Tag Archives: Shakira

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Song of the Day #773: ‘Te Aviso, Te Anuncio (Tango)’ – Shakira

Following the worldwide success of her first two albums, it certainly wasn’t necessary for Shakira to break into the English-speaking marketplace. But Laundry Service, released at the end of 2001, was designed to do just that.

Nine of its 13 songs were in English, a language still not entirely familiar to Shakira, and lyrically that made for some awkward moments.

The album contains Spanish versions of three singles and each is demonstrably better than its English counterpart. Today’s track is one example, the translated version of ‘Objection (Tango),’ the first song Shakira ever wrote in English.

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Song of the Day #772: ‘Inevitable’ – Shakira

Two years after Pies Descalzos made her name, Shakira released 1998’s Dónde Están los Ladrones?, a wonderful album that remains her creative peak.

The album’s title (which translates to “Where are the thieves?”) was inspired by an incident in which Shakira’s luggage was stolen at the Bogota airport. She lost her notebook of lyrics for her next album and was forced to start from scratch. This was in the days before external hard drives.

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Song of the Day #771: ‘Se Quiere… Se Mata’ – Shakira

From Bob Dylan singing Christmas carols, I take the natural next step to focus on Colombian pop singer and belly dance enthusiast Shakira. Sorry to be so predictable.

In fact, today is the start of a Shakira theme week (plus a day) covering the six studio albums Shakira has released since her debut 14 years ago. Too few of my theme weeks have focused on female artists (I believe Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple and Lucinda Williams are it) so I’m looking to remedy that imbalance.

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Song of the Day #538: ‘Spy’ – Shakira

Best Songs of 2009 – #3

Shakira is like the villain in a horror movie. Whenever you think she’s down for the count — thanks to some absurdity like, say, the video for ‘She Wolf’ — she emerges stronger than ever. That was the case with She Wolf the album, which I’d come to sort of dread after the acrobatic unitard silliness of that first video. Why was this woman squandering her talent?

But she wasn’t, not at all. She just has very bizarre ideas about how she should express it. She Wolf (the album) turned out to be fantastic, full of thick beats, infectious melodies and the sort of continent-hopping musical experimentation for which Shakira is known. I’ll never doubt her again.

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Shakira – She Wolf

Of all the artists I listen to regularly, Shakira is perhaps the biggest test of my recent conclusion that it’s music — not lyrics — that means the most to me.

For one thing, Shakira’s best work has been recorded entirely in Spanish, so I have very little idea what she’s saying at all (and I don’t care). And second, her English-language songs alternate between generic love proclamations/condemnations and some of the most oddball, head-scratching lyrics you’re likely to find in a contemporary pop song. This is a woman who once titled a song ‘Poem to a Horse.’

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