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NELLY FURTADO

Rating: NN


That someone with as little talent for singing and writing songs as Nelly Furtado can become one of the world’s top-selling female artists is a testament to both the production savvy of Timbaland and the marketing skill of Universal. It’s also a warning sign that the music industry may be in more trouble right now than the most pessimistic analysts imagined.

Some Furtado fans might argue that she makes up for her studio shortcomings on stage, but that’s not supported by the low-energy Air Canada Centre performance from April captured on the just-released Loose: The Concert CD/DVD package. The four backing dancers and Saukrates (filling in for Timbaland) can’t do much to enhance Furtado’s stodgy presentation. The show focuses on her Loose material but she finds room for a lacklustre acoustic cover of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy and a few old faves, including a rearranged I’m Like Bird during which she points the microphone towards the audience on the chorus and hilariously gets only a noisy muddle from the crowd clearly confused by the new version’s unfamiliar progression.

As a “bonus,” there’s a boring 30-minute documentary in which Furtado blows kisses to the camera, discusses changes to the song sequencing with the stage manager and shows off the washroom of her rented tour bus.

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