Nelly

One Liner: THE St. Louis Rapper, as far as I'm concerned, with loads of hits you know

Wikipedia Genre: Hip hop
Home: The Lou

Poster Position: 6-ish (added late)
Day: Saturday at 7:30
Weekend One Only.

Thoughts: UUUUUGHGGGHHH.  So annoyed to be going second weekend this year.  I was already annoyed about it, but then they add Nelly to first weekend only?  So brutal!

This guy was awesome.  If you don't agree with me, then you are a crazy person.  Or you just don't remember the power of 2000 and 2002 Nelly.  I'm going to run through the power tunes, and you're going to be like - OH YEAH!  THAT ONE RULES TOO! - and I'm just gonna be sad because I won't see the show.

First, his freshman album, Country Grammar, from 2000.  Boasts two major hits, as well as another tune that I still love even without the major playcounts.  First, the big hit.  "Ride With Me."  142.2 million streams.

"Heeeyyyyyy, must be the money!"  Weird that they cut out the "get high with me" part of each chorus on that video.  I like the guitar strum part of the beat.  Next, my favorite from the album, "Country Grammar (Hot Shit)," which has a freaking fantastic beat and is key to my running songs mix.  63.5 million streams.  Sadly, a censored version of this too.  

Hot beat.  So fun.  He can't say "street sweeper?"  Because it connotes guns?  Censorship is weird.  51.9 million views of that video too, so this is a big hit.  Suck a cool ass beat.

One more from this album, because I always like it.  "E.I.," with 14.3 million streams.

Love the Scooby Doo sound at the start, and I dig the beat of this one too.  Why can't I hear the proper cuss words?  Dammit, Nelly!  Uh ohhhhhhhh!  "Batter Up" and "Luven Me" were also popular tunes on that album, but I'll save your additional viewership for the next mega album.

Country Grammar went Diamond, meaning it sold more than ten million copies in the U.S.  Pretty sure no one does that now except for TayTay and Drake, so, pretty impressive.

2002's Nellyville also had a pile of hits.  I still randomly sing snippets of them, even 16 years later, so I think this one stands the test of time.  Also peaked at #1 on the charts, but only sold six million copies.  The top song, in my mind, is not his most streamed song (somehow).  I'll get to that #1 song in a moment, after I play the best song.  "Hot in Herre," with 127.9 million streams.

Another great beat - done by the Neptunes (Pharrell, and you can here his little cowbell influence on it throughout).  Another unforgettable chorus (that I randomly sing to my kids all the time).  Also, "I was like, good gracious, ass is bodacious."  Word.  And, "I think ma butt gettin' big!"  This would be the best song to jam out to at the fest.  Bar none.  

Somehow, the tune with Kelly Rowland (of Destiny's Child) on it is the top track, and his overall most streamed tune.  "Dilemma" with 184.8 million streams.

Fine, although the slow jam style kind of sucks the energy out of the room to me.  Gimme those jams with the dope beats and the slick rhymes, yo!  This album has a few other hits, and a few others that I remember from owning this album 20 years ago, tracks like "#1 (5.4 million)," "Air Force Ones (16.3 million)," "Work It" (with Justin Timberlake, 2.8 million), and this next one, that I randomly sing to annoy my wife with some frequency, "Pimp Juice."  5.8 million streams.

Yessir.  That beat, which uses a little flute-ish lilt in the background (that I recognize from the outro from Geto Boys' Til Death Do Us Part), is groovy as hell.  I'm sure you can all understand how fun it is for my wife to hear me sing to her about my "Pimp Juice."  She is literally a saint.

Now, after the golden age of Nelly, I honestly didn't even know if he kept making albums.  But yep.  Looks like he just kept on plowing along, without the public along for the ride.  He really got deep with his album naming for a short while, with 2004's Suit (includes a song with freaking Tim McGraw), 2004's Sweat, and then 2005's Sweatsuit.  See what he did there?  Sweat did better than Suit, but neither of them crushed the charts.  From either of them, "Body on Me," with Ashanti, is the hit with just over 10 million streams.

I don't recall ever hearing that song.  Like, ever.  But I do recall Akon now.  That guy was huge for a minute.  Not a great song.  Nelly released 5.0 in 2010, and one song on their blew up - "Just a Dream" fired up 140.2 million stinkin' plays.  Lets see what is up with that one.

Oh yeah.  I've heard that.  Honestly wouldn't have said it was Nelly on that one.  363 million views of the YouTube video!  Might be his biggest tune, now that I see that.  In 2013, he released M.O., his final album (as of now), and it has a collaboration with Florida Georgia Line, which is the most depressing sentence I can think of writing.  Also has songs with Future, T.I., Nicki Minaj, and a bunch of others - but those don't have much in the way of streams.  Somehow, one without a collab is the top song from this album, "Hey Porsche," with 41.6 million streams.

Oh God.  No.  Oh, what just ...  oh, my ears ...  Please God, make that stop!  What is happening?  NOOOOOOOO!!!  I would not advise listening to that rap/EDM/Country pile of shit.  Just avoid it at all costs.  Stick to the good old stuff.  And a quick run through the rest of this album finds the songs more generally terrible, and not so especially, intentionally, horrifically awful.  But this album is bad.  

Nelly should stick to his post-rap life, of being a generally good dude in the St. Louis community (and not the part of his post rap life that includes two sexual assault charges).  Or acting!  He was pretty solid as generic inmate #7 in the remake of the Longest Yard.  Just stop making bad new rap.  Either make rad old rap like you used to, or keep collecting a million pounds of food to fight hunger.

I will not see this show, but if you are in the park on Saturday night of first weekend and somehow fail to go to this show, then you are dead inside.