Lucky number 7: While not only being her seventh longplayer out, it’s also been seven years since her last released album “The Ride”. And the album title speaks for itself – it’s been nothing but a great big ride in the music career of Nelly Furtado. Folk, pop, dance, R&B – you name it. Her introduction with “I’m Like A Bird” in the start of the millennium literally translates to her open space pathway in the lyrics singing “I don’t know where my soul is, I don’t know where my home is”. And while albums “Woah, Nelly!” (2000) and “Folklore” (2003) kept a steady development in a folky-pop world with hits like “Turn Off The Light”, “Powerless (Say What You Want)”, and “Força”, it was her craving for a so-called open sound for big crowds and large venues that made people turn heads in 2006: No more cute singer in an alternative pop world, let’s scrap it for commercial sounds, heavy beats, and sexualized performances in album “Loose”. Though a shock in this image change, you still couldn’t hate the result. Massive hits like “Maneater”, “Promiscuous”, and “Say It Right” – the result of her chemistry with producer Timbaland – made her one of the biggest acts in the second half of the 2000s, though, as Nelly later stated, ‘a horse that’s going fast’ and ‘hard to keep up with the horse’. The blown-up image was questioned, and people with ‘normal’ lives were envied, resulting in closing the curtain and looking for alternatives, first with Spanish music, throwing her ‘hands in the air’ – translated in single “Manos al Aire” – in her 2009 album “Mi Plan”, then a ‘Best of’ a year later in 2010, to eventually ‘getting back on that horse’ in 2012’s “The Spirit Indestructible”, a pop album that acts as a proper commercial follow-up, but for some reason or another had a hard time to stay in the limelight. No worries for Nelly though, who as a chameleon in music, rather stayed out of the secular market to release the full-on independent “The Ride” in 2017, art pop and indie, completely out of any music style heard in the charts.
The limelight did seem to shrink more and more since then, and Nelly seemed lost out of the light. No shows, no red carpets, nothing for years. But her legacy wasn’t forgotten when British DJs Rain Radio and Craig Gorman gained a UK top 10 in 2021 with house track “Talk About” that interpolates Nelly’s 2012 single “Big Hoops (Bigger the Better)”. And it didn’t stop there: “Promiscuous” and other hits trending on TikTok, and Nelly’s oldest daughter Nevis making her aware how her catalog is brought back to the daylight, to a new generation. The ‘push’ to come back was literal, like when fellow Canadian and rapper Drake even pulled Nelly back on stage as a surprise act in a Toronto show in 2022, performing snippets of “I’m Like A Bird” and “Promiscuous”. A perfect warmup to what was coming, and after getting back to the rhythm with either festival touring, song features with old and new friends (including Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, and Juanes), and putting people in awe in a stunning Tiny Desk Concert, her seventh album – literally named “7” – finally made it into the shelves. It does bring up the question – as versatile and different all her six albums are – what’s going to be the music direction this time?
Well, connecting with the DJ-scene in her festival touring, “7” translates pop with dance music, but also doesn’t try to force a particular style. DJs like SG Lewis and Dom Dolla take their EDM sounds and shape them to make a bridge between electronic and pop. With Australian DJ Dom Dolla putting the wheels in motion; performing with Nelly at her return performance in Australia’s ‘Beyond The Valley Festival’ in January 2023, and building a friendship that translated five months later as a feature and comeback single with hard tech house in “Eat Your Man” (a pun on “Maneater”), gaining a gold certification later on. The in-your-face techno sound, where Nelly puts a spoken rap verse and hinting on her past songs in the lyrics (“Fly like a bird I’m takin’ it home” […] “I say it right, now do what I say”), was a great and unexpected comeback single, though did not make it into “7”. Instead, Dom Dolla came back for the album by co-writing and co-producing track 10 called “Ready For Myself”. In a very different vibe than aggressive “Eat Your Man” is this song rather upbeat and pop-y, with very clever lyrics of a probably bored out Nelly who’s – like the title says – ready for herself (“Plastic dreams and paper houses, the same old same refrain”). Sound-wise reminds even of music from Kylie Minogue, and although different from Dom Dolla’s usual hard house music, it’s still a highlight of “7”. Electronic music stays in the foreground when British DJ SG Lewis takes the helm in lead single “Love Bites” and fifth track “Honesty”. The former, where Nelly shares lyrics with Swedish singer Tove Lo, strikes with sparking electro-beats, the blend of their two voices (singing or speaking) and “go ahead, go ahead now” exclaims; while the latter, “Honesty”, brings floating upbeat sounds with the help of British DJ/producer known as Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs.
So just like Dom Dolla is SG Lewis also able to switch up song and style, though both are not the only ones who place an imprint on “7”: Jim Beanz, known for co-producing the majority of her “Loose” album, is invited back, like a throwback of her past career, and contributed to five of the fourteen tracks, and T-Minus, a Canadian hip-hop producer and frequent collaborator of Drake’s (getting back around to Drake and Nelly’s Toronto connection), worked on five as well. So when Dolla and Lewis are one of the electro contributors, is Beanz the one who brings some urban bits for the album to shake it up, even when these bits are more in the background, like in mellow “Better For Worse”, supported with feature Gray Hawken who’s chilled ‘can’t be bothered’ singing brings some Post Malone flavors in there. With lyrical content about heartbreak and setting things clear (“You f***ing played me”), probably related to Nelly’s last breakup, the album’s continuing in pointing fingers on the other half throughout songs like “Save Your Breath” (“How many ways did you throw me under the bus?”). The harsh lyrical content of “I don’t miss you no more, I don’t wait for your call” is backed up with drums, an orchestra, and a community of Haitian and Canadian artists when Nelly starts the song with “This is a community recording”, ending with a rap in the Haitian Creole language by Williane 108. Nelly, who always orientated her music with international sounds since the start of her career, is never afraid to keep experimenting, including some loose (no pun intended) crazy and darker tones in “Fantasy” that in vibe and feel remind of her last album’s deep cut “Paris Sun” (and adding some robotic sounds in the end). And of course her affinity to Spanish songs should not miss too in “Corazón”, released as second single, where Colombian band Bomba Esteréo throw energetic “power power” lines in Spanish or Spanglish. So when experimenting in music and style, it shouldn’t surprise the listener to get a bit of yodeling too in thirteenth track “Take Me Down”, because why not? Produced by T-Minus who, just like Jim Beanz, interferes his album parts with underlining (and almost in the background) urban sounds, and plays beats in an equal manner that’s also heard in seventh track “Crown”.
As much as Nelly is able to bring upbeat tracks in each of her albums, she’s also not afraid to show her vulnerable side. For fans of her slower ballad-style records from her past catalog (“Try”, “Phoenix”), her new album also is not afraid to show a fragile side in a song like “All Comes Back”. Having some moments of greatness, it builds up emotional depth with the help of Charlotte Day Wilson, who unexpectedly brings additional flavor with only a few lines in the bridge. This side of Nelly Furtado is brought back as album closer too, simply named “Untitled”. Dreamy, thoughtful, and with a kind of spaced-out feeling reminiscent to “All Good Things (Come to an End)”, she strips herself open of her heartbreak, singing “You gotta let go sometimes”.
As Nelly Furtado released a promising number of 14 tracks for her long awaited seventh studio album, and able to mix up different feels and rhythms, the album as a whole however, quickly goes from one to the next, as if it’s trying to ‘run off’ the songs quickly out of the way. From the 14 tracks, ten of these are less than three minutes long, and it’s noticeable. Even early on in album opener “Showstopper”: A track that with its eclectic rhythm should actually be a highlight, but due to the jump of verse 1 to the bridge, skipping a second verse and ending with an outro that’s kinda ‘meh’, it disturbs the enjoyment of the song. You feel like you’re in the zone, and all of the sudden it’s over, up to the next. With some tracks, like “Floodgate”, fading out when it feels like you’re still in the middle of the song. It’s these “What the…?” moments when “Better than Ever” has its final lyric at 1:55 minutes (and being 2:11 in total) and a “That’s it?” feel when noticing you’re already listening to the last song. It’s these short cuts that rob the potential of many songs from the album, and seems so unreal in comparison to Nelly’s former approach in music, when former songs like “Wait for You” fill its 5-minute time with percussion drums, or “Pipe Dreams”, owning its slow tempo with organs added as a finale. Those kinds of musical surprises are rare in “7”, with a feel as if music trends and production have to be at the forefront this time. “Corazón”, first presented as a snippet at the Machaca Fest in Monterrey, Mexico in 2023, has been retouched throughout the last two years according to Nelly, and sometimes the songs in “7” do have a feeling of overproduction or being overly touched, putting even Nelly’s voice in background sometimes. Maybe a result of too many hands adding their sauce, when sometimes less is more.
Nelly likes to describe her career with Sade’s, who’s known to disappear for maybe ten years until she decides to come back. Related to Nelly’s craving of normalcy and groundness; being totally gone, catching back the spotlight eventually. And with some hard work packed, too: This time around, as Nelly told, worked for about 400 to 500 tracks, eventually deciding for the 14 for this album (and maybe even more as she hinted at possibilities of a special edition later on). When listening to the 14, it does make you wonder what these other hundreds of songs sounded like. And are these 14 really the best of the best from these? A freer non-bonded feel, that songs like “Sh*t On The Radio” or “Parking Lot” used to give, is due to the restriction and construction of these tracks harder to achieve. Nevertheless, “7” is still a grower, the more you listen to it, the more you give it a chance, you do find something that you like. And after being gone for so long, it would be great to see Nelly succeed, once again, getting back on that horse.
Highlight Tracks:
Love Bites
Ready For Myself
Full Track List:
Showstopper
Corazón (feat. Bomba Estéreo)
Love Bites (feat. Tove Lo and SG Lewis)
Better For Worse (feat. Gray Hawken)
Honesty
Floodgate
Crown (feat. Blxckie)
All Comes Back (feat. Charlotte Day Wilson)
Save Your Breath (feat. Williane 108, Charmie, Taborah Johnson and Tynomi Banks)
Ready For Myself
Fantasy
Better Than Ever
Take Me Down
Untitled
