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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