Queen Radio, Vol. 1 Big Sale

Description

A generous anthology released in 2022, Queen Radio, Vol. 1 gathers highlights from Nicki Minaj’s full-length projects dating back to the 2009 mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty and adds four new songs. Unsurprisingly, the album with the strongest representation is Pink Friday. Ten tracks from that pop-oriented mainstream breakthrough — such as “Moment 4 Life,” the number three hit “Super Bass,” and “Fly” — are contained here, and they’re joined by the number five single “Starships” and two other songs off Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. The subsequent “Lookin Ass,” recorded for Young Money’s Rise of an Empire compilation, is rightly part of the story here, as it signaled the harder direction Minaj took with The Pinkprint. “Anaconda” and “Truffle Butter” are among the four tracks taken from that LP. Queen, Minaj’s fourth album, yielded its own slew of charting singles led by inclusions “Chun-Li” and “Barbie Dreams.” While the vast majority of greatest-hits packages coincide with a commercial slump, Queen Radio boasted three exclusive hits by the time it was released. “Super Freaky Girl,” one of the new songs, became Minaj’s first unassisted number one pop hit. ~ Andy Kellman