Nelly’s sophomore blues, Pink’s new sounds

Nelly Furtado is in a difficult situation. She has the sophomore blues. That means coming up with a second album that should at least approximate the success of her debut, Whoa! Nelly more than two years ago. That one had huge sellers with I’m Like a Bird and Turn Off the Light and landed her a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She is also on the comeback trail. Despite demands for more Nelly gigs, the 23-year-old Canadian of Portuguese descent decided to stop touring to have a baby. Then there is also the fact that times have changed. So it is not known if the market would still be excited about the Latin-pop concoction she introduced in her first album.

The new album Folklore shows none of those fears or hints of any insecurity. Nelly here is a self-assured musician who knows what she wants. She may sing about fear and other feelings, check out Powerless (Say What You Want) which is about how powerless people can be against the mighty media. But everything else is an indulgent spree that takes her music everywhere. Nelly’s music returns to her Latin roots, picks up other influences along the way and then unveils the end result laced with the pop rock sounds she grew up with in Canada. The legendary Brazilian musician Caetono Veloso joins Nelly in Island of Wonder. The Kronos Quartet comes in to provide the strings to One-Trick-Pony. And Nelly herself talks about the immigrant experience in Fresh off the Boat.

There is a world music feel to the entirety of Folklore. This makes me wonder how it will fare in the pop charts. On the other hand though, this must be what Furtado wanted all along, a high quality production that is adventurous, smooth, coherent, a joy to listen to and for musicians, a treat to analyze. Did she really need those mandolins in Powerless? Why the pared-down treatment for Try? Truth to tell, Folklore is so different from the usual that it tempts me to ask if anybody cares about putting one over those divas who currently dominate the hit charts. Certainly not Nelly. She is doing very well on her own with Folklore.

Pink is another fearless diva with a new album in the market. She is one who easily hurdled the sophomore test. In fact, hers was a rare case wherein her second album Missundaztood with the sensational Get the Party Started, turned out to be an even bigger hit than her first. This puts her in the enviable situation of being able to command the market and to do what she wants with every new release. Nobody is likely to raise an uproar if she bucks convention. If they do not like what she has to offer, there are her first two hits to fall back on. But if they do like what she has, then Pink gets another assurance of many more years of success.

It is no surprise then that Pink goes all out with Try This. She seems to be screaming, "I can do anything!" And that is what she does. Wails and screams abound in the 14 cuts that make up the album, which is unlike any she has done before. Try This is in fact, more rock than dance like Missundaztood and more punk than R&B like Can’t Take Me Home. While Furtado has kept and enhanced her original sound, Pink is out to try things she has not done before. Some attempts work beautifully. God is a DJ is a brilliant piece of dance rock and Catch Me While I’m Sleeping, with Linda Perry of 4 None Blondes, shows off her ballad side. Others like the inane first single Trouble and Last to Know, come across as half-hearted stabs that render Pink’s trademark defiant stance hypocritical.

But whether it works or not, the fact that Pink is not scared to try something new speaks well of her dedication to her craft. I do not know if there will never be anybody as successful with reinventing herself as Madonna. Would you believe that the Material Girl is now a writer of children’s books! But the eagerness to try is what really counts and I am already interested in what Pink will come up with after Try This.