Nelly Furtado's International Dance Party Extravaganza Lives Up

The Good: Great voice - when you can hear it, Catchy tunes, Good lyrics
The Bad: Interstitials, Guest artists, Overproducing over voice
The Basics: On her third album, Nelly Furtado creates music with heavy bass and great lyrics, but dilutes the experience with ridiculous dialogue between tracks and overproduction.


The irony of my review of Nelly Furtado's album Loose is that what I don't like about the disc is almost entirely what attracted me to the experience in the first place. Nelly Furtado's first three singles from Loose, were dance tracks designed to get people moving. When I first heard the licks of Furtado's voice with the instrumentals to "Promiscuous" on a cell phone commercial, I was entranced. I barely caught "Maneater" on the radio, so it always was a pleasure to hear and "Say It Right" is a great pop-rock song that I still enjoy hearing. But all three singles are essentially dance tracks. They are designed to get the listener to move.

With thirteen tracks, Loose finds Nelly Furtado stretching out as an artist, though she was certainly artist enough before. Furtado continues her tradition of writing her own lyrics (or writing them with other people) and she sings and does her own background vocals. Unlike her first album, Whoa, Nelly! (reviewed here!), Furtado does not play any instruments on Loose.

Much of the review of Loose can be boiled down into the following concept: Nelly Furtado is a talented singer/songwriter but on Loose, the emphasis on production and not voice obscures most of her best work. The album becomes obsessed with occupying the border of pop and hip-hop and Furtado's lines that could be soulful are sent to the programmer for the DJs to spin as dance tracks. Almost all of the songs have a pounding drum that is designed to resonate within the listener. If one were to dance to all of Loose the way the beats dictate, they would likely collapse before "Showtime," the first slow track (there are only three on the album).

That said, Furtado's production is generally very slick and cool. The songs are designed to make one dance and the strong combination of drums and keyboards with very catchy tunes makes it easy to listen to this album. And for the intent of the album, to be a hip-hop/pop/dance album, the disc is remarkably consistent, so many other tracks like "Afraid," "Glow," and "Do It" could have been singles.

I am pleased - because ultimately I would prefer the singles from this album on some future "Best Of" album to the actual album Loose - that Furtado has released "All Good Things (Come To An End)" as her fourth US single off Loose; it is by far the outstanding track of the disc. It is the lone track that Furtado's voice is not stepped on by the production or she is not encouraged to sing with a nasal sound ("Te Busque" suffers in her performance because she foregoes her natural voice at times for the somewhat nasal sound she - and other pop artists - seem to be encouraged to affect).

"All Good Things (Come To An End)" is a beautiful poem with - essentially - two intertwined poems. Furtado softly laments, "Flames to dust, lovers to friends / Why do all good things come to an end?" and quietly harmonizes, "The dogs were whistling a new tune / Barking at the new moon / Hoping it would come soon / So that they could die." It's beautiful and eerie and Furtado's voice so amazingly captures the poetics that it resonates in the listener's head long after she finished the song.

It's too bad it's followed by the bonus track "Te Busque" (in Spanish!). The thing is, outside "All Good Things (Come To An End)," this could be anybody's album. Most of the tracks are produced by Timbaland or Attitude, who both appear on tracks on the album (Timbaland is well known for his appearance on "Promiscuous," but he also appears doing background vocals for "Say It Right" and "Maneater," Attitude opens the album with "Afraid"). But the tracks lack any real distinction in sound, so the generic dance sound feels like could be coming from anyone. "Do It" sounds like Paula Abdul, in fact. Only "In God's Hands" and "All Good Things (Come To An End)" play out with vocals that are distinctly Furtado's.

What disappointed me even more was the obsession with creating an album that was more recognizable as a pop/hip-hop album. That includes, in this case, intertrack remarks and dialogue. Furtado and Timbaland open "Promiscuous" with a conversation that detracts from the experience of the music; the song loses any seductive quality through their breach, which is closest to a break in the fourth wall that a c.d. could have.

That and the tradition - prevalent in rap, r&b, and hip-hop albums and now making its way firmly into the pop arena (there's another thing for me to hate Justin Timberlake for!) - of including guest artists on almost every track of the disc. I don't want a Timbaland disc (he does drumming on most of the tracks), I want a Nelly Furtado disc. I don't care how Attitude would produce the album, I want something that screams "Nelly Furtado!" to me.

That's not to say that I do not welcome growth from an artist, I certainly do. The growth I would like to see from Furtado is to utilize her voice, unabashedly. To put her poems to music that does justice to her lines. I would like to hear an album by her that is acoustic and intimate and clever, perhaps where she is playing an instrument. At the very least, I would love to hear her utilizing her words, lyrics, voice and vision.

But then, that's not what hooked me to give this album a chance from the outset.

The best track is "All Good Things (Come To An End)," which is haunting and brilliant and will never achieve the dominance on the charts it deserves (fourth singles seldom go as high as they ought), the low point of the album is the terribly repetitive "Showtime."

For contemporaries of Nelly Furtado, check out my reviews of:
Monkey Business - Black Eyed Peas
The Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani
One Cell In The Sea - A Fine Frenzy

7/10

For other music reviews, please visit my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

How To Record Like A One-Hit Wonder – Nelly Furtado’s Whoa, Nelly!

The Good: Some decent lyrics, Moments where vocals reach potential
The Bad: Inconsistent music, attitude, bulk of vocals fall short of potential
The Basics: With a disappointingly average debut, Nelly Furtado creates a remarkably inconsistent album with generally decent poetry and buckshot musical styles.


I like to listen to artists in order of creation, enjoying for those I see potential in to listen to the potential evolve - hopefully - into the potential actualized. Listening to the last three radio singles by Nelly Furtado has encouraged me to listen to her latest album, but before I did that I wanted to listen to her debut. The truth is, I had been tempted to pick up Whoa, Nelly! when "I'm Like A Bird" debuted. I have a thing about trying to support new artists. As it is, I withdrew when her second single from Whoa, Nelly!, "Turn Off The Light" was released. It convinced me that Nelly Furtado was a one-hit wonder. In fact, I recall distinctly reading an article on Michelle Branch where Branch was gushing over meeting Nelly Furtado and my sentiment was that Branch had it backwards. I see Michelle Branch as having longer term appeal and staying power than Furtado.

Listening to Whoa, Nelly! did not change that feeling at all, even knowing the massive success Furtado is having with her current endeavor.

Whoa, Nelly! is a solidly pop music debut for recording artist Nelly Furtado and to her credit, Furtado deserves the distinction of being acknowledged as an artist; she wrote or co-wrote all twelve tracks on Whoa, Nelly! Her two hit singles from the album were solely written by her and Nelly Furtado plays acoustic guitar on the second track on the disc.

The thing about "I'm Like A Bird," when I heard it on the radio, was that it seemed instantly like Furtado had a great vocal potential. There are moments on her first single where she has a beautiful, bold voice that explodes as an emotive force that captivates the listener. When she poetically cries out, "And though my love is rare / Though my love is true / I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away . . ." it is wrenching and amazing.

But within a line she reveals the weakness that crops up throughout Whoa, Nelly!, which is a tendency to devolve into the popular music tendency to produce a nasal, whiny sound. A perfect example of this comes from Britney Spears; listen to her when she is natural vs. when she is produced, so many of her songs take on an annoying nasal quality that is a rejection of any natural talent she possesses. Similarly, when Furtado wretches out "Your faith in me brings me to tears / Even after all these years / And it pains me so much to tell . . ." there is that same lack of natural voice that Spears invokes. It mortgages natural talent for something someone somewhere has defined as more marketable. They're wrong.

I am able to say that because several of Furtado's tracks use a very natural vocal sound. Despite the lack of lyrical quality of "Shit On The Radio (Remember The Days)," the song sounds very effortless for Furtado. Similarly, the quality of Furtado's voice is undeniable on "Legend" as she opens with "He wants to be, he wants to be, with everything under the sun / He wants to be, he wants to be, with everything under the sun / And like a legend that rises and then falls I cannot be his only one . . ."

Conversely, "Baby Girl" is almost unlistenable with its nasal sound. Furtado's natural voice is almost completely obscured by an affect that makes the lyrics more of a whiny shriek than and articulate expression of poetry.

And Furtado is a fairly diverse poet, taking on love, having fun, and teenage sexuality on Whoa, Nelly! The album is filled with the angst of leaving relationships, not wanting to be tied down and the desire for something meaningful. It is worthy of credit that she is willing to put so much of herself out in her debut.

While the lyrical diversity is a strength, her musical diversity comes across as a weakness on Whoa, Nelly! I respect an artist willing to use more than guitars, drum, piano and bass. Furtado does that, opening the album - in fact - with violins. The problem here is that for a debut pop recording, something Furtado states in the liner notes she is trying to create, this effect of having so many different sounds has a net result of seeming like the buckshot approach to creating music. It is like Furtado does not know what she wants to do with her poetry, so it all is jumbled together and the listener is left without the cohesive experience of an album that one might want. Interestingly enough, I believe the album is stronger as singles than as an album. More of the singles could have done well in different markets, but the problem is putting them side by side - at least the way they are on Whoa, Nelly! results in a listening experience that is more haphazard than cohesive and diverse.

Whoa, Nelly! has the trappings of a one-hit wonder with "I'm Like A Bird" as the distinctive track which was rightly promoted as the best single. I'm surprised Furtado went with the dance track "Turn Off The Light" as the second track, as opposed to the much more soulful "Legend." But then, having listened to the album and seeing the choices her record company went with, I'm not surprised that Whoa, Nelly! did not achieve more success and Furtado's career did not explode into immediate success.

The best track is "I'm Like A Bird," and despite a lot of inconsistency in the latter half of the album, the third track, "Baby Girl" stands out as the lowest point of the album.

For other pop music albums, please visit the reviews of:
Hotel Paper - Michelle Branch
Bomb In A Birdcage - A Fine Frenzy
Tigerlily - Natalie Merchant

4.5/10

For other music reviews, be sure to check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Max Payne Is NOT Constantine 2!

The Good: Decent enough acting, Decent special effects, Moments of plot/concept
The Bad: Character elements seem predictable, Guts plot for franchise, Misrepresented for what it is.
The Basics: Painted as a very different type action adventure film, Max Payne suffers most of the most predictable conceits of the genre.


There is a certain element of appropriate irony in the fact that just yesterday I was speaking with a friend about previews and what a movie needs as far as a preview goes in order to be all right in my book. The Watchmen preview, for example, told me virtually nothing about the film and made it THE film I most anticipated until it came out. But there are two types of previews I loathe. The first are previews that essentially show the entire movie in the preview. Today, I saw previews for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and Rocknrolla that gave me enough information to write a review on them! Seriously. The type of preview that my friend hates are misleading previews, ones that set you up for one type of movie before showing you a completely different one.

The reason I mention that is that after weeks of going to films on the studio's dime, I decided to actually add to my ticket stub collection and go see Max Payne based on the strength of the previews. The previews show a movie that is reminiscent of Constantine (reviewed here!) with soldiers for heaven and hell lining up and doing battle. Say what I will about religious fundamentalism as a political tool, movies with good versus evil duking it out with supernatural aid from divine forces of good and evil can make for entertaining movies. It was only moments before going to the theater to watch Max Payne that I learned that this film was based upon a video game. Considering my last experience with such a film, Silent Hill, one might have thought I would have been more cautious. It's too bad I wasn't. I mention this because Max Payne falls into the latter type of rotten preview, setting the viewer up for a movie quite different from what it was. In fact, I'd swear some of the lines were put into the movie just so they could go in the trailer to paint this out to be a Constantine-type film. It, however, is not.

Max Payne, police detective for New York City's Cold Case Unit, has been thrown under the icy waters of the river and he is sinking, dying, sure to be dredged up in the spring with all the rest of the ordinary human bodies he is sinking toward. One week before he meets his untimely end, Payne is hunting criminals, a druggie named Doug who he has been led to believe has information on the last person responsible for killing his wife three years before. Obsessed with finding the one who got away, Payne has been scouring the City, but Doug comes up empty. This leads Payne to his informant's social gathering where he meets Natasha, whom he takes home. After not getting much from her, she picks his pocket, walks out and is promptly torn into dozens of pieces by who knows what.

Payne's former partner, Alex, finds Max's wallet and reunites with him, quickly finding a link between Natasha's death and the death of Michelle Payne. This discovery quickly costs him his life and Max works to avenge the death of his wife, Natasha and Alex with the help of his father's former partner, BB Hensley, who now works the security division at Aesir Pharmaceuticals. Pursued by the killers and an Internal Affairs officer named Bravura, Max works to avenge their deaths while unraveling what got them all killed, while staying alive himself.

It wasn't long into Max Payne that I had judged this an average action adventure film, a pretty firm five out of ten on the ten point scale. The closing credit sequence of big, dumb gun shots only cemented my feeling about this average flick. What was it about the last fifteen minutes? Well, they pretty much undo the prior hour and a half that preceded it.

Without ruining anything, the opening shots are leading up to Payne's drowning in icy water, so in some way the viewer has something to look forward to from the very beginning. In this sequence, we learn that Payne is just an ordinary man. Payne has no superhuman strengths, no special cunning, no advanced armaments, no powers. He's a human. Flat out. Given that, I was even willing to accept that the virtual army of professional security and paramilitary people who are set upon him all somehow manage to miss, even as he takes on several people with machine guns with only a handgun. I CAN buy into suspension of disbelief and enjoy myself. The problem, though, is that Payne gets tossed into the icy water fifteen minutes before the film ends and everything that follows is just garbage.

Max Payne suffers from a remarkably predictable plot. This is a straightforward revenge story, much like Payback (reviewed here!), save that our anti-hero is a police officer out to right a wrong. At the same time, Payne has to piece together clues as to what led to his wife's death and as far as the structure of the movie goes, I swear screenwriter Beau Thorne simply took all of the scenes from Dark City (reviewed here!) and changed the dialogue to fit this movie. All of the revelations and betrayals seem to come at virtually the identical moments as that vastly superior film (Bumstead is replaced by Mona Sax, Natasha's sister, for anyone who wants to do a comparative analysis).

In addition to being incredibly predictable, Max Payne has all of the obvious reversals one might expect from an action adventure film. The characters who seem his most loyal are, of course, the ones involved in the conspiracy and those who seem most shifty seem to stay on his good side. It's obvious and problematic in its simplicity.

As well, there is a very "video game" sensibility to the movie, though I was fine with that for most of the film. Payne runs around, gets shot at, learns a vital piece of information or gets a new gun before moving on to the next scene and that works. It even works when the massive exposition scene is given to the viewer explaining what is truly going on (it's pretty obvious by that point) and who the "big boss" is. But then, the film turns into something truly inane and guts itself of any credibility.

Actually, much of the premise is flawed from the moment that Natasha enters the film. Natasha, like a slew of the criminal underground characters is tattooed with a pair of wings on her arm (and yes, the tattoo is explained in the course of the movie). What Alex puts together is that her tattoo matches a tattoo on one of the people who killed Michelle Payne (and who Max killed as he tried to leave the house after the crime). We are meant to believe that Max Payne has risked his life and career for the past three years hunting for people related to the murder of his wife and he wouldn't have noticed the connection himself?! I can't say for sure, but one suspects that if one shot one of the people who killed his wife, he would remember what that dead guy on the floor he shot looked like, especially when the tattoo is facing plain sight. Usually, I have a problem with protagonists who are too smart, Max Payne is unbelievably dim when it comes to the events surrounding his wife's murder.

As well, more than any other film I can recall, Max Payne utilizes people off screen talking, usually in the form of shouting insults at Payne. This gets irritating by the third time it happens and it is hard to tell what the point is; the viewer gets that there are not a lot of people who like Payne!

What isn't baffling for its stupidity tends to be telegraphed well in advance. For example, Alex's wife, Christa, slaps Max when he comes to the wake and only someone who is asleep or has never seen a movie like this doesn't see it coming. Virtually every opportunity the film has to be groundbreaking and different, it mortgages. Nowhere is this more true than in the final fifteen minutes when the film sacrifices the dark noir for the potential of a franchise in the Max Payne-universe (don't believe me, stay through the credits for the scene after them!).

That said, Mark Wahlberg does fine as Payne. He is believable angry, even when he is unbelievably able to dodge bullets. Wahlberg has an intensity to him that works well for creating the steely resolve needed to believe in Payne's character. Mila Kunis and Olga Kurylenko are perfectly cast as sisters. Kunis gives a good performance as Mona, though in truth her ruthless mobster character seems less like a stretch than the next natural step from Kunis' character of Jackie on That 70's Show.

This is a pretty obvious action adventure film and the final insult in it comes in the nature of the drug that is seen from when Payne hunts Doug in the first ten minutes. Note to movie writers: The key to making great soldiers is not, in fact, making a soldier with heightened aggression (let's face it, it's not the chess club students who are being most hunted by recruiters), it's making one who can aim a gun and hit their mark more frequently. Sadly, Max Payne's writers miss that sensible concept and gut the principle along with virtually everything else in the movie.

For other works featuring Mila Kunis, please check out my reviews of:
Friends With Benefits
Black Swan
Family Guy Presents: It's A Trap
Date Night
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Index Page!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |