I
t’s only been two years since we were
last graced with the vocal presence of
Nelly Furtado on her Greatest Hits
album, but boy doesn’t it feel like a
lifetime? Her noticeable absence from
our radios, the red carpet and industry
events has left our hearts and ears yearning
for her eclectic and cultural voice. But with
the release of her comeback single ‘Big
Hoops (The Bigger The Better)’ in June of
this year and most recently her brand new
single ‘Parking Lot’, she has well and truly
affirmed her return to the international
music charts, and it was then we realised
just how much we had missed her!
Although it may seem like she has been
away for forever and a day, Nelly has stuck
to her ‘three-year’ rule whereby she
pledged that she would release a studio
album every three years without fail.
During her time away from the bright
spotlight that is show business, Nelly has
been taking a well-deserved break following
the success of her Spanish album,
Mi Plan
.
To the world it would have appeared as
if the music industry had become far too
eccentric and theatrical for Nelly Furtado
to stage a head-turning comeback onto
our screens, but not one to disappoint she
has returned
‘
the bigger the better’
and even
taller (thanks to video technology and stilts
in her ‘Big Hoops’ video, presumably) than
ever before. She has acknowledged that
music trends, performers and the industry
has changed but confidently asserts that
“
All of my influences are so wide that now
I think in the musical climate that we live
in, people can understand my influences
better and I kind of make more sense in
today’s musical world.”
It’s fair to say that Nelly Furtado has
had a flourishing and glowing career as an
artist. She has been professionally dabbling
in the world of music for over 10 years
now; breaking the industry’s ’10-year-itch’
that sees artists either disappear from our
screens or eventually burn out! Over the
years, her sound has varied dramatically
but that is all part of Nelly’s appeal and
it’s something we have come to love and
accept. She is especially proud of her
heterogeneous sound and claims that she
“
never wanted to be a part of corporate
music.” Calling Toronto, the city where she
grew up,“the most multicultural city in the
entire world”, it is no surprise to find that
her music career has been influenced by a
spectrum of genres from drum and bass
and world music to folk music and R’n’B.
Remember when she burst onto our
screens and radio in 2001 with her debut
single ‘I’m LikeA Bird’; it was the catchiness
of the song and yet the simple message of
it that enabled it to become one of the
most successful singles of 2001. It not only
went to number one in her home country
of Canada, but it peaked at number five in
the UK singles chart and was then awarded
a Juno Award for Single of theYear! Calling
it her “freedom song”, Nelly was unaware
that the refreshing yet pop-inspired tune
would become her signature melody.
Her debut album,
Whoa Nelly
which she
co-produced was equally as successful
because of the cultural, heartfelt yet upbeat
sound it bestowed upon our ears. Songs
like ‘Turn off the Light’ made the album an
international success. It won four Grammy
nominations, with her debut single winning
‘
Best Female Pop Vocal Performance’. Not
bad for her first year as a singer!
With the release of Nelly’s second
studio album,
Folklore
in 2003, it was
then that her fans, critics and industry
counterparts realised that her sound could
travel deeper, further and edgier than we
could have imagined. Rather than stick to
one generic resonance, Nelly produced an
album that had a rockier and more soulful
tone to it. She took inspiration from her
parents’ immigration to Canada and her
NELLY F
‘
Turn off the Light’
made the album an
international success.
It won four Grammy
nominations, with her
debut single winning
‘
Best Female Pop Vocal
Performance’.
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