And in our No. 16 track of 2007, she lets the music take her back to the dance clubs of 1987.

Here’s the thing about Nelly Furtado’s voice: It isn’t that good. At its worst, it bends in all the wrong places, and the fronting-at-the-club attitude she showed on songs like “Promiscuous” only makes its whininess stand out more. But sometimes, its limitations can be used to grand effect, and they were put to marvelous use on “Say It Right,” a song that recalled the best moments of freestyle’s heyday with its chilly beat, lonely lyrics, and the fact that, well, Furtado’s pipes don’t exactly match those of your everyday divas. (Come to think of it, her limitations actually recall those of Alisha, but that’s another talk for another time.) In fact, the somewhat bleak “Say It Right” works so well because, like so many freestyle tracks, it brings the emotion of the singer to the fore while effectively turning the singer herself into a blank canvas, one that any person feeling the same sort of longing expressed by the lyrics could project themself on to. (And when the person you’re erasing is as genuinely irritating as Nelly Furtado, that erasure is kind of a bonus.)

Nelly Furtado Say It Right [YouTube]
Nelly Furtado [MySpace]
Idolator’s 2007 Top 40 List Of Awesomeness