Loose (Nelly Furtado Album) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Loose received positive reviews from critics, receiving a 71/100 rating on the review scores aggregate website Metacritic. musicOMH and Allmusic cited the "revitalising" effect of Timbaland on Furtado's music, and The Guardian called it "slick, smart and surprising." Allmusic wrote in its review, "It's on this final stretch of the album that the Furtado and Timbaland pairing seems like a genuine collaboration, staying true to the Nelly of her first two albums, but given an adventurous production that helps open her songs up ... Timbaland has revitalized Nelly Furtado both creatively and commercially with Loose". She won her first BRIT Award—Best International Female—in 2007.

Rolling Stone gave it a mixed review. While "Promiscuous" was criticized as "garish", it was noted that "Maneater" "bumps hard enough to qualify as a sequel, and that's high praise indeed." Vibe stated, "she loses herself in Gwen Stefani–like posturing, as on “Glow,” and ethnic fusions like “No Hay Igual” or “Te Busque." In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, critic Robert Christgau gave the album a B rating and named it "dud of the month", indicating "a bad record whose details rarely merit further thought. At the upper level it may merely be overrated, disappointing, or dull. Down below it may be contemptible". Christgau viewed that its dance-oriented tracks "might accomplish God's great plan on the dance-floor. But as songs they're not much".