Nelly

Suit

Nelly Just Jumped the Shark.

Review Score:

(2/10)
I was really disappointed when I listened to Sweat by Nelly. Wow, that was pretty bad. I never thought an artist could digress from one album to the next that badly. I stand corrected because I just listened to Nelly's Suit. Talk about terrible!

Now, unlike all the Nelly haters out there, I really enjoyed Nelly's previous albums. Country Grammer was an excellent album with Nelly's patented unique voice, creative fast paced beats, and great contributions by the rest of the St. Lunatics. He fused hardcore music and beats to make catchy yet aggressive hip-hop. I really thought it was a fluke album by a fluke artist until Nellyville came out. That could possibly be the arguably be my favorite rap album of all time. "Air Force Ones" has got one of the greatest singles of all times.

So, I actually expected something listenable from his double release. Big letdown. While Sweat is composed of music somewhat like what you would expect from Nelly, Suit, however, is pure R&B based hip-hop. Now asking Nelly to do R&B is like reading poetry by Jewel or discussing Wittengstein with George W. Bush - it plain doesn't work. Out of the 11 tracks, all sound very similar, and only about 3 are listenable.

1) Play it off (1 out of 5) - The most generic, formulaic song of the album. Soft, boring lacks any originality. Chorus sounds like any other chorus Pharrel sings in.
2) Pretty Toes (1 out of 5) - Somewhat fast paced, decent for about 30 seconds, until the boring, annoying chorus comes in.
3) My Place (2 out of 5) - Not too shabby, but that's because it sounds just like Country Grammer's Luvin Me.
4) Paradise (2 out of 5) - Practically the same beat as the previous songs, with a little more bass. Chorus is not god awful, so it's not that terrible.
5) She Don't Know my Name (1 out of 5) - Similar soft bass line and drumbeat as the others. It has Snoop Dogg, which means it could only be good if Nelly had a time machine and could travel back to a time when Snoop Dogg made good music and didn't make up words.
6) N Dey Say (1 out of 5) - A love song beat, with a little bass that is just terrible.
7) Woodgrain and Leather with a Hole (2 out of 5) - He wastes a minute talking, and that could be the best part of this song. Yet again, same boring soft beat. Chorus isn't too bad, so it's listenable.
8) In My Life - (3 out of 5) - The rap and beats sound like every other song. Mase surprisingly saves this song, and chorus is kind of upbeat and catchy.
9) Over and Over (3 out of 5)- Tim McGraw? WTF? I thought it was misprint. I hate country music, yet Nelly is bad in this song that Tim McGraw sounds pretty good. The music is not too shabby, and the chorus is sort of relaxing.
10) Nobody Knows - (4 out of 5) - What is this, a song that actually exudes effort? A song that I actually like listening to? By far the best song of the album and the only one I could recommend it to anyone. Extremely soulful - Anthony Hamilton really adds to the song.
11) Die For You (1 out of 5) - Sounds exactly like most of the other bad songs on the album. Generic, unoriginal - a song you'll immediately skip after one listen.

Basically, with the exception of Nobody Knows, this is basically filler material. It's a shame that we lost a good musician due to artistic indifference.

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