Sorry we missed yesterday – our US-based writers were too busy drinking TO FREEDOM!!!!!
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Tim de Reuse: On one hand, I recognize and applaud the audacity of building an entire track around a tinny, awkward sample of a major chord arpeggio — it was genuinely neat for thirty seconds. On the other hand, no amount of conceptual appreciation could shape such an unresolvable, static melody into a remotely listenable chorus.
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The worst version of Nicki Minaj’s worst self: a pop rapper with nothing to say but plenty of dumb gimmicks to communicate it. Points are mostly for the beat, which controls the sampled riddim well, though I can’t deny that the out-of-nowhere pitch lowering the second time Nicki says “Megatron” is hilarious.
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Iris Xie: “Megatron” has the staying power of an anonymous song played at low volume by tinny speakers in a convenience store. I’m not sure how you can make “Brra, ta, ta, tat” sound boring, but combined with an uninspired usage of a reggae sample, this is Muzak rap. There isn’t even any wordplay with using Megatron as a reference. What’s going on, Nicki?
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Tobi Tella: You would think a song named after a stone cold villain would have some grit or passion, but never underestimate Nicki Minaj’s lack of artistic ambition!
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Hannah Jocelyn: Nicki Minaj’s antics once again overshadowed the music she was ostensibly trying to promote. In the weeks leading up to this song, she collaborated with Chris Brown, agreed to perform in Saudi Arabia, and went public about apparently dating a sex offender in the gap between Queen’s abruptly finished era and this new one. So… most of the credit goes to Pop Wansel, NOVA WAV, and Jaycen Joshua for making this so fun to hear. The way they play with the guitar sample is inspired, chorusing it, panning it around, looping it – there’s so much going on in that sample that the song doesn’t need that much else. The ad-libs and auto-tune effects on Minaj’s voice feel stylistically necessary instead of arbitrary. I’m all for so-called ‘cancel culture,’ and for all intents and purposes, Minaj is not going to be reigning with this song like she did in the early 2010s. But the actual song is mostly harmless, even when Minaj does her best to make it R-rated (NC-17 rated? Has the MPAA softened its stance about cunnilingus?). And on a Billboard chart of minor-key melancholy, the one arpeggiated major chord is queen.
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Katherine St Asaph: I can’t decide whether this would have felt less or more essential in 2014.
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