New tunes

So, I had been waiting for weeks for Nelly Furtado's new album to hit stores only to buy it on its first day and find myself disappointed. I have her first two albums and would rank Nelly at least in my top 10 musical artists, but this last effort, Loose, let me down. I liked her previous work because I love her unique, ardent voice and poetic lyrics. I loved her metaphors (to see past my lethargy is hard I feign/the beauty of my youth is gone but the chemicals remain) and diction (she used "pathos" in a song -- I hadn't heard that since AP English in high school).
Anyway, I was digging her new single "promiscuous" enough to feature on my Myspace page. The lyrics include lines like "I can see you with my T-shirt on." At first I was like, is this really Nelly? What happened to "I'm like a bird, I want to fly away, I don't know where my soul is, I don't know where my home is"? Well, I figured she did one radio-catchy song to creat some hype, but the whole record shows a departure from insight and artistry to it's about fatty Timbaland beats and "I'm the hottest girl at the club" attitude. To top it all off, I haven't been able to find a subustantive review of the album that dissects what's happened to Nelly and why she seems to be craving street cred. Music critics keep comparing her to Gwen Stefani, but I'm like, puh-leeze. Just because neither of them are predictable or easily categorized, doesn't mean they are models of each other.
I think I need to listen to it a few more times so it will grow on me, which happens with a lot of albums (I'm still working on Fiona Apple's third record, too).

ON THE FLIP SIDE, I was pleasantly surprised by the Julieta Venegas newest release, Limon y Sal (Lemon and Salt). The songs are beautiful, have a unique sound and the lyrics are catchy but not corny. Juliet is one of those talented, sincere and true artists. She doesn't come off to me as one of those, "I'm rich now, so I'm going to buy Louis Vuitton" music stars.