I just realised I promised to post my reivew of Folklore for my school paper a while ago. Here it is. It's the same layout I used for my school paper... minus the names. If you wanna see it all layed out,
click here.
In 2000, Nelly Furtado hit the scene with Whoa, Nelly. Her first single was the annoying yet unbelievably catchy tune ?I?m Like A Bird.? Soon, the song lost some of it's annoying qualities and easily became a huge hit on many radio stations as well as MTV?s Total Request Live. Her second single, ?Turn Off The Light,? reached the ears of producer Timbaland who took the single and ran with it. Timbaland?s remix of TOTL included bright hip-hop beats and an appearance from up-and-coming rapper Ms. Jade. Rapper/producer Missy Elliott also took advantage of Nelly Furtado?s style by allowing her to remake the popular ?Get Ur Freak On? in which Nelly raps as if the song were her own. With it's easy-to-swallow pop backgrounds and it's bright, luminous sound, Whoa, Nelly seemed to have struck gold with these producers as well as the general public.
On Nelly?s second album Folklore, she develops her love of her Portuguese heritage and takes her pop music to another level. Once again, Ms. Furtado mixes trip-hop, hip-hop, pop, rock and some latin flavour into one 12-track CD. The album begins with Nelly stating, ?I am not a one-trick pony? and continues in ?Powerless? with ?paint my face in your magazines / Make it look whiter than it seems / Paint me over with your dreams / And shove away my ethnicity.? Folklore includes easy-to-swallow pop beats and develops them with maturity that usually is not seen on many artists? sophomore attempts.
All of the tracks on Folklore are songs that can be liked, but like Whoa, Nelly, it may take a while to digest them. Upon my first listen, I hated every single track on Folklore but after one more listen, I couldn?t stop playing it! Nelly, with her amazing but unusually nasal voice, pulls off an album that is complete ear candy with jubilant yet murky lyrics. From her powerhouse rock ballad ?Try,? to her catchy immigration tale ?Fresh Off the Boat,? to the ?EuroCup? anthem of 2004 ?For?a? (which loosely means ?kick butt!?), Folklore is an album for all people of all walks of life. It creatively mixes all genres of music into what some would call world music, trip-hop or adult alternative but Nelly makes a brand of music that is all her own. **** (4/5 stars)
While I am not an avid listener of music, I do like many different styles of music and Nelly Furtado seems to be able to mix many different styles of music into her CD Folklore. I was only familiar with her single ?I?m Like A Bird? off of her first album, but from listening to Folklore I can see songs such as ?Try,? ?Explode,? and ?Powerless? becoming popular if they haven?t already. Overall, I felt Folklore started very strongly and then I seemed to lose interest in the songs at the back end of the CD, such as: ?The Grass Is Green,? ?Picture Perfect,? Saturdays,? Build You Up,? and ?Island of Wonder.? I?ll give it 3? stars ? not too bad. ***? (3? stars)
I didn?t enjoy this CD that much because I thought it was pretty boring. The lyrical content as well as the music itself was nothing special. I?d probably give the CD one star because one star means that it wasn?t good. So 1 star naturally will reprisent my opinion of the music on the CD. * (1 star)
I?m not into that kind of music but I did like the variety of instruments used. I like to hear groups use different sounding instruments instead of just synthesizers. The first song, ?One-Trick Pony,? had a banjo n it. Most bands today rarely ever do that and I liked that a lot. As for the overall CD, It was good but the songs weren?t as catchy as her previous hit ?I?m Like A Bird.? It [the album] was still very well put together. *** (3 stars)