It's been three years since Nelly Furtado's debut — enough time for her to sell 2 million CDs, win a Grammy and have a baby. But the song remains the same: A slick multiculti hodgepodge, Folklore is a Whoa, Nelly! redux, without a single as good as "I'm Like a Bird." The twenty-four-year-old kicks things off by proclaiming, "I am not a one-trick pony," but fails to back up that claim on the eleven songs that follow. Aside from the mechanized drum loops and assorted world-beat flourishes, she mostly sounds like a funkier Michelle Branch, complete with overwrought vocals and gooey melodies on songs such as "Try." Bright spot: The lighthearted hip-hop tune "Fresh Off the Boat," where she lets loose her jazzy voice and, for a few refreshing minutes, doesn't take herself too seriously.

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.