★★★★★
Wasup? It doesn't seem like it but Nelly has been around for 11 or 12 years... Yeah, time flies... In these years, Nelly has done a pretty good job at always staying hip (did Neo just use the word "hip" in 2013?) to the sound that is popping in the clubs and on radio stations, from the Country Grammar album to his last album before this one, Brass Knuckles...
- www.musicreview.co.za
2013-12-12
★★★★★
Nelly's seventh album opens strong with a brilliantly chill Nicki Minaj cameo on a gloriously narcotic Pharrell track ("Get Like Me") and a characteristically romantic turn from Future ("Give U Dat"), but wraps weakly with a jangly jam featuring country duo Florida Georgia Line and a cheesy ballad with Nelly Furtado. Nelly the rapper can still pull big guests but isn't sure whether to shout, whisper or sing to get our attention. He tries airy pop-hop on "Heaven" and calls in T.I...
- www.rollingstone.com
2013-10-08
★★★★★
What is Cornell Haynes rocking that's "5.0" this go around? Is it a new turbo-powered engine in a super-expensive foreign luxury car? Is it a custom line of Air Force Ones that you can't buy at retail? Is it a bottle of champagne that's so exclusive they numbered it and shipped it to Nelly directly? Well as it turns out Mr. Haynes has multiple meanings for it - and one of them is automotive after all - a shoutout to his beloved Ford Mustang...
- rapreviews.com
2010-11-29
★★★★★
Writing off a rap album based on its guest stars may be like judging a book by its cover, but doing so might save you from the crushing blandness of Nelly's 5.0, whose lame crop of collaborators signals the mediocrity in store. A collection of collaborations with low-wattage names and also-rans, it basically indicates that even if Nelly is still trying (which he doesn't seem to be), he hasn't sustained the credibility to achieve a plausible comeback...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2010-11-22
★★★★★
It might be an accident that the word "gone'' appears in the title of two key tracks on Nelly's comeback, but you get the sense that the St. Louis MC realizes that if he didn't fire up a hit-laden set, his teetering career might vanish. Nelly has recruited an all-star supporting cast and emerged with a tuneful mainstream effort that should yield a number of hits...
- www.boston.com
2010-11-15
★★★★★
The onetime megastar ended a years-long dry spell this summer with smash single "Just a Dream," and on 5.0 Nelly makes a reasonably convincing case that he can keep the momentum going. He has recovered his pop instincts, slinging singsong rhymes over energetic beats courtesy of 2010's biggest producers (including Dr. Luke and Jim Jonsin). His lyrics are vacuous as ever, but those hooks sure are sticky.
- ew.com
2010-11-15
★★★★★
This half of the double-album debacle, otherwise known as "this one's for the ladies" or "I can dress like Kanye too," is also not good. He ruins a potentially incredible collaboration between Ron Isley and Snoop Dogg on She Don't Know My Name, and another with Tim McGraw on Over and Over. I know - Tim McGraw - who could ruin that? The highlight of this album is reading the liner notes to see how the copyright dudes get around the P...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
We need a Nelly double CD as much as we need two new reviews of his albums, so, in that self-indulgent spirit, here we go. Nelly, who I've long suspected as being as dumb as a Bush, puts all his mediocre monkeys in this one barrel. He samples shamelessly from Curtis Mayfield's Superfly on Tilt Ya Head Back with Christina Aguilera, then ruins a Neptunes beat before going on to artistically castrate Mobb Deep on Playa, a task that almost deserves respect...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
Given that every genre has its "pop" extrapolation, Nelly's latest pop-hop release isn't the worst thing in the world. But it also means a total, total dumbing down: the West Coast song with Snoop and Nate Dogg is called LA; the club song with Fergie is called Party People (titled, one imagines, so ad execs wouldn't have to listen to anything before slotting it in)...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
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