Nelly Furtado, new Canadian pop diva - SOUNDS FAMILIAR by Baby A. Gil

She is of Portuguese ancestry but you may now add the name Nelly Furtado to the ranks of Celine Dion, Alanis Morisette, Sarah McLachlan and all those other pop divas descended from Canada. The young singer-songwriter was recently named Best New Artist at the Juno Awards, the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys. Her song I’m Like a Bird was chosen Best Single and she also won the Best Producer and Best Songwriter trophies. The only nomination she lost was in the Best Pop Album category, which went to the Barenaked Ladies’ Maroon. Because of this near sweep, there are already talks that come next year, Furtado will surely create a big splash at the real Grammys in the US of A.

Now, how did an unknown talent like the Toronto-based Furtado go from newcomer to big star in only two years? Her story is really quite run-of-the-mill. She grew up in Victoria, British Columbia in Western Canada, the daughter of working-class Portuguese immigrants. Her first public performance was as a four-year-old with her mother who sang in church. She grew up playing the trombone in the school band plus the guitar and the ukelele and listening to all sorts of recordings from the Beatles to Simon & Garfunkel to Mariah Carey to the native music of Africa, Brazil and Portugal.

She was 18 when she did an impromptu performance at a talent show for mostly black, female artists. This resulted in her signing with a manager and recording her first demo and eventually a contract with Dreamworks Records. Two years later she was part of the fabled showcase for girl talents, the Lilith Fair, where she got the chance to sing with the likes of Chrissie Hynde and McLachlan. Today, at the age of 22, she is one of the hottest newcomers in the hit charts of the world.

It is easy to see why listeners instantly took to Furtado. She has a bright sound that is not like anybody else’s. And you have to admit that finding something different is not so easy anymore in the international music scene. Admittedly her album Whoa Nelly shows too many influences but she has taken each of them and then made them her own with her unique chirpy vocals and her flair for mixing everything together.

I’m Like a Bird, the first single off Whoa Nelly is a brilliantly packaged folk tune. She raps and shows her R&B side in Turn Off the Light and On the Radio. Of course, there are Latin elements in I Will Make You Cry and Scared of You. Hey, Man! is definitely pop while Well, Well sounds so new it is recognizable only as Furtado’s. To top it all, she wrote every song in the album, with assist from Gerald Eaton and Brian West of the Canadian group The Philosopher Kings. She even mixed English and Portuguese lyrics in I Will Make You Cry and Onde Estas.

At the rate her album is selling, no cry of Whoa Nelly from any part of the world is likely to stop Furtado’s ascent to the top. The girl is on her way there real fast. But as always the real test of her mettle will come when she releases her second album. If her writing and producing talents hold up with the new materials then she will have truly earned her claim to pop stardom.

Meanwhile, enjoy the music of this exciting new talent. We have not heard anything like her before.

The Ultimate Love Album

This is something that every music lover must have already noticed. The best record compilations in the market are those produced by music companies in collaboration with radio stations. It is easy to deduce the reason why. Radio station people know what listeners want and those are the songs that go into those special collections. Here is another one.

90.7 Love Radio celebrates 25 years of beautiful music in the airlanes with a two CD production of romantic tunes titled The Ultimate Love Album. At the cost of only P500 you get 25 of some of the most popular love songs ever recorded during these past quarter of a century.

Some of these are Through the Eyes of Love by Melissa Manchester, I’ll Never Love This Way Again by Dionne Warwick, Woman in Love by Three Degrees, I’d Love You to Want Me by Lobo, Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer by Kenny Rogers, Another Sad Love Song by Toni Braxton, How Deep is Your Love by Take That, Crazy Love by Poco and All Out of Love by Air Supply.