Heard Here

Nelly Furtado
Whoa, Nelly 

You have to give Nelly Fortado props for calling her album Whoa, Nelly. She’s also lucky. It could have been a disaster in the hands of the wrong producers. Gerald Eaton, Brian West and Jon Levine are not the wrong producers. These guys are good, with the potential to be great, just like Furtado. Their samples and string arrangements are sweet with an undertow; their beats are patient. 
All the tracks are interpreted liberally and well, the producers dictated to by the songs, and not the other way around. The result is a hanging-around-with-your-friends-and-talking album that you can also dance to alone in your room. “Hey Man,” is as bright an opening track as you’ll find, and the rest are like that too: earnest, daring, a little bit cynical. Furtado’s lyrics deserve a lot of that credit. They walk a very thin line between smart and teenage beat poet, falling off from time to time. It’s her first major label album, after all. Still, there are turns of phrase that bring a smile, like, “I’m drinking spirits in the hope that I will find myself one,” from “Party,” a really excellent evocation of a time “when all of the doors around me just shut one by one by one by one.” Furtado’s voice recalls the latest days of Ani and Joan Osborne, a nasal, emotive, knowing instrument, sliding and bouncing over the notes. And she’s a dead-on deliverer, exuberantly attacking tricky rhythm sections as if they’re as fun as an ice-cream sundae, as easy as a walk in the park. This girl has got soul . 
The album’s sound wavers between kind of hippy-hoppy and Latin-influenced (Furtado is Portuguese-Canadian) beats, between melodic rap and jazz vocals, and it works most of the time, although the less adventurous rhythms can get boring like “Scared of You,” and “Baby Girl.” Furtado’s voice can usually hold the interest though, as she says in “Party”: “I’m changing my inflection/And how I say the words/Maybe it will sound like something they’ve never heard.” 
She’s not afraid to deal with hard truths either. “I Will Make U Cry,” “Legend” and “Well Well” are about the kind of edgy, unhealthy relationships that you would be hard pressed to locate in the teen-queen catalogue, just like the very real, painful sexuality that finds its way into many of the songs. There’s a kiss-off to the hipsters who say she’s selling out, “Shit on the Radio,” which is bitter and funny. And then there is Furtado on the radio: “I’m Like A Bird,” which cut through the busy noise the first time I heard it on top-40, and it sounds even better here, the poppy, heartfelt palate cleanser in between the heavy vocal-layered halves of the banquet. 
Whoa, Nelly is a very promising debut from a performer who seems to have her head on straight. Let’s hope success doesn’t turn it.

-Jessica Rosenberg

Tortoise
Standards 

Tortoise has been a critics’ darling ever since their excellent 1994 self-titled debut. With the release of Standards, one hopes rock critics snap out of their trend of unequivocal appraisal and start listening critically to the music. Because this time around, it’s not very interesting.
Standards is markedly jazzy. Most of the songs follow a similar formula where corny sounding vibes or various other eclectic instruments are layered with drums, bass and washes of effects. For the most part, these effects are the album’s only element that differentiate it from generic-sounding light jazz.
During its better moments, Standards sounds a little like Stereolab’s Dots and Loops, which Tortoise drummer (among other things) John McEntire produced. At it’s more dubious moments, it’s dull, repetitive and plodding.
“Seneca,” the album’s first track, is a good template for what follows on Standards. A repetitive drum and bass riff emerges out of an overblown intro, but nothing else really happens. Like the majority of the album, “Seneca” has no kinetic energy and no sense of driving forward motion.
“Eros,” the next track, falls into a similar trap. The bizarre electronic elements would make any true-blue techno fan scrunch up their face and say “weird,” but the song becomes tiresome and lacking in any variation aside from predictable layering of instrumentation.
Predictable is tolerable sometimes, straight up cheesiness is not, and Standards beefs up Tortoise’s cheese factor, most notably on the cringeworthy “Benway,” which sounds eerily like a television commercial jingle.
One element of minor interest on Standards is the guitar playing, jointly handled by Dan Bitney, Douglas McCombs, McEntire and Jeff Parker. At times the instrument pervades the songs beautifully and with thickly coated reverb, rivaling the gorgeous soundscapes of Vini Reilly’s early Durutti Column records.
“Eden 2” is the only track on Standards that is wholly satisfying. Wobbly effects are layered over a macho hip-hop beat and combined with some terrific guitars. It’s the kind of song you’d want pumping from your convertible in the August heat. Ironically, “Eden 2,” the only song that really deserves to stretch out, lasts a mere two minutes.
Standards sounds like a record from a band attempting to make the commercial crossover. For fans who appreciate everything Tortoise originally offered — a radically different indie sound, icy detachment and a ruthless sense of musical purpose — Standards isn’t worth the wait.

-Nick Stillman

Pretty Boy Thug
Dreamin’ of Riches

From time to time we here at the Oberlin Review receive CDs from record labels seeking to promote their artists. This week, for curiosity’s sake, I decided to review an album sent to us by Big Cat Records, Pretty Boy Thug’s debut album Dreamin’ of Riches. (It’s a real album y’all, you can buy it on cdnow.com, I checked).
Pretty Boy Thug hails from Starkville, Miss, or the “backwoods” as he refers it on his album. The CD mostly concerns pimps, hoes, platinum jewelry and flossing fancy cars. Lyrically, the album is unoriginal, weakly written and at times disturbing. 
In “Shake for the Cash,” Pretty Boy Thug rhymes “That girl ain’t nothin’ but 18 but she right baby” about a girl in a club he wants to get with, and the hook to “Bounce to This” is “And we gon’ do it baby/Stick it baby/Do it baby/Stick it.”
However, Dreamin’ of Riches’ main flaw is that every song sounds almost exactly the same. At times, it makes you wonder why Pretty Boy Thug even gave his tracks separate names. It also seems as if Pretty Boy Thug is trying his best to imitate other southern rappers signed to the labels Cash Money Millionaires and No Limit. Even though the rappers signed to these labels are known for their less than thought-provoking lyrics, they at least have the sense to diversify the beats on their albums, something Pretty Boy Thug apparently forgot to do.
The only highlight on the album is “Mississippi,” the album’s last track, which features Storm Clique, another Mississippi-based rap group. The lyrics on the track are actually fairly smart, as Pretty Boy Thug and Storm Clique rhyme about life in past and present-day Mississippi. 
But, one track is not enough to save Pretty Boy Thug’s attempt to put Mississippi on the hip-hop map. It looks like Pretty Boy Thug will still be Dreamin’ of Riches until he can come up with more original and creative material.

-Christina Morgan