I'm like a bird, I'll only fly away

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

09/09/01 : Whoa Nelly! - Nelly Furtado


I know Nelly did that song that everyone knows but can't, for the life of me, remember what it is - I suspect this will jog my mind.

Ah yes, "I'm Like A Bird" - that's the one. Which I don't mind at all - and the rest of the album is similar in a samba-tinged summer pop kinda way. I'm not entirely sure I love her voice, but it's certainly bearable and the whole thing bounces along pleasantly enough - although it feels unlikely I'll come back to it. And that's pretty much all I think I have to say on the matter.

We're at #2 in the charts this week on her ninth week of a 37 week run, with this being as high as it got - somewhat unusually, this was her second run with it first having had a 13 week run starting in March after which it took a month off before it came roaring back. The rest of the top five were Jamiroquai, Staind, Sophie Ellis-Bextor (a new entry which we'll get to meet in '02) and David Gray, which is quite the mix of genres and the next highest new entry was Embrace (#10). 

Wikipedia tells us it's her debut album and she released some singles and toured to promote it - which isn't exactly noteworthy material. I tried to go down an internet rabbit hole to find the origin of the phrase "whoa Nelly" and was somewhat disappointed to find out it came about because farmers in the 1800s often used to call their horses Nelly and so they'd say that to calm them down - but I can also tell you that it was introduced into the mainstream by The Roy Rogers Show which featured an unreliable Jeep called Nellybelle and it was also used frequently by Keith Jackson, a veteran US sports commentator. Back to the album, it was very well received critically and surprisingly received four Grammy nominations - I'm not sure I think it's quite that good! Commercially, it did very well globally, making the top ten in quite a few countries including #2 in her home country of Canada - it only got to #24 in the US, but still managed to sell six million copies worldwide.

discogs.com tells us this is another fifty pence album, but if you want the double vinyl '24 re-issue (I wonder who was asking for that?) it's going to set you back the princely sum of £44.53 - how peculiar!  I think "perfectly pleasant" pretty much sums this up - I imagine it brings back fond memories for plenty, but it passed me by back then and nothing I heard is going to get me jumping on the Nelly bandwagon now.

16/09/01 - More of the same

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