Nicki Minaj, “Pink Friday” (Young Money/Universal)
With her bug eyes, rainbow wigs and clown car full of lyrical personas, Nicki Minaj is a Looney Tunes cartoon come to life, and one of the most ususual characters to hit hip-hop in years.
But just as the 25-year-old New Yorker has become hip- hop’s cameo queen, she’s been dogged by questions of how she would carry an album on her own. The answer comes with her debut album “Pink Friday,” which softens her image and positions her as an inspirational underdog who’s made it to the top.
It’s a naked bid at broad pop success, favoring obvious samples (the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” on “Check It Out,” Annie Lennox’s “No More I Love You’s” on “Your Love”) and catering/pandering to the teenage girl demographic. Her range is limited but for the most part, she wears her pop stripes well. And when she rhymes “heroin” with “heroine” on “Blazin’,” it’s a reminder of the quirky style that made us fall for her in the first place. Adam Graham, The Detroit News
Susan Boyle, “The Gift” (Columbia)
Like a lot of holiday presents, Susan Boyle’s “The Gift” doesn’t live up to expectations.
On the second album from the “Britain’s Got Talent” sensation, Boyle offers a selection of holiday classics, plus a few others, including Leonard Cohen’s now ubiquitous “Hallelujah” and the puzzling choice of Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over.” The choice of music isn’t the problem here.
Surprisingly, it’s her voice. While she became a YouTube sensation for displaying heavenly but powerful vocals on “Britain’s Got Talent,” here, she sounds like a timid child. She coos shakily and rarely uses the full potential of her voice. The arrangements don’t help her because they sound like dreary background music: You’ll need a pick-me-up after listening to this album all the way through.
In case you make it that far, put on “O Holy Night,” the EP by her label mate, Jackie Evancho of “America’s Got Talent,” to combat the holiday jeer. Though she actually is a child, Jackie has a magical, soaring voice that shows her fellow reality-show contestant how a Christmas album should be done. Nekesa Mumbi Moody, The Associated Press
Amazing Twin, “New Wives’ Tale” (Hot Congress)
In rock ‘n’ roll, there are some rules — like putting guitars front and center in most songs — that are explicit. Others — like kicking off a mini- album with a terse, focused grabber — would seem to be unspoken.
Amazing Twin apparently missed that last one. The indie-rock group, part of Denver’s vigorously creative Hot Congress collective, begins its first proper release with a rolling, wide-eyed number that takes nearly two minutes to get to Patrick Kelly’s appealingly thin vocals, and eventually breaks the seven- minute mark.
Kicking off a six-song EP with a patient, bittersweet epic would normally be a dicey move for a band rooted in classic emo and indie rock (two genres more renowned for their punchy, upbeat gifts). But Amazing Twin makes it work splendidly, greasing the formula with liberal amounts of melody and a pervading sense of structural inevitability.
Poetic lyrical motifs invoke half-remembered loves like cursed relics, while chiming guitar notes and steady (but never plodding) percussion tie it all together. Sonically it’s the stuff of ’90s college rock, but it smacks of a lost classic. John Wenzel, The Denver Post
