Klublife: Nelly Furtado Loosens Up

[hootiehoo]

Nelly Furtado Loosens Up

Words: Karen Bliss

?Every time I make another album, I?m like (puts on bratty voice), ?I don?t want to make another album. I?m not doing this anymore,?? says Nelly Furtado, laughing. ?And then I start making the music and it just overcomes me.


?I guess, when you?re a mother too, your job better be pretty damn fun to leave the house (laughs). It better be good to attract you. And that?s why. The music just felt so good that I?m like, ?I?m so there.? I?m so excited for people to hear this album.?


The 27-year-old is the young mother of daughter Nevis, and one can clearly see in the new videos and promo shots that she is still trim and radiant, so why not be sexy too? It?s a part of her that she didn?t blatantly explore for her previous albums, 2000?s Whoa, Nelly! and 2003?s Folklore.
On the new album, Loose, the club-oriented track ?Promiscuous? is the first single in North America, while the rockier dance grind, ?Maneater,? is the single overseas. Both videos are plot-less dance club scenes, and Furtado looks hot.


?I?m not wearing booty shorts, but I?m sexy in a different kind of way,? says Furtado. ?It?s not extreme. It?s just fun.?


Told that the album, as a whole, is fun and youthful and she doesn?t have to make ?mom? music yet and Furtado says, ?It was a really fun album. I was in a youthful state of mind.?

The majority of Loose was recorded in Miami with top producer Timbaland (Missy Elliott, Justin Timberlake) and Furtado naturally brought her daughter with her. ?I had a good life last year. I?m taking my toddler to SeaWorld by day and recording club tracks with Timbaland by night. It was pretty good,? she says.

?And I was in that youthful state of mind,? she reinforces, ?where I was like, ?Why not?? That?s why it?s called Loose ? let go of all your preconceived notions of what quote-unquote ?good,? quote-endquote ? musical? music is, and just let it go, and Tim is so about that. He?s so about letting it go and just feel. If he doesn?t feel it, he?ll throw it in the trash.?

While the singles might be sexy and suggestive ? more in the vein of the Black Eyed Peas, the Pussycat Dolls and Gwen Stefani than anything we?ve heard before from Furtado ? other songs are quite deep and vulnerable, such as ?Showtime? and ?Wait For You.? One of the stand-outs, the Rick Nowels-produced ballad, ?In God?s Hands,? is a beautiful lament, pure and classic that showcases her voice.

Furtado also includes the Spanish-language percussive hop ?No Hay Igual? and ballad ?Te Busque.? ?I caught the Miami fever and I just started speaking in Spanish more than Portuguese,? she explains with a laugh.

Furtado was born in Victoria, BC, to Portuguese-Azorean parents. At age nine, she picked up the trumpet and ukulele, then added piano around age 11. About two years later, she started writing songs and freestyling/singing. After graduating from high school, she moved to Toronto, where she formed a trip hop duo called Nelstar in 1997. Selected to perform one solo song at Toronto?s all-female talent showcase Honey Jam, LAL singer Rosina Kazi told The Philosopher Kings manager Chris Smith to check Furtado out. He brought P-Kings frontman Gerald Eaton and saw something special in this spunky young dynamo.

Eaton and his production partner Brian West (a.k.a. Track And Field) would go on to co-produce the tracks that landed her a deal with Dreamworks and the creation of her debut album, Whoa, Nelly! It sold about six million copies worldwide, earned four Grammy nominations and a win for best female pop vocal. The follow-up, Folklore, came out in 2003 and included ?For?a,? which was named the official song for UEFA Euro 2004. At the end of the album cycle, it had sold more than1.5 million copies.

Some people may be surprised by Furtado?s shift in vocal style on many of the Loose tracks from playful talk-style to trashy come-on to rank-joining emotive singing.


?It?s funny because I think you do have to exaggerate to be different when you?re an artist,? Furtado says. ?Sometimes, as an artist, you are so sensitive you think little subtle differences people are going to hear them, but they?re not.


?In the pop world, Avril is Avril; Peaches is Peaches, you know, so you kind of have to push it a little. I think in the studio, even with ?Promiscuous,? initially I was like, ?I don?t know. I don?t know if I can do it,? ?cause Timbaland wrote that chorus. He?s like, ?Hey, check that out.? And I?m like, ?That?s cool, but I don?t know if I?m ready to do full-out club.?


Obviously, she?s ready.
http://www.klublife.com/content/view/163/1/

[Arabesque]

LOL thanks alot for that! I thought Nelly did Trombone...

[ONE TRICK DI]

I Like The Review thanks