Folklore (album)
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| Studio album by Nelly Furtado | |||||||||||
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Publication |
November 25, 2003 |
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| Label (s) | Dreamworks | ||||||||||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
12 |
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running time |
50:36 |
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Studio (s) |
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Folklore is the second album of the Portuguese - Canadian pop - singer Nelly Furtado .
title
The title was an allusion to Nelly's family background and experiences from her childhood and youth; she referred to the associated memories as her personal folklore . Originally, the album should be named Fresh Off the Boat (which loosely translated means "just arrived"), which referred to Nelly's previous arrival in Toronto. However, her brother pointed out that this description was more likely to apply to her parents, who once immigrated to Canada. This led Nelly to believe that Fresh Off the Boat was an unsuitable title to aptly reflect the content of the album and ended up choosing the more appropriate folklore .
Emergence
The album showed - like its predecessor Whoa, Nelly! - a mixture of different music styles and sounds, but was more oriented towards rock. On her second album, Nelly focused more on the "song writing", which makes it appear "twice as versatile" according to the BBC . The recordings, which began in the fall of 2002, were significantly delayed by Nelly's onset of pregnancy (on September 20, 2003, she gave birth to daughter Nevis). The impending motherhood and the changes in her life that came with it eventually became the determining element in the creation of the album and were reflected in many songs. Nelly explained the maturity of folklore by saying that most of the songs were composed during her pregnancy.
Song info
- One Trick Pony is about Nelly Furtado not wanting to be pigeonholed. Following the title A Horse with No Name by America , this is symbolically horse that can only a feat depicted. The arrangement comes from the Kronos Quartet , which can also be heard in the song.
- Powerless (Say What You Want) addresses a similar circumstance: Nelly Furtado complains that at the insistence of her record company, her ethnic background should be deliberately faded out in order to make her appear more compliant (excerpt: “Paint my face in your magazines / Make it look whiter than it seems / Paint me over with your dreams / Shove away my ethnicity "). The song includes a sample of the track Buffalo Gals by Malcolm McLaren
- Explode is based on the poem Teenage Waste , which Nelly Furtado wrote as a teenager.
- Fresh Off the Boat was the original title track. In the song you can hear the bassist Justin Meldal-Johnson, who used to play often with Beck and is now part of the band I am Robot .
- Força: The UEFA asked 2003 Nelly Furtado, if these are not the official song for the European Football Championship in 2004 could write. It was a great honor for the singer as her parents are from Portugal. Together with Gerald Eaton and Brian West, she then wrote the title, the meaning of which she explained as follows:
“When I toured Portugal, people kept saying goodbye with 'Força', which is Portuguese slang. It means something like 'get in'. It is also associated with sports, especially soccer. I've added a feminine take on the idea of how you feel when you watch your favorite team play. So it's a happy song, a storm of energy. [The banjonist] also plays Béla Fleck in the song. His contribution is incredible. "
Nelly Furtado presented the song live before the final in Lisbon . The video for Força was shot in Toronto . It shows the collaboration of completely different people to get a boy's soccer ball back.
- According to Furtado, The Grass Is Green deals with unattainable goals and desires, deception and mistrust.
- Saturdays reflects Nelly Furtado's youth when she and her mother used to clean hotel rooms.
- Island of Wonder includes a sampling of the song Tonada De Luna Llena by Caetano Veloso .
- Nelly Furtado dedicated Childhood Dreams to her daughter Nevis. This is one of the songs inspired by Joni Mitchell .
Singles
The first three releases Powerless (Say What You Want) , Try and Força appeared worldwide. The fourth single Explode was only released in Canada and Europe, the fifth single The Grass Is Green was only released in Germany.
reception
From a commercial point of view, Nelly Furtado's second album was not a huge success. Especially in the United States and the United Kingdom , folklore failed to match the sales figures of its debut (in the United States, the disc didn't get past 24th place and only achieved around a quarter of Whoa, Nelly! Sales). This contrasted with the unexpectedly high level of acceptance among German buyers, so that Nelly made her final breakthrough in Germany . You yourself expressed the assumption that the success in Germany was mainly due to the absorbed thoughts of the album.
The lack of success of folklore was due, on the one hand, to the musical direction of the album, which was carried by a largely melancholy and depressed mood and overall was significantly less pop than its predecessor Whoa, Nelly! (Most of the songs were too melancholy and therefore hardly suitable for radio; in addition, some titles were based on Portuguese styles such as Fado , so that the album seemed a bit “strange” overall). On the other hand, there was only an inadequate promotion: Nelly's new role as mother was the dominant topic in interviews, while the album was talked about much less often. In this regard, Nelly later admitted personal mistakes. After the great debut success, she took a lot for granted and believed that things would develop on their own. Another factor that had a negative impact was the sale of Nelly's then record company DreamWorks to Universal at the time of release.
Track list
- One-Trick Pony (Gerald Eaton, Nelly Furtado, Brian West) - 4:47
- Powerless (Say What You Want) ( Anne Dudley , Eaton, Furtado, Trevor Horn , Malcolm McLaren, West) - 3:52
- Explode (Eaton, Furtado) - 3:44
- Try (Furtado, West) - 4:39
- Fresh Off the Boat (Eaton, Furtado, West) - 3:16
- Força (Eaton, Furtado, West) - 3:40
- The Grass Is Green (Mike Elizondo, Furtado) - 3:50
- Picture Perfect (Eaton, Furtado, West) - 5:16
- Saturdays (Furtado) - 2:04
- Build You Up (Eaton, Furtado, West) - 4:58
- Island of Wonder (S. Diaz, Furtado, J. Gahunia) - 3:49
- Childhood Dreams (Eaton, Furtado, West) - 6:33
- Try (Acoustic Version) (GB)
- Powerless (Say What You Want) (Alternative Acoustic Mix) (Japan)
- Powerless (Say What You Want) featuring Juanes (Latin American Re-Issue)
Chart placements
album
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DE
|
 AT
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 CH
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 UK
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 US
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 CA
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| 2003 | folklore |
DE4 (49 weeks) DE |
AT10 (39 weeks) AT |
CH13  (44 weeks)CH |
UK11  (26 weeks)UK |
US38 (11 weeks)US |
CA18th (… Where.)CA |
First published: November 23, 2003
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Singles
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, , Placements, weeks, awards, comments) |
Remarks | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
DE
|
AT
|
CH
|
UK
|
US
|
CA
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| 2003 | Powerless (Say What You Want) |
DE8 (24 weeks) DE |
AT7 (22 weeks) AT |
CH16 (16 weeks) CH |
UK13 (10 weeks) UK |
- |
CA6 (... weeks) CA |
First published: December 15, 2003
|
| 2004 | Try |
DE31 (9 weeks) DE |
AT26 (15 weeks) AT |
CH22 (11 weeks) CH |
UK15 (7 weeks) UK |
- |
CA9 (... weeks) CA |
First published: March 22, 2004
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| Força |
DE9 (14 weeks) DE |
AT5 (14 weeks) AT |
CH5 (25 weeks) CH |
UK40 (3 weeks) UK |
- |
CA76 (... weeks) CA |
First published: June 14, 2004
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| Explode |
DE34 (9 weeks) DE |
AT54 (5 weeks) AT |
CH38 (7 weeks) CH |
- | - |
CA86 (... weeks) CA |
First published: September 27, 2004
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| 2005 | The grass is green |
DE65 (5 weeks) DE |
- | - | - | - | - |
First published: February 28, 2005
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Individual evidence
- ↑ findarticles.com ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b BBC Review
- ↑ a b cbc.ca
- ↑ Interview ( Memento of the original of September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in liveDaily
- ^ Nelly Furtado Embraces Diversity .
- ↑ a b windycitymediagroup.com
- ↑ nellycentral.com ( Memento of the original from December 16, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ blender.com ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ blogcritics.org ( Memento of the original of September 24, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US ( Memento from July 16, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) CA + general source
