People have not been too kind to the pop half of Nicki Minaj’s Roman Reloaded, mostly because the rap half is, frankly, better, but also because the latter set of songs sound pretty forced — like Minaj and her team sat in a room with every hit song from the past year, patiently cutting and pasting snippets until they had a radio-ready setlist. One has to imagine that a similar process inspired the video for “Starships,†which really does feature a little bit of everything: a scantily clad Minaj, making sexy faces; a scantily clad Minaj, making crazy faces; models; a beach dance party; a tribe of burly bowler-hatted dancers; kaleidoscopes; lush, green landscapes (asked a Vulture correspondent, at this point: “Is this the set of LOST?â€); bonfires; demon-y hypercolor people at said bonfires; and of course, the titular Starships. It is, once again, the Nicki Minaj Kitchen Sink approach to being a pop star. So, look around; maybe you will find one thing you actually do like?
