Folklore - review

Nelly furtado is a beautiful and intelligent person. I like her. It's a shame that I have to instantly compare this to her last album in order to demonstrate just how far she's fallen off, but in fact, I don't even have to do that. I only have to listen to 'Loose' a couple of times to figure out that this is one of the biggest musical dissapointments in recent memory. In fact, I'll be honest, I've only heard this album twice. The second time around was forced. I wouldn't normally have given it a second listen, but I did just to make absolutely sure.

Some albums grow on you, and some are bad on first listen. The experienced listener will know the difference. I'll give you an example: when I first heard Mos Def's sophomore release, 'The New Danger' I, just like everyone else who loved Mos Def because of his wonderful first album, was a little bit confused. The sound and style of his new album wasn't anything like what he had done before, and as a result there was nothing to compare it to. From that perspective most people felt they were justified in calling it a bad album. But it definitely wasn't bad, it was just different. There was just as much passion (probably more) on that album than on his debut, but it was just being displayed in a different musical context. And being the experienced listener I am, I didn't jump/abandon ship on my first listen, because I could hear that there was definitely 'something there'. It took a few more listens before I understood what that something was, and once I got it I was alive with Mos, dancing and wondering at his amazing new creation. With 'Loose' I knew on first listen that whilst Nelly Furtado has clearly gone in a different musical direction, (something which I find very hard to discourage) there was clearly something very wrong with the album.

So, what's wrong with 'Loose?' Does it lack passion? I don't know about that. I think the saddest part about it is that it does have a lot of energy and vibrancy to it, but that energy is spent on fruitless things. Timbaland is the producer, so you expect energy, but at the same time, you don't expect Nelly to completely hide one side of her (the human side, the side we all love the most) and focus only on up-tempo dirtyness, on music and subjects that, unlike her previous albums, are not very pretty, beautiful, funny or even fresh. Yes, there are a few ballads and slow songs on this album. But, I'm sorry, they're just awful. What you have is 80% crap club/dance tracks and 15% forced cheesiness in the form of the slow tracks. There was one song I liked.

As with her previous album she starts off with a song that partially revolves around audience reactions, 'So afraid of what people might say, but that's okay 'cos you're only human'. It sounds like Nelly doesn't it? And in many ways it's probably a pre-cursor, I'm sure she knows that a lot of people like me are not going to like her making an album about men an album filled with cheeky (and quite frankly, boring) sexual references. She's totally right. As for the first song, the guest MC'ing appearance doesn't do much for it, and the children sing-a-long at the end feels a little hollow to me personally. Not just because of the fact that it's been done a lot recently (everyone's heard Kanye's first album by now!) but even moreso because of the fact that those nice kids are immediately followed by that hideous song 'Maneater'. Maneater? Nelly?

Can I digress again? Thanks.

I remember back in the days when I was 19, 20 or so and I used to go clubbing. I did it because my friends did it, and also because there were lots of pretty women around. I didn't particularly like to dance, and actually I never did (except on the occasional Missy/Timberland & Neptune tracks). Of course it would nearly always be hip-hop and r'n'b nights that I went to, and yes, sometimes I'd have the nerve to feel slightly honoured when the DJ would do his half hour or so of old school joints, but for the most part, the stuff they played wasn't my kind of hip-hop, and I was foolish on the occasions that I felt at home with that style of music. There was no Outkast, no De La or Tribe, no Wu-Tang for goodness sake! It was just awful. One of the main things I remember, and this happened a fair few times during that period, was completely stopping. I stopped pretending to feel the rhythm and I stopped nodding my head (as I always did to stop people saying 'what's the matter man, why aren't you having a good time????' I stood there with my friends by the walls, still as possible for a good few moments as the music blared, and, in my mind, I just totally levelled with myself. I'd say something like 'What the hell are you doing?' If the music was particularly loud I might even whisper it out loud, but these were mostly very loud thoughts running through my head. Then I would listen to the actual lyrics of the songs, and a feeling of insanity overcame me, of total absurdity. The lyrics were so stupid, and even if they made some kind of sense, they were just so damn immoral, what kinds of idiots wrote these songs? How stupid did they think we were? And I looked around me and felt like I was the only one who thought this whole dark place was like a scene from hell.

The kinds of songs that they played on those nights, the songs that got all the stupid girls up off their arses in dancing frenzies, remind me a lot of the kind of songs that I hear on 'Loose'. Stupid songs. Songs that display a whole lot of energy and determination towards very bland goals, songs that tell you to move your body (in various ways) and so on. I'm not against music to dance to, how could I be? And I'm not against Nelly changing direction either. I am against her making an entire album of songs that used to be the unconvincing filler tracks which were all about 'energy' on her previous two albums (you know, those awful couple of songs that you always skipped on 'Whoa Nelly' and 'Folklore'). I don't really remember their names because I'm not one to dwell on negatives.

As I've indicated, I'm a huge fan of Timbaland and I suspect that I always will be. The man is gifted. The 80's keyboards on 'Promiscuous' are quite fun, and his beats aren't that horrible on their own. Also, as I've indicated, I'm a huge fan of Nelly Furtado too, and I probably will be again, I hope I will be. She's more than gifted, she's amazing. I don't think the mix of those two artists worked this time around, this is certainly not Timbo's best work musically, and I've said all I can on Nelly, in fact the less specifics I go into the better it will be. I think the only constructive thing to say is that whilst this is a pretty trashy album, as long as the reviews reflect that, then we can only expect improvements from here onwards.

Track 13, 'All Good Things' is actually quite nice. My advice is to go and download it (without paying). I have faith in Nelly, and I won't lose it. The the two other friends who I've spoken to about this album both lost their faith. One said to me that Nelly came across as 'full of herself', the other that she thought the video was all a joke and she was waiting for the real Nelly to show up and for the lyrics and music to suddenly change. I haven't seen the live show or the video's they were talking about, but the point is, I've never known a person who hasn't gone through a bad patch. I choose faith in the future over castigation in the present. As she said on the first track, she's only human. I'm not pretending for a second that such awful, message-less music doesn't bother me, but at the end of the day, I wouldn't even be paying attention if it were anyone else. The problem with 'Loose' is that it sounds exactly like everything else we hear these days. The solution is for Nelly to remember that throughout her career, she's always come across as someone who was special and who wanted to be unlike the rest. I think Nelly Furtado will come out on top again in the years to come. I'm happy about that prediction, although I'm equally sure that when she does return to form, it's not going to have the same selling-power as this nonsense. I'm sure this nonsense has sold very well.

It's called 'Loose' because it isn't firm. It slips out of your mind very quickly. It's not memorable as a listening, emotional or artistic experience. It's a one-night stand.

As for you Nelly, the world kindly requests that you rise up again and make more music for our ears. I'd rather hear your beautiful soul than see your beautiful face.

Y.Misdaq aka Yoshi, 8 July (edited 22 Aug) 2006