“Starships” is a song by hip-hop recording artist, Nicki Minaj, and appears her second studio album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. It premiered during On Air with Ryan Seacrest and was released as the lead single from the album on the same day. It was produced by RedOne, Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub. The song was released for digital download in February 2012. An accompanying music video for the single was shot in Hawaii on March 13–15, 2012. “Starships” debuted at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking her second solo arrival in the Top 10 of the chart, after “Super Bass“, which reached number 3 in 2011. The song peaked at number 5 in the US and was certified platinum. In the spring of 2012, “Starships“ was the 3rd most-played song on Myspace, the 12th most-played song on Yahoo! Music, and was the 21st most downloaded ringtone. “Starships” is a multi-genre song, which heavily utilizes Eurodance, Europop and Eurohouse, while also incorporating others such as pop, dance, reggae, pop rock, and hip hop. Watch the video below…
Video Synopsis: Bikini clad and sporting neon green hair, Minaj dances on the beach in the video for “Starships”. A digitally rendered Spacecraft appears in the video, floating over the shore. Several athletic men, adorned in tribal scarification, carry her across and island on a platform. She shows off her crazy curves, bouncing around in the water and frolicking in the sand, while later being carried around by Hawaiian hunks through the lush landscape. Nicki’s party continues through the day and into the night, and includes various scene and costume changes and other bikinis.
The video features flashing lights and the glow-in-the-dark effects reminiscent of the video for Super Bass. In early March 2012, a fan asked Minaj on Twitter if there will be a video for “Starships”. She quickly replied, “Yes. Of course barbz. Don’t be silly”. According to Nicki Daily, Minaj’s assistant Safaree Samuels streamed on UStream that a video for “Starships” will be released before the album comes out. The “Starships” video was filmed in Hawaii, it was a 3-day shoot, filming began on March 13, 2012 and ended on March 15, 2012. The video was directed by Anthony Mandler. In an interview with Capital FM, Minaj briefly commented on the video for “Starships”, calling it “very, very saucy” and her “best one yet”. While the video premiered on MTV on April 26, 2012, photos from the video shoot leaked online much sooner. MTV criticized the video’s postponed release, noting that the album’s third single, Beez in the Trap released sooner than that of “Starships”, the album’s first single. The wait was attributed to delays in production. During the final Breakdown, a stadium football chant can be heard chanting the lead notes of the song. The background vocals on the chorus were considered extremely similar to Britney Spears‘ 2011 single “Till the World Ends“ as described by PopCruch. MTV also said that “it’s hard not to see Spears’ influence on the rapper/singer when listening to the song.” Billboard compared “Starships” to the work of Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, other artists produced by RedOne.
Minaj said about the song: “‘Starships’ is one of my absolute, absolute favorite records on Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. It just sounds like a Ryan Seacrest type of record. And I’m so excited for you to give this song your blessing, Ryan, because I know people are gonna love it. It feels right. It just feels good. It makes people feel happy and that’s all I want. I want to start the year off with making people feel good. The Grammy performance was the performance, that was my clear craziness, and now it’s time to make people dance and have fun, and that’s all I want to do”. In a separate interview, she gave further details on the recording of the track: “There was so much love surrounding the making of the song, because RedOne is just so sweet to work with, he just sent me that one day, and he said, ‘Hey, I got something for you!’ I was like, ‘You got to be kidding me, right?’ I went to the studio and started writing … scratch that … I didn’t even write the first verse! That was just me mumbling and just saying the first thing that came to my head, and we recorded it, because I just felt like: ‘Let’s go to the beach … let’s go get away.’ It was just so good. It feels good!”Was the track and video. as good as the rest? Let me know your thoughts below…
