Nelly's debut album, Country Grammar, was a left-field surprise smash hit, racking up a number of hits and turning the Midwestern pop-rapper into an overnight superstar. It's perhaps little surprise then that his follow-up, Nellyville, sticks to the script. Like Country Grammar, it's produced almost entirely by newcomer Jason "Jay E" Epperson, and it too relies on catchy, singalong hooks that are more pop than rap. Moreover, there are some clear, clever rewrites here, with {&"Pimp Juic...   [ read more ]

CD $13.25

Nelly Furtado's Whoa, Nelly! is one of those albums that's designed to be a surprising, precocious debut -- the kind of record that's meant to make a listener exclaim, well, "whoa nelly" upon the first spin. From that first play, it's evident that Furtado is indeed an audacious songwriter, not at all hesitant to bare her emotions, tackle winding melodies, and bend boundaries to the point that much of the record sounds like folk-pop tinged with bossa nova and backed by a production designed for {$T...   [ read more ]

CD $18.03

By the time of Country Grammar's release in summer 2000, the album's title track had become a major hit single for the previously unknown St. Louis rapper Nelly, who was making his national debut. In particular, the song's tongue-twisting chorus is downright infectious: "I'm goin down down baby, yo' street in a Range Rover/Street sweeper, baby, cocked ready to let it go/Shimmy shimmy cocoa what? Listen to it pound/Light it up and take a puff, pass it to me now" -- or something like that. There are ma...   [ read more ]

CD $13.25