Album Review - Nelly Furtado "The Spirit Indestructible"

First off, allow me to apologize for yesterday. Sometimes real life gets in the way of blogging, and the week long event had a one-day hiccup, leaving P!nk out in the cold. I will be reviewing the album in another venue in the future, so don't worry too much. Today I keep trudging forward with the one album I've been a bit scared to review: The new Nelly Furtado album.

I can't lie. I didn't have high hopes for this album what-so-ever. I miss "Maneater" era Nelly, and I don't see her going back to that style any time soon. She makes a bold move by opening up with the title track, which almost nobody ever does any more, but in this case it was actually a good thing. "The Spirit Indestructible" is easily ten times better than the mess of a single "Big Hoops" was. The bridge of the song, comprising of overlapping vocals to a hot RnB beat was actually the best part of the whole song. The lead in left me feeling a bit optimistic about the album --

Which was destroyed with the second song, which was her rancid single "Big Hoops (Bigger The Better)", which I should probably keep those darker thoughts to myself.

Another early placed track "Parking Lot" was getting some hype before the release, too, but since I didn't have a lot of extra attention span left to pay attention to Ms. Furtado recently, I'm honestly not sure why. The song is a bit more middle of the road than the other singles. It uses a lot of club elements, but mixes them rather awkwardly with RnB elements and her odd pop vocals. The song isn't exactly a hot mess, but it doesn't quite translate well into radio play.

Now, I do have a low opinion of the album, mostly because it seems to have drifted too far from what I liked about Nelly before, but that's not to say that the album has no redeemable qualities. The song "Bucket List" is a nice track with a dose of acoustic guitar laid on top for good measure. "Waiting For The Night" is another track that caught my attention and felt set apart from the rest of the album, having a sort of Scottish vibe to it, mixed in with the electro-pop beats.

As I continued to listen on into the album, my thoughts actually began to change, believe it or not. I was going into this album with a little sliver of hope that it would be good, seeing as "Loose" was so important to me, and it looks like that sliver of hope was right all along. This album suffers mostly from bad marketing. "Big Hoops" is my least favorite song of the entire bunch, while genius tracks like "Circles" and "End of the World" are ignored, and may never be discovered by those discouraged by the singles.

I never should have doubted Nelly Furtado. She always pulls through, and all it is this time is reverse of what most albums suffer from. Instead of the singles being amazing while the rest of the album tracks are horrible, its a bit flip flopped. Hopefully now that the album is out, some of the better songs will be chosen for singles and radio play so she can prove that she is a talented songwriter and singer. Her voice even sounds stronger and cleaner on the album-only songs, leaving me with a very optimistic feeling by the time I got to the end of the experience.

You can preview and buy the album for yourself on iTunes. You might just surprise yourself as to how good it is. I did.