Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 07/20/2012 at 5:36 PM Videos

The Popdust Files: nelly furtado

Nelly Furtado’s singles have been frustratingly hit-or-miss (“Big Hoops,” to us, is a hit, but nobody seems to agree; half of “The Spirit Indestructible” is a miss until it lurches into a hit and back), so a new track isn’t as automatically exciting as it should be.

That said, new track “Parking Lot,” which Furtado debuted at the Sayers Club on July 19, does have us a little excited for the studio version. Below, some things worth noting:

- There’s enough of a particular guitar sound–you know the one, you’ve heard it–that it’s plausible this could actually be a radio hit (something that Furtado, thus far, hasn’t had for her album.)
- There’s cowbell.
- There’s some of that half-singing, half-rapping mode she’s particularly good at. Part of it mentions “brands, baby,” but we can’t have everything.
- Wordless-syllable breakdown/bridge/pre-chorus! That becomes a fade-out, as it should.
- Completely unrelated to the song: her skirt is very pink and kind of awesome.