You know how people always ask "Do you wanna feel really old?" and then, before you can answer "NO!", they go ahead and tell you something that makes you feel prehistoric?
I hate that.
So, can you believe that Nelly Furtado's Whoa, Nelly! came out almost twenty years ago?
The year was 2000 and radio had descended into a testosterone-filled pool of rape rock and Trent Reznor gym workout music. Six years after it came out, you were still likely to hear "I wanna (bleep) you like an animal!" within five minutes of turning on the local alt. rock station so when "I'm Like A Bird" landed on the airwaves next to these crab-walking cookie monsters we called rock stars at the time, it kinda stuck out.
In the nineteen years that have passed since the song came out, that breathy mix of folk and hip-hop that was a completely new thing at the time has been co-opted by many a pop star since.
As the song began to pick up steam at radio, infiltrating Adult Contemporary and Pop radio formats before making the jump to MTV and VH1, you began seeing praise for the song coming from unusual sources.
Being that this was our first taste of Nelly Furtado's music, we didn't know quite yet if we were hearing another "one-and-done" a la Meredith Brooks ("Bitch") or if we were, in fact, watching the emergence of a Y2K Joni Mitchell or Suzanne Vega.
Thankfully, the rest of the album was just as consistently hooky and musically challenging to those still hooked on non-melodic grunge, with the follow-up single, "Turn Off The Light", hitting #5 and matching the commercial success of "I'm Like A Bird" and propelling Whoa, Nelly past double-platinum status.
The next year, "I'm Like A Bird" won the Grammy for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance".
The next year, "I'm Like A Bird" won the Grammy for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance".