long-form Tumblr post since that projectile word vomit about Jon Brion’s NYC residency last fall. Which. Was. Awesome. BTW. But, I have literally zero deadlines right now so here’s to undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder!

This morning, Nicki Minaj unleashed her latest single, “Starships,” upon us. The RedOne-produced track came in a line of increasingly subpar material: the horrific “Roman Holiday,” the puerile, undeveloped “Stupid Hoe,” the Rihanna jack-me “Young Forever,” the embarrassing “Marilyn Monroe”… It’s essentially safe to say that Nicki has been throwing shit against the wall to see if it sticks. None hath stuck.

This, after a train wreck performance at the 2012 Grammy Awards. Where has our dear old Nicki gone? Leading up to Pink Friday, she had everything. Here was a hot-blooded spitfire whose raps could castrate the hardest of thugs. Beam Me Up Scotty wasn’t just a slick intro: it was Nicki at her best. Decent beats that she pummeled with barking wordplay, ever-so-slight accents and a knack for theatric. Feeding the hype machine for Pink Friday was breezy. “Your Love” was smoking. “Monster” was the best guest verse of the year. It was the perfect storm of talent meeting acclaim.

What distinguished her from the litany of would-be rapstresses through the naughts was the self-confidence, the embrace of her eccentricities. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing, and what it would take to get there. Which is why when Pink Friday arrived that we forgave her for delivering us a so-so debut. My favorite line when I interviewed her for this feature in November 2010 was, “I know that is a classic album. I have never been this proud of anything in my life.” LOL! How hard I chortled when I struggled to make it through the album in one sitting!

Nicki drank her own Kool-Aid. Sure, some singles were good from PF. Her guest verses proved that she still has it (Big Sean’s “Dance (A$$),” Britney Spears’ “Til The World Ends” - yes, you asshole, it was good). But what the hell is up? The only promise of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is that it promises to be a flop, because Nicki doesn’t know what kind of artist she wants to be. Should she liberate the inner pop star and turn her back on hip-hop? Drake didn’t do that with Take Care, and look where that got him. Should she be the Lady Gaga of rap? Should she be Lady Gaga? Or should she “Roman’s Revenge” her way through an entire album?

There isn’t a right answer to what Nicki should do, and that’s exactly why she’s stuck between a Monster and a hard place. During our annual Grammy viewing ceremony, my frans and I gasped as Lady Gaga emerged from a limo with an enormous hood, only to turn around and reveal it to be Nicki Minaj. Why the pope? Why the red riding hood motif? Attention? That’s what Gaga does: she stunts her way through performances and appearances, but she never loses her grip on the type of music fans expect from her. Born This Way was half-solid, half-schlock, because she allowed herself to experiment just enough to keep both her adventurous and one-note fans satiated.

Which is why Nicki’s artistic plight takes its latest form in “Starships,” which could have easily been Katy Perry’s newest single (fuck, it SHOULD have been). This isn’t what we expect from Nicki - it’s what Nicki thinks she expects from Nicki. And that’s because after all of the build-up, all of the celebrity and stardom and Taylor Swift praise, she hasn’t a clue what her fans want, and how to deliver that. But even more, she doesn’t know what she wants, and because of that, we have to watch her unspool everything she’s accomplished. For now, it’s a sad michaeljacksonpopcorn.gif, but nothing feels worse than the thought of revoking my membership to the Nation of Pinkslam.