Nelly Furtado is a prime example of an artist who has had to change her image to appeal to a different subculture in order to boost her sales. She released her first album 'Whoa Nelly' in October 2000 with Dreamworks and won an award for the single 'I'm Like a Bird.' When this album was released Nelly Furtado's music was described as 'folk rock' Her album Whoa Nelly sold 5 million copies worldwide where as her second album Folklore which was released in 2003 was not so successful.
Nelly Furtado had a much different image during these two albums with her videos not having so much sex appeal as her new albums. Her video for I'm like a bird shows Nelly Furtado compltley covered with her hair scraped back making her appear more tomboy than sex symbol.
In 2006 Nelly Furtado released the album 'Loose' This was produced by Timbaland who has helped produce other R&B artists such as Justin Timberlake, Jay Z and Jennifer Lopez. Nelly Furtado also moved to the record label Universal with other big artists on the label like Beck, Blink 182, The Killers and The Who. This label was a good change for Nelly Furtado as it promotes so many upcoming artists who will appeal to the modern audience. Nelly Furtado completley changed her image and style of music in order to fit in with Timbalands fan base and this proved a success with her single 'Promiscuous.'
Nelly Furtado shows how in order to sell you have to move with what is in trend at the time and with artists such as Rhianna and Pussycat Dolls being very popular with the subculture at the time there would be no way for Nelly Furtado to be sucessful without being able to show some flesh and appear more feminine.
This was the first to be released off her album 'Loose' and shows just how much she has changed. Before there would be no problem showing the 'Like a Bird' image to a 5 yeard old child now parents would feel horrified to hear their children reciting her lyrics with lines such as 'I can see you with nothing on feeling on me before you bring that on.' However it may appear that in Nelly Furtado doing this that it's terrible but this is the whole appeal for a young audience to be listening to music that adults dont enjoy. Before her music was too 'safe' now people see her as an artist who is willing to be different and therefore fans may see her as a 'sellout' she willing to move with modern culture.
To help further back up my point of Nelly Furtado being more successful as an R&B artist I did a quick post on the networking site Facebook asking people whether they preferred Nelly Furtado as folk or R&B and only 1 out of 6 people said they preffered her when she was folk so therefore this was an appropriate switch for Nelly Furtado.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment