Nelly Furtado’s bisexuality - just a marketing strategy?

By now everybody has listened her new album "Loose". The album was named partly after the TCL band she admires for "taking back their sexuality, showing they were complete women". It became the most successful album of Nelly's career, reaching number one in several counties.

The release in June 2006 was also followed by a series of statements issued by the "Promiscuous" star. The real statement that got the press fired up was the one referring to her newly discovered bisexuality.

The "Maneater" singer revealed in an interview with a gay magazine: "I'm reading a book about Chinese medicine which claims all people are inherently bisexual to balance their energies. It makes so much sense. As humans we have both male and female energies."

Furthermore the singer added that she believes Kurt Cobain's statement that "in the end, everyone is gay".

This is partly true. Studies show that men with a high sex drive have a more targeted kind of sexual arousal while women with a high sexual drive tend to desire both sexes.

This being said I wouldn't argue that the artist is wrong. But clearly she does not have the best reasoning for her belief. In my opinion it would seem more plausible if she would have said she's a woman who loves having sex and suddenly discovered she enjoys the company of women without saying this is something she read in a book which claims all people are inherently bisexual. So because she read some book now she's a bisexual.

The debate is whether Nelly is dabbling about bisexual chic which in turn is used for advertising or it is all about advertising and her statements are made due to a marketing strategy.

Bisexual chic is a trend that now conquers more and more people. As a pure example of bisexual chic is Madonna who was seen kissing another girl in her music video "Justify my love" and the scene that made people go crazy at the MTV music awards in 2003 when Madonna kissed Britney Spears and then Christina Aguilera.

The thing is sex sells. And girl kissing girl sells even more! Let's not forget the success the girls from TATU had. TATU's lyrics and videos allude to relationship between the two of them and the girls promote it during interviews. The Daily Mail (London) wrote: "Tatu degrades marketing and music at the same time."

So, is Nelly Furtado using the same marketing strategy as the girls from Tatu? Well, whether she is using this marketing strategy or not, she definitely is drawing lots of attention. Her songs are in top charts and that says it all.

Andrew Jacob is a writer for Lyrics2search.com which is an excellent place for music lyrics of all genres. For Nelly Furtado lyrics please visit Nelly Furtado Lyrics