Fix Nicki Minaj's 'Queen' - Album + Promotion

[Guest Blue Madonna]

Okay so I have now finished listening to Queen in its entirety.

My overall thoughts is that it is a pretty damn good rap album, and this opinion seems to be commonly shared, but the album itself and the era rollout were undeniably flawed. From the poor performances of badly chosen singles, to the 6ix9ine drama, seemingly rather forced features, to the release date MESS, I personally think that, in relativity to Nicki's status and history, there was next to no hype for the album. I created this thread as a more specific discussion of the flaws and highlights of Queen and how I believe the album could have been even greater. And please share your own opinions/changes in this thread!  Let's keep it positive though, there's definitely a fine line between identifying flaws and trashing 

1. A change of tracklist- 'Queen' had quite a few fillers in my opinion. Once pop(ish) albums get past 15 songs it gets rather tenuous unless all the songs provide something unique. At the time of release, I thought 'Bed' was a decent bop, but the cringeworthy attempts at being sexy in the video were worthy of Liam Payne And after listening to the album in full, I realised that Nicki (and Ariana!) can definitely do better than 'Bed'. It seems perhaps that 'Bed' was an attempt to milk the seemingly genuine friendship between Ariana and Nicki, and maybe an attempt to recreate the success of Side to Side and Bang Bang (which notably failed, if you look at its utter lack of impact on radio or charts). So I would delete Bed entirely, and maybe add a better Nicki + Ariana collab but I won't for the purposes of reworking the album only with songs from the actual album. I personally don't love the The Weeknd feature, it sounds the same as all his other collabs with rappers. But I feel like the GP and a decent few fans would eat it the hell up. So 'Thought I Knew You' stays.  'Run & Hide', I literally am going the the tracklist right now and I don't even remember listening to it. So I would scrap that one as well. For me, and apparently many other people, Chun Swae was a disaster. This collab seems quite forced, an attempt to crack the charts by including a popular trap artist. Swae's nonsensical and utterly inconherent mumbling throughout the 6-minute song render Nicki's rapping useless, he totally outshines her in the worst way possible. It's quite sad, as I reckon this could be the first time many GGD users heard Swae, an otherwise not terrible rapper. 2 Lit 2 Late doesn't do a lot for me, so I deem it a filler. I'd be interested to see contrary opinions though. Same with 'Sir'. This one also feels forced, an attempt to drum up hype for Nicki and Future's joint tour but if anything makes me less inclined to go. Same with Miami and the outro. Why did she break up a song into two?? Like it literally picks up right where Coco Chanel left off. Imo Coco Chanel is a bit of a filler, but is still a decent bop and I think the whole album would be a bit much if it was all straight fire, so a light bop or two to act as a form of a quality filler would be good. Hence why I keep Coco Chanel and Nip Tuck. Quickly coming back to 'Rich Sex' which is a bop ruined by Lil Wayne's Swae-esque incoherent mumbling. So I would but on Rich Sex (solo version) on the album. In my humble opinion, the rest of the album is dope. A lot of classic awesome rapping, something somewhat dead these days, and some creative beats on songs such as Ganja Burns and Majesty (sidenote: Em raps faster on Majesty than on Rap God!). Hence why I made this thread. So my updated 'Queen' tracklist is as follows:

1. Ganja Burns

2. Barbie Dreams

3. Rich Sex (solo version)

4. Thought I Knew You (feat. The Weeknd)

5. LLC

6. Good Form

7. Nip Tuck

8. Hard White

9. Chun-Li

10. Coco Chanel

11. Come See About Me

12. Majesty (feat. Eminem & Labrinth)

12 Tracks! A decent bit shorter but I think this album would be much better.

 

2. Single Rollout and Promotion- so we all know about the Barbie Tingz mess, and I think Chun-Li would still make a decent single but perhaps not a lead, as it did little to drum up the hype. I think Ganja Burns would be a great way to show the GP that Nicki is versatile and bringing something new to a somewhat currently monotonous rap game. Its fresh style could even rival I Like It as a summer hit! I can see people bopping to this at a barbeque on the beach or something  Barbie Dreams would potentially drum up about as much attention as FEFE, except positive , and Rich Sex would be a cute poppy bop as a kinda throwback to Nicki's more poppy days. So the single rollout goes as follows: 

Lead Single: Ganja Burns/Barbie Dreams (not a double release, that always leads to overshadowing as shown by Camila, Ed Sheeran, Drake and Nicki herself with Barbie Tingz and Chun-Li. I just couldn't decide which one so I'll say either or. Video about a week or two after so as to avoid a loss of hype that kinda happened with Chun-Li.

Second Single: Ganja Burns/Barbie Dreams (whichever wasn't released as a lead, released as hype is dying down, when the lead is about #15-#20 on BB100, Video two weeks after (see above ^^))

Third: Chun-Li (to demonstrate her fairly unique rapping flow, with same video released a week after as this one didn't have as much longevity as I predict the above two would have)

Fourth: Rich Sex (about a week before the album release, to refuel the fire for the album rollout, and a video a week after album release).

Fifth/Sixth: Depending on the reception of Majesty and Thought I Knew You, potentially release as fifth single and sixth single (so one more or less succeeds) a couple of weeks after the album, similar to what Taylor did with End Game).

 

3. Other comments- entirely delete the FEFE mess . Keep the Beats 1 show! I thought this is the one good decision made by her team as far as promo goes, it sort of gave the album a bit of last-minute hype which it would have likely been abysmal had she not done the show. Release a few of BTS vids after the album release, mainly for the fans but also to give the album a bit more longevity, each vid focussed on the writing of a selection of album tracks and singles, maybe one or two on a video depending how well they perform). 

 

Whew, I spent an hour on this thread! Much to critique it seems  Don't get me wrong though, I loved the album and many of these tracks will be on repeat for ages! It'll be interesting to see if her team cleans up the game after the album release. Good luck Nicki, and don't get yourself into any more trouble!

 

 

 

[RepentingSinner 2,641]

I respectfully disagree. I think 2 only songs need to go Sir and Rich Sex. Some outros could be shortened tho.

[The Child 18,994]

TL, DR.

[DOJA CAT 1,833]

4 minutes ago, LittleLocoCoco said:

I respectfully disagree. I think 2 only songs need to go Sir and Rich Sex. Some outros could be shortened tho.

I love Rich Sex before Lil Wayne verse

[MonsterSexual 407]

change the cover to any color but god awful orange.

have more cohesiveness to the whole era

and have barbie tingz as track twenty

 

thats all barbz 

[Vitleysingur 13,668]

2 minutes ago, MonsterSexual said:

change the cover to any color but god awful orange.

have more cohesiveness to the whole era

and have barbie tingz as track twenty

 

thats all barbz 

Nah. This cover is FIERCE!

[TheAlpha 3,830]

Can’t comment on this just yet since I haven’t listened to the album. Maybe next week.

[Zaskar 3,346]

Agree on Ganja Burns as the lead single, MehMeh Mess and the length of the album!

[Miichael 1,137]

I'm yet to listen to the album in full, but I'd release the song and video for the singles simultaneously with one another, include Barbie Tingz on the album since it slaps hard.