These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Think of two things you really love. Go ahead. Take a minute. Ok got them? Now... put them together! Bam! Doesn't that feel nice? When I did it I got Nelly Furtado singing during the halftime show at one of DC United's games. What's more? She was sporting one of their jerseys. This happened a year or two ago and thus is old news, but I don't claim to be a source of news and especially not new news, so you'll have to take your complaints elsewhere.

I shan't explain my love affair with DC United or soccer, because I have done so extensively on here already. I will take a second to explain why I love Nelly Furtado so much. This begins with a problem: I don't usually like female musical artists. I could count on one hand the number of female artists that I really really like on one hand (at least, ones who are still living, contemporary female artists that I regularly listen to and not because it is fun to like them or funny). I can only guess at why this is and will do so now: I think it is due to what I perceive as a different approach to songwriting that many female artists take. I once read or heard somewhere that men pay more attention (at least initially) to the music of a song and women pay more attention (at least initially) to the lyrics. Who knows if this is true? I certainly don't. However I do find it interesting and as I have asked different men and women over the past few years it seems to somewhat make sense. I think this is the same reason why a lot of country turns me off; it feels like the same music rehashed endlessly with the focus being on the lyrics and story-telling. Anyway, Nelly Furtado was the first female artist whose music actually intrigued me and brought something new to the table. I have since found a few others, namely Frou Frou (and Imogoen Heap's solo stuff as well).

While I had a hard time with Nelly Furtado's newest Timbaland-produced album at first--I felt like it was a step back from the brilliant musical work of her two previous albums, because Timbaland brought it much closer to a generic dance floor/hip-hop/R&B vibe than I would have hoped for--it has since grown on me a lot. Even if I still don't like it as much as Whoa, Nelly! or Folklore, it has some great songs and I can see the appeal to Nelly to make something a little more listener friendly after her last album's sales weren't spectacular.

Thus, three cheers for Nelly Furtado for helping me to learn to get over my initial distrust of female artists. Here is the soccer-themed video for song "Forca" which she sang at the Euro 2004 final in Portugal (she is of Portuguese descent, but grew up in British Columbia--Canada). it has become somewhat of an anthem for the soccer loving world.