Nelly ft. Akon & Ashanti - 'Body On Me'
Can you imagine how different the history of pop music would have been if the words 'walking' and 'talking' did not rhyme? I mean if English were not the principal language of popular song, maybe there would have to be another way of summarising the devastating effect of a hot stranger on the eye. Perhaps strolling and chatting wouldn't be the main focus, and there would be more attention paid to the way someone laughs and the way they dance (assuming the words for laughing and dancing rhymed, obviously). Or the way they write and the way they kick a football.
It would certainly make the lyrics to 'Biology' by Girls Aloud a lot more bizarre.
In the case of this song, the thought only popped up because Akon's contributions to Nelly's latest sex-athon sound a smidge uninspired. For starters he's got Sean Kingston's robo-vocoder effect on his voice. and the line "you're the one I want to spend this night with" is less than elegant. Especially when Nelly seems to have really put his back into coming up with the goods for his bits, and Ashanti is as frosty-cool as ever.
In fact, if this doesn't sound like the wrongest sentence to ever appear on ChartBlog, you wannabe rappers should really put some time into studying Nelly's bits. The man knows how to spin a yarn, rather than going the Akon dog-in-heat route of basically just saying "hey, you're sexy, I'm sexy, you want me, I want you, let's do sexy things, yeah? Yeah? YEAH?".
He's able to provide a decent scenario in which the hot mama he has his eye on is being mistreated by her man (the fact that she has a man proves she is not a minger, you see. Nelly has standards to maintain. And I said HAS a man, not IS a man). This give Nel the chance to offer a shoulder to cry on, and other body parts to do other stuff with, should the poor love feel the urge.
Which means 'Body On Me' is that rarest of beasts, a song which actually becomes LESS interesting during the chorus. Although, you can rescue the situation if you imagine that the bits Nelly sings are what he says to the girl, and the bits Akon sings are a window into what Nelly is actually thinking. Then the whole thing suddenly becomes a lot better.
Not for the poor girl, of course. It's a frying pan/fire situation for her.
Damn you, The English Language!
Download: Out now
CD Released: August 11th
(Fraser McAlpine)
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