This came out in 2003 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
“I am not a one-trick pony,” are the first words Nelly Furtado sings on her second CD Folklore. They are, however, not her last words on the subject. Far from it.
Indeed, the Toronto songbird spends most of her much-anticipated sophomore album striving to prove that she is more than just the flighty pop thrush of I’m Like A Bird. To that end, she and returning producers Track and Field attempt to expand their palette and push the envelope by incorporating various exotic, ethnic and esoteric sounds and styles into Nelly’s bubbly dance-pop songcraft and hip-hop settings. Several tracks, including the title cut, come bearing plucky banjos and mandolins or rootsy fiddles and dulcimers; others like Powerless sway to heavily percussive world-beat grooves; most feature lyrics about her Portuguese heritage, the perils of fame and the joys of new motherhood; a couple contain lyrics sung in Portuguese; one cut, Saturdays, even arrives stripped-down to just Nelly’s acoustic guitar and vocals. This is not to say that Folklore is some sort of intensely personal, anti-commercial vanity project. Quite the opposite, in fact — tracks like Fresh Off The Boat and Força are every bit as hook-filled and addictive as her Whoa, Nelly! hits. But more importantly, they’re also far more individual and disctinctive, thanks to Furtado’s inspired intermingling of traditional elements, contemporary pop and cutting-edge technology. If that isn’t enough to convince naysayers she’s no one-trick pony, nothing is.
