Aiming to capitalize on "Just a Dream," his biggest hit in a half-decade, Missouri's favorite rapper ends his sixth album with another soft-rock-tinged ballad — "Nothing Without Her," about taming a bad girl. On his way there, he essays a few fashionably global-sounding electro-club tracks, including an Auto-Tuned one with T-Pain and Akon, and at least four numbers where he swipes guys' girlfriends. Keri Hilson and Kelly Rowland help him stretch out; Plies, Yo Gotti and T.I. add muscle. But the strut swings most distinctively in "1000 Stacks," where a Biggie sample inspires Nelly to approximate the country grammar he came up on.

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“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."