Two New Nelly Songs You're Going To Be Upset About
I’ll be brief.
Recording artist and known Benzie enthusiast Nelly is gearing up to release a new album later this summer, to be called M.O.
Naturally, pop radio has gotten ahold of two new singles in anticipation. And by “anticipation,” I mean someone on Nelly’s team is paying good ke$ha to make sure that we might remember Nelly as more than just that guy with the one song about “riding with me."
Unfortunately, neither of these two songs even come close to touching the greatness of that song. Let’s dive in.
First up, “Hey Porsche.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh1ZFNoREjg]
“Wait a minute,” you say to yourself, “isn’t a Porsche a kind of car?” You’re totally right. Unfortunately, Nelly M. Shakespeare has taken it to another level. This is, on the surface, a song about a girl who also happens to be named Porsche. You better believe Nelly has several metaphors about “trying her out,” “working underneath her,” etc.
Lyrically, this song shoots to emulate R. Kelly’s classic “Ignition” (I’m talking the original version here, folks). Unfortunately, Kellz is much better than Nelly at drawing out the metaphor and didn’t have to rely on naming a girl after a car in order to get the point across. He also went there 10 years ago. Nelly himself seems aware of the obvious similarities, singing at one point, “No keys, push start to ignition.” Dude, it’s sexier when something has to be inserted.
And musically, what is this: Flo Rida? Seriously, this sounds like a demo that Flo himself would have passed on. I’m not saying “Whistle” is better – I wouldn’t heap that criticism upon my worst enemy – but at least that song has a distinct hook that, like it or not, will get stuck in your head.
“Cruise”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmZ9xRO7M9M]
Radio DJs have been lazy in clarifying who’s actually behind this song. Imagine my relief when I found out that country music duo Florida Georgia Line are in fact, the “brains” behind this. I say “brains” in quote marks because this song is painfully mindless.“Baby you a song/ you make me wanna roll my windows down/ and cruise.” I’m really glad they tacked on “and cruise” there at the end, because I was worried the object of affection in this song might smell unpleasant and require some fresh air in the car.
Seriously, though, I was really relieved when I discovered that it’s not Nelly who sings most of this maybe-a-B-minus-in-7th-grade-in-1994-caliber song. The Nell Dog shows up late in the song to add pretty much nothing new at all. Want a better song that compares a cute lil’ mama to a song? Try 2009’s“Replay” by Iyaz, or even “It Girl” by Jason Derulo. It’s not hard to write a good pop song about this. You just need to not have music that makes the listener want to drive their Chevy into the nearest ditch.
Nelly! Your songs used to have clever, quick lines and fantastic hooks (To this day, has anyone forgot the hook to “CountryGrammar,” despite the fact that it’s borderline nonsense?). That line in “Ride Wit Me” about “sitting next to Vanna White”? C’mon!
Our only hope is that this is some Joaquin Phoenix-esque smokescreen, and that Nelly’s new album will actually be groundbreaking and well thought-out. Yeah, that’s probably it.
