Nelly Furtado Award History

A Grammy award winning Portuguese Canadian singer and song writer Nelly Furtado tasted her first success in 2000 with her debut album Whoa, Nelly!. The album featured the single "I'm like a bird" which brought her the Grammy Award. After a short break in her career while she had a baby girl 'Nevis', Furtado returned to fame with the release of 'Loose' in 2006. The album included the hit singles "promiscuous", "Maneater", "Say It Right", and "All Good Things (Come to an End)". Her second album in 2003 "Folklore" did not gain a lot of popularity while in 2007 Nelly released her first Spanish Language album.

Furtado listened heavily to mainstream R&B, hip hop, alternate rock, New Wave, alternative hip hop, trip hop and world music since her teenage. She has been influenced by stars like Jeff Buckley, Caetano Veloso, Amalia Rodrigues, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Cornershop and many others. Furtado's multicultural music has also been inspired by the city of her current residence, Toronto, which is aptly the most multicultural city in the world. She grew up in Canada and experienced the wide diversity of Toronto's cultural diversity. This exposure helped Nelly to experiment with new genres of music.

Furtado's comment about the varied taste on a Rolling Stone issue in 2006 says-
"I always know there's a new genre left to discover. For me, it's like a metaphor for life. I feel like if you can get down with any style of music, you can get down with any style of person. So it's fun for me--I get to expose my fans to different vibes and they, in turn, open their minds too. I'm always undergoing mind-opening."

Furtado has an insatiable desire for wide- ranging music and curiosity in different cultures. She is known for experimenting with various sounds, instruments, languages, genres and vocal styles. Nelly holds a record of selling over 12 million albums till date. Her songs enjoy the highest rankings in the U.S. Billboard 200 (U.S.), Canada (CAN), Mexico (MEX), United Kingdom (UK) and at many other countries. The biggest worlds music markets have sold million copies of her albums including Germany (GER), Netherlands (NET), Ireland (IRE), Switzerland (SWI), Poland (POL) and Australia (AUS).

Furtado's regularly released singles have enjoyed highest chart positions in the United World Chart (UWC), U.S. Billboard Hot 100 (U.S. Hot 100), Pop 100 (U.S. Pop 100), HOT Dance Club Play (U.S. Dance) and many other successful music markets throughout the world.

Her acting career started in middle school while she participated in school plays. She appeared as Ava Brandt, as a master- thief and victim of domestic abuse on the episodes of "Some Buried Bones" on CSI: NY. Her two songs "Maneater" and "All Good Things (Come to an End)" were also featured in the episode.

Nelly has a whole bunch of Awards and nominations under her belt. She is a winner of Radio Music Awards in the category 'Most Requested Song', "Turn off the Light". In the Billboard Music Video Awards "she won awards for the "Best Pop New Artist Clip". IN the Juno Awards her list of winnings include categories from " Best New Solo Artist", "Best Single", "Best Songwriter", "Best Pop Album" and various others. Furtado has a lond list of songs that have been included in the chart topping lists.

By now everybody has listened her new album "Loose". The album was named partly after the TCL band she admires for "taking back their sexuality, showing they were complete women". It became the most successful album of Nelly's career, reaching number one in several counties.

The release in June 2006 was also followed by a series of statements issued by the "Promiscuous" star. The real statement that got the press fired up was the one referring to her newly discovered bisexuality.

The "Maneater" singer revealed in an interview with a gay magazine: "I'm reading a book about Chinese medicine which claims all people are inherently bisexual to balance their energies. It makes so much sense. As humans we have both male and female energies."

Furthermore the singer added that she believes Kurt Cobain's statement that "in the end, everyone is gay".

This is partly true. Studies show that men with a high sex drive have a more targeted kind of sexual arousal while women with a high sexual drive tend to desire both sexes.

This being said I wouldn't argue that the artist is wrong. But clearly she does not have the best reasoning for her belief. In my opinion it would seem more plausible if she would have said she's a woman who loves having sex and suddenly discovered she enjoys the company of women without saying this is something she read in a book which claims all people are inherently bisexual. So because she read some book now she's a bisexual.

The debate is whether Nelly is dabbling about bisexual chic which in turn is used for advertising or it is all about advertising and her statements are made due to a marketing strategy.

Bisexual chic is a trend that now conquers more and more people. As a pure example of bisexual chic is Madonna who was seen kissing another girl in her music video "Justify my love" and the scene that made people go crazy at the MTV music awards in 2003 when Madonna kissed Britney Spears and then Christina Aguilera.

The thing is sex sells. And girl kissing girl sells even more! Let's not forget the success the girls from TATU had. TATU's lyrics and videos allude to relationship between the two of them and the girls promote it during interviews. The Daily Mail (London) wrote: "Tatu degrades marketing and music at the same time."