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Spanish album an unexpected "Plan" for Furtado
Fri Aug 28, 2009 11:14pm EDT
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By Leila Cobo
MIAMI (Billboard) - Nelly Furtado's first Spanish-language album is a mixture of design and circumstance, as so many grand plans often are.
There she was in the studio with her friend, guitarist James Bryan, attempting to help write the lyrics for a song titled "My Plan." But nothing worked. She tried writing the lyrics in Portuguese, but that didn't work either. And then, Alex Cuba -- a Cuban-Canadian singer-songwriter whose album Furtado had recently heard and liked -- stopped by the studio to say hello. Why not try the song in Spanish, he suggested. Then he had a go at the lyrics.
"And I really liked it," Furtado recalls. "So we started really organically writing songs -- me, him and James."
"My Plan" evolved into "Mi Plan," Furtado's first full-length Spanish-language album, due September 15 as a joint venture between Furtado's own label, Nellstar, and Universal Music Latin America. "Mi Plan" will be released simultaneously in all of Universal's 77 territories around the world and may be the most ambitious Spanish-language release by a mainstream star.
While it's common for Latin crossover artists like Enrique Iglesias and Shakira to release albums in Spanish, these always have included at least one English version of a single for mainstream radio. Even Christina Aguilera's "Mi Reflejo," her 2000 Spanish-language album, consisted mainly of translations of English-language hits -- and she has a Latin surname.
For Portuguese-Canadian Furtado, who has recorded Spanish collaborations, recording solely in that language is a gutsy move. "To me, music is a language in itself," Furtado says. "I know it sounds cliche, but that's what my experience has been around the world. I think some people, no matter what, are not going to like it because it's not the language they speak. But some of the people who listen to music in a different kind of way, they'll like it."
WORLDWIDE HITS
Given Furtado's global success, however, a Spanish-language album may be a good bet. "Mi Plan" comes in the wake of Furtado's 2006 album, "Loose," which sold more than 2 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and more than 10 million copies worldwide, according to Universal. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry ranked it at No. 13 on its list of top-selling albums for 2006 and 2007. Its hit single, "Promiscuous," was the fourth-best-selling online track in the world in 2006, according to IFPI numbers, ahead of hits like Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie" (which "Promiscuous" also bested in the United States, according to SoundScan) and the Fray's "How to Save a Life."
Such a sales performance is pretty hard to follow. Doing so in a non-native language has rarely been attempted. But while Furtado is treading unknown waters with a full Spanish-language release, she already has tested the Latin market with a handful of collaborations. Most notable among them is "Tu Fotografia," which she recorded with Juanes for his 2002 album "Un Dia Normal." The song peaked at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart in 2003 and also topped charts in several Latin American countries.
Beyond Latin America, her star appeal is so big that the first single from the new album, "Manos Al Aire," is already climbing the European radio charts.
"It's a very interesting project because it follows the philosophy we've been espousing for a while now: That increasingly, language is less of a barrier (in marketing music)," says Jesus Lopez, chairman of Universal Music Latin America/Iberian Peninsula, whose roster includes Iglesias and Juanes. "Fans follow their idols, independently of the language the artist performs in."
Lopez cites French artist Florent Pagny as an example. The singer-songwriter this year released an all-Spanish language album, "C'est Comme Ca," which reached No. 1 on France's sales chart and is still in the top 10. Pagny had never recorded an entire album in Spanish, but he's linked to the culture through his marriage to an Argentine woman. And Pagny doesn't have Furtado's global name, which has allowed for a worldwide release with high sales expectations.
The biggest challenge might be inside the United States, perhaps the one market where crossover artists are promoted in two separate ways, given mainstream radio's reluctance to play Spanish-language music. Universal aims for media exposure in both languages. The videos will include English subtitles in what Furtado calls her own interpretations of the lyrics rather than direct translations.
The biggest challenge in promoting a singer-songwriter who isn't, strictly speaking, Latin is, according to Universal Music Latino president Walter Kolm, communicating the album's authenticity. "We have to be very clear in conveying to the audience and the media that this album isn't a bunch of songs translated to Spanish, but that it was thought, created and executed entirely in Spanish," he says.
BROADENING HER LATIN AUDIENCE Continued...
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