Nelly Furtado

During a promotional stop at MTV a while back, Nelly Furtado clowned around and showed off her good-natured imitations of Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morissette and Britney Spears. On Loose, and its accompanying promotional blitz, she's keen on showing off another side of herself (namely, the midriff), but, upon closer scrutiny, it seems like a fairly benign sexual revolution -- just another case of harmless play-acting, really.

This is wrapped up in lead single "Promiscuous," an ode to sexual freedom that is so sanitary, it's being used to hawk cell phones on TV. Even the very word "Promiscuous" feels clinical and maybe even a little cowardly (what, "Slutty" wouldn't get airplay?). No mistake about it, the beat will get the hips shaking, and the song's sheer ubiquity will win a lot of listeners over simply by attaching itself to pleasant summer memories. But Timbaland, for all his producing and hitmaking glory, is a pretty lousy rapper -- like a poor man's Nate Dogg -- and he sounds like a big teddy bear when he warns, "Girl, I'm a freak, you shouldn't say those things!" Furtado, meanwhile, sounds like a vampy, breathy teenybopper as she flirts back. Lil' Kim and 50 Cent it ain't.

But now for the good news: Even though the big single is a bit of a bust, Loose still deserves its seemingly preordained place as one of the definitive pop albums of the year -- because there's still plenty of fruit left hanging on the singles tree. "Maneater," which has already burned up the UK charts, trumps "Promiscuous," featuring a sassier vocal and a grimier beat that is a better fit for the look-at-me libido of the lyrics.

Maybe it's just projection, but Furtado sounds like she's connecting more with the songs when she's vowing to wait for you until the end of the world ("Wait For You") than when she's speak-singing about how everybody wants to sleep with her. Furtado is hard to pin down as a singer, and she uses it to her advantage, particularly when she lets her personality push through. She sings, she raps, she does smooth R&B a la TLC, and sometimes she just talks. She and Timbaland don't retrace many of their steps; it's always on to the next experiment.

"Wait For You" combines Furtado's most expressive vocal with propulsive thump from Timbaland and a distinctive Middle Eastern backdrop that is reminiscent of Natacha Atlas. "Do It," meanwhile, heads straight for the church of Madonna and Janet (and even a little Michael). The aim on both tracks is true, and they're both steady additions to party playlists, along with "Maneater" and "Glow."

There are some real clunkers, too, like a formulaic Latin music duet with Juanes ("Te Busque") and a soggy, American Idol-ready ballad that was doomed as soon as it was called "In God's Hands." Most frustrating is opener "Afraid," which gets off to a great start by sounding musically sinister and lyrically self-helpy -- an interesting juxtaposition -- but then derails halfway through with an utterly anonymous rap verse from, um, Attitude (even the dude's name is forgettable), and, far more exasperating, a children's choir that handles the chorus for the final 30 seconds before breaking up into cutesy laughter. An industry-wide moratorium should be declared on this sort of thing. Besides, the grown-ups have some sexin' to do -- who invited the kids? - Adam McKibbin, The Red Alert

If Nelly Furtado's nearly impenetrable 2003 sophomore effort, Folklore, proved anything, it was that this modern-day singer/songwriter is smart and ambitious yet doesn't quite have a handle on those very qualities. Dabbling in worldbeat and chronicling the perils of immediate success, she indulged herself without a care for the audience -- and the audience responded in kind, as the album barely cracked the Billboard Top 40, spawned no hits, and sold about a quarter of what her Grammy-winning debut did. Clearly a rethink of some sort was in order for her next album, and 2006's Loose, delivered about three years later, certainly does present a different Nelly Furtado: one who is glammed up, sexed up, and ready for the dancefloor. Borrowing liberally from Gwen Stefani's ghetto fabulous makeover and a little bit from Justin Timberlake's sleek retro-'80s moves on Justified, Furtado now has a sound that's straight 2006; with hooks that feel as comfortable as bumper music on MTV as they do as background on cell phone commercials or as ringtones, she can blend into the hyper-saturated media culture of 2006, a move that may alienate fans who were won over by how her debut, Whoa, Nelly!, sounded like nothing else in 2000. No matter how club-friendly Loose is -- even its quieter moments, like the closing "All Good Things (Come to an End)" (co-written in part by Coldplay's Chris Martin), feel like ideal soundtracks to chill-out moments -- ultimately Furtado did not get a swan-styled makeover, where her original personality has been chiseled and chipped away so only a vestige of her remains. Remember, Furtado is nothing if not smart, and she smartly picked Timbaland, one of the very best producers in modern music, as her main collaborator for Loose.

Timbaland helmed all but two of the 12 main tracks here -- the album weighs in at 13 songs, but one is a Spanish version of the Juanes duet "Te Busque" -- and he gives much of this music a bracing feel, dense with old-school synths, subtle sample collages, bone-crunching bass, cascading vocal hooks, and beats that sound so heavy it takes careful listening to realize how nimble they are. Nowhere is this more evident than on the killer opening triptych of "Afraid," "Maneater," and "Promiscuous," three songs that trumpet Furtado's makeover and make it seem pretty convincing, too -- particularly on "Maneater" with its circular, minor-key bass and "Promiscuous" with its chorus that sounds like vintage Prince. This is Timbaland at his best, and the only weak link is Furtado; no matter how she growls on "Maneater" or murmurs on "Promiscuous" -- no matter how much she sings about sex, period -- she just doesn't sound sexy. She sounds as if she's striving to be sexy, which doesn't generate much carnal heat, but it ultimately doesn't matter much since on all the heavy dance songs, of which there are a bunch, she's mixed into the background on Timbaland's production, functioning as another instrument, which helps the music work as just a stylish wall of sound. Furtado doesn't fight against Timbaland's mix, which proves her smarts more than anything on the showy Folklore; there's a reason why she chose Timbaland as a collaborator, and she lets him shine for the first half of the record, as they get the party rolling. Then on the second half of the record, the old Nelly starts to show through. She gets to play the world traveler with "No Hay Igual," where she deftly blends reggaeton and M.I.A., along with the smooth Latin pop ballad "Te Busque." Her words gradually come to the forefront, as on "Say It Right" -- a dark meditative piece that would have fit on her previous records if it didn't have a Timbaland production -- or on the sweetly ruminative "In God's Hands," and then on "Wait for You," which has Indian-influenced hooks and a melody reminiscent of "I'm Like a Bird," both strands are pulled together in a haunting fashion.

It's on this final stretch of the album that the Furtado and Timbaland pairing seems like a genuine collaboration, staying true to the Nelly of her first two albums, but given an adventurous production that helps open her songs up. Unlike the music on Folklore, the idiosyncrasies intrigue instead of frustrate, and deliver on the promise of her debut, when it seemed like Furtado could do anything. That said, the music on the second half isn't nearly as immediate or addictive as "Maneater" and "Promiscuous," two singles that were already deserved hits (in the U.K. and U.S., respectively) when Loose was released. The genius on these two songs is down to Timbaland, who not only crafts the sound but vocally overshadows Nelly's mumbled raps on the latter. But Furtado is smart enough to let him dominate here, since she knows that Timbaland has revitalized Nelly Furtado both creatively and commercially with Loose, so it's only appropriate that he hogs the spotlight on its two best moments. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide