Loose (Nelly Furtado album)
Loose is the third studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Nelly Furtado, released on June 7, 2006, by Geffen Records and Mosley Music Group. Recording sessions for Loose took place from 2005 to 2006. Timbaland and his protégé Danja produced the bulk of the album, primarily a pop album which incorporates influences of dance, R&B, hip hop, latin pop, synth-pop, reggaeton, new wave, funk, trip hop, and Middle Eastern music. Lyrically, it explores the theme of female sexuality and has been described as introspective.
Overall, Loose was seen as critically and commercially successful. It reached high positions on the record charts of several markets, including number one in ten countries, and as of 2019, it has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century. However, the album received criticism because of the sexual image Furtado adopted, as some critics felt it was a ploy to sell more records.
Loose was heavily promoted, released in several editions and supported by the Get Loose Tour, which is the subject of the concert DVD, Loose: The Concert. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, making it Furtado's first album to top the chart, and spawned eight singles, including the Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits "Promiscuous" and "Say It Right", which received Grammy Award nominations for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, respectively. Other notable singles include the UK Singles Chart number-one hit "Maneater" and the European number-one hit "All Good Things ”.
Background
Furtado wanted to make a pop record to prove to herself that she could be more streamlined. Furtado cited Madonna's 1998 album Ray of Light as a major influence, saying "she was smooth but sexy, universal, epic, iconic!" Interscope chairman Jimmy Iovine suggested Furtado work with Timbaland, who had produced Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On", which featured Furtado in a remix and a remix of Furtado's single "Turn Off the Light".Recording
Furtado began work on Loose by holding with emcee Jelleestone what she referred to as a "hip-hop workshop", in which they would "write rhymes, dissect them, and try different flows over beats." The first producers she worked with were Track & Field—who co-produced her first two albums, Whoa, Nelly! and Folklore —and by May 2005, she had collaborated with Swollen Members and K'naan. Furtado worked with Nellee Hooper in London on reggae-oriented material and with Lester Mendez in Los Angeles on acoustic songs. One of the tracks Mendez helped to create is "Te Busqué", which is co-written by and features Juanes, who collaborated with Furtado on his 2002 song "Fotografía".During her time in Los Angeles, she worked with Rick Nowels, who co-wrote and produced "In God's Hands", "Somebody to Love" and "Runaway".
In Miami, Florida, Furtado collaborated with Pharrell and Scott Storch before entering the studio with Timbaland. He and his protégé at the time, Danja, co-produced eight of the tracks, with another produced solely by Danja. For some of the beats on the songs, Timbaland finished work on ones already present in the studio that were half-developed or just "nucleuses"; the rest were completely reworked. Furtado recorded around forty tracks for Loose, deciding which she would include based on the sonics of the album—she called Timbaland "a sonic extraterrestrial" who came up with a sequence of songs that flowed, and said that the one she had devised was supposedly unsatisfactory. She recorded an unreleased collaboration with Justin Timberlake, "Crowd Control", which she described as "kind of sexy" and "a cute, clubby, upbeat, fun track". Other songs considered for inclusion on the album include "Chill Boy", "Friend of Mine", "Go", "Hands in the Air", "Pretty Boy", "Vice" and "Weak".
Furtado said in her diary on her official website that she recorded a remix of "Maneater" with rapper Lil Wayne; it was only released as part of a compilation album, Timbaland's Remix & Soundtrack Collection, she also used the instrumental of the song during many television performances of "Maneater". A version of "All Good Things " featuring vocals by Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, who co-wrote the song, was not released after a request from Martin's label, EMI. The song was released on the album, but only Furtado's vocals are featured. Furtado explained that "Loose was 90 percent written with a beat first, and then I’d write my melodies and songs to the beat."
Post-production
The "off-the-cuff" conclusion to production was one of the reasons the album was titled Loose. It was named partly after the spontaneous decisions she made when creating the album.The album is also called Loose because it is "the opposite of calculated" and came naturally to Furtado and Timbaland; she called him her "distant musical cousin because he was always pushing boundaries and always carving out his own path", which she believed she was doing with Loose. "I think you have to keep surprising people as an artist, and I like that—I love doing that", she said.
Loose was also named partly for the R&B girl group TLC, who Furtado said she admires for "taking back their sexuality, showing they were complete women." She said she wanted the album to be "assertive and cool" and "sexy but fun", like TLC, MC Lyte, Queen Latifah and Janet Jackson, who inspired Furtado because, as she put it, she was "comfortable in her sexuality and womanhood" when her 1993 single "That's the Way Love Goes" was released.
During the recording of Loose, Furtado listened to several electro and rock musicians, including Bloc Party, System of a Down, M.I.A., Feist, Queens of the Stone Age, Metric and Death from Above 1979, some of whom influenced the "rock sound" present on the album and the "coughing, laughing, distorted basslines" that were kept in the songs deliberately.
According to her, music by such bands is "very loud and has a garage theme" to it, some of which she felt she captured on the album. Furtado has said rock music is "rhythmic again" and hip-hop-influenced after it had become "so churning and boring."
Because the mixing engineers were aware of Timbaland and Furtado's rock influences, the songs were mixed on a mixing board in the studio instead of "the fancy mixer at the end". Furtado said she preferred the louder volume that process gave to the album because she wanted it to sound like her demo tapes, which she prefers to her finished albums. She said, "It didn't have that final wash over it; it didn't have the final pressing at the end, save for a couple sounds".
Music and lyrics
Furtado said that with the release of her albums before Loose, she had wanted to prove herself as a musician and earn respect from listeners through using many different instruments on an album, which most hip-hop musicians did not do. After she believed she had accomplished that, she felt she had freedom to make the type of music she "really love". Furtado's problem with hip-hop was that she did not think it was good enough to base one of her albums on, though she later asked herself why she was being "pretentious".The album represents her separating from such notions and in her words, "jumping in the deep end of the pool—'Ahh, screw it, this is fun!'".
Furtado said she considers herself "all over the map" and promiscuous musically because she is not faithful to only one style.
For the first time, Furtado worked with a variety of record producers and followed a more collaborative approach in creating the album.
Produced primarily by Timbaland and Danja, Loose showcases Furtado experimenting with a more R&B–hip-hop sound and, as she put it, the "surreal, theatrical elements of '80s music".
She has categorized the album's sound as punk-hop, which she describes as Eurythmics-influenced "modern, poppy, spooky music" and stated that "there's a mysterious, after-midnight vibe to that's extremely visceral."
Furtado has described the album as "more urban, more American, more hip-hop, more simplified" than her earlier work, which she said was more layered and textured because she "tend to overthink things." In contrast, during her studio time with Timbaland, she said she was "in the VIP boys club of just letting go" and being more impulsive.
According to Furtado, instead of "pristine stuff," the album features "really raw" elements such as distorted bass lines, laughter from studio outtakes and general "room for error." Furtado has said Loose is not as much about the lyrics, which are not included in the liner notes, as it is about "indulging in pleasures—whether it's dancing or lovemaking." According to her, she wasn't trying to be sexy with the album—"I think I just am sexy now," she said.
Loose is primarily a pop album with influences of dance, reggaeton, latin pop, hip hop, synth pop, Middle Eastern music, R&B, new wave, funk, and trip hop.
Songs
The opening track, "Afraid", depicts Furtado's fear of what people think of her, and she has said that the chorus reminds her of "walking down the hall in high school... because you live from the outside in. Now that I'm an adult, I care about the inside of me... Before I said I didn't care about what people thought about me, but I really did.""Maneater" is an uptempo electro rock song that combines 1980s electro synths and a more dance-oriented beat. The up-tempo song has prominent electropop and synthpop influences and is lyrically related to how people become "hot on themselves" when dancing in their underwear in front of a mirror.
"Promiscuous" was inspired by a flirting exchange Furtado had with Attitude, who co-wrote the song.
She has characterized the fifth track, "Showtime", as "a proper R&B slow jam".
"No Hay Igual" is a hip-hop and reggaeton song, that has a Spanglish tongue twister over "future-tropic" beats. The song contains a "sharp mix" of percussion and "empowered chanting". In "No Hay Igual", Furtado sings in Spanish and raps in Portuguese over a reggaeton rhythm.
The album also features more introspective songs, and The Sunday Times wrote that it "has a surprising sadness to it." The seventh track, "Te Busqué", which features Latin singer Juanes, is about Furtado's experiences with depression, which she said she has had periodically since she was around seventeen years old.
Furtado said she was unsure what "Say It Right" is about, but that it encapsulates her feeling when she wrote it and "taps into this other sphere"; in an interview for The Sunday Times, it was mentioned that it is about her breakup with DJ Jasper Gahunia, the father of her daughter. "In God's Hands", another song on the album, was also inspired by the end of their relationship.