Nicki Minaj—Pink Friday

Everything sounds so cheap before her being the greatest female rapper alive hits home for every one of us. And to be honest, it's reasonable--simple mechanical drumbeats collude with fuzzy synths unfortunately bearing Lady Gaga's fingerprints, who's beyond redemption for leading the music industry to ugly places, and let alone these oversweetly icky, well, hooks. Only after Carly Rae Jepsen teaches us what true ickiness is do people with functioning ears grasp she's just down to earth instead of cheap, which pins down a woman figure so healthy that she not only is willing to receive a call from her former "underground" self while keeps a sunny side when soaring in the "mainstream," but is generous enough to be the voice of the bitches out there. She can be carnivorous as a relief from emanating positive energy all the time. She can be girlish, sometimes. And she can be canny just by putting the most solemn cut right at the middle, a move that not even Drake can fathom. A