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Shak Attack!

So, Shakira has a new song out. I am quite fond of this woman. I've even been to her shows a couple of times when she came to Boston.

Well, I am not going to lie and say her dynamite looks have nothing to do with it BUT I didn't even know what she looked like when I first came in contact with her music.

I believe it was a late night music video show on either Telemundo or Univision. I wasn't even really watching it. I was on the phone or something. Then, I heard that voice. Shakira herself has mentioned in interviews that she had been told by her schoolmates and teachers that her voice sounded like that of a goat being strangled. I can't really disagree with them. She does sound like a goat. A smoking hot goat with hips that don't lie, that is.

So, I did see her video and found out that she was hot, but it was the Voice that made me drop whatever I had been doing and hurry over to the TV.

The very next day, I rode my bike to the Tower Records in Cambridge, MA and bought the two CDs of hers they had. I was surprised to see her name listed as the writer / co-writer on many of the songs. Then, a few months later, I saw her perform live on TV. I think it was the Latin Grammys. She belly-danced her way through one of her biggest hits, the Latin-Arabic-Uber-Disco-Blowout called OJOS ASI. I was blown away.

I know there are many sex bombs out there that can make any 16 yr old boys all hot and bothered. What was so refreshing to me about her was that while shaking her hips so hard in a VERY provocative outfit, she had this sh*t-eating grin on her face... like a little girl having a great time jump roping. She looked like she was born to dance. It was something she had no control over whatsoever. The music starts and her hips start moving, and she just loves it. Yes, she IS sexy but at the same time, there is something so wholesome about her.

Now, this new song of hers. It is a total throw back to the new wave-disco of the late 70s - the early 80s. She's said that she's a huge fan of the cheesy 80s pop-rock-new wave music and it shows in this song.

OK, the style of music went out of fashion for good reasons, I know, and there are acts out there nowadays who incorporate it into their music, but 99% of them use it for the very kitsch-ness of it. Not our Shak. There is nothing that is tongue-in-cheek about her approach here. Shakira is dead-serious. I do laugh because it is silly and funny, but at the same time, in some strange way, I am in awe.

Oh, the song is called LA LOBA (She Wolf is the English title) and it is about, I think, a woman telling her boyfriend who prefers his woman "domestic/domesticated" that there is a wild She Wolf inside her.

During its chorus, Shakira actually howls like a wolf a la Warren Zevon in Werewolves Of London. It is so goofy I think only Shakira can pull this off.

While it is hard to believe this is the same woman who once brilliantly sang about the emptiness one feels after her lover leaves her in her self-penned ballad titled MOSCAS EN LA CASA/Flies In The House (what a brilliant title!) backed only by an acoustic guitar, her idiosyncratic charm is still there in this retro electronic dance tune. In one of the verses, the protagonist compares herself to an abused coffee maker in an office. That, I think, is very Shakira. Like when she sang in her first English hit WHEREVER WHENEVER, "Lucky that my breasts are small and humble so you don't confuse them with mountains". You just go..."Huh??" lol

This is supposed to be the lead-off single from her upcoming album coming out this fall. I know will buy it. She is one of the real deals in the Pop world out there today. When she closed out her last album, ORAL FIXATION Vol 2 with a sunny dance number titled Timor, a song about East Timor of all things, it confirmed the feeling I had always had. "This woman is insane!".

As usual, I am babbling. lol I am not quite capable of expressing in words what it is about her that is so captivating. So, I will let a Nobel prize winning author do it.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez once wrote,

"Shakira's music has a personal stamp that doesn't look like anyone else's and no one can sing or dance like her, at whatever age, with such an innocent sensuality, one that seems to be of her own invention."

I guess they don't give those prizes away to just anyone. Very well put, GGM!

Comments

Hey, that's alright. I like Kuraki Mai, and I can't honestly say that her looks have nothing to do with it, too. I, too, started to like her music before I ever saw what she looked like (Love, Day After Tomorrow--I'll bet she was jailbait back then...oh well)

Isn't that why a lot of men like different female singers? I mean, honestly speaking?
 
I suppose you're right, especially when they look like Shakira. I really like her music. though... Her "DONDE ESTAN LOS LADRONES?" is one of my all time favorite CDs.

I am not familiar with Kuraki Mai. I will google her.
 
Ohhhh Thanks for the clip! Very nice indeed... I like the way she hold that microhphone. 😍
 
Hmm...she uses the same kind of falsetto that Alannis Morisette did, doesn't she? It's an interesting song; the black and white is most fitting!
 
thanks lots for dropping by Ashikaga-san!! im very new to this language, it's awesome having the chance to meet everyone here ;-)

p.s. nice song up there!
 
MyNoteToSelf;bt1658 said:
Haha, I live right near Cambridge and Boston. xD

Oh, so you know the Tower Records that I'm talking about. lol It IS still there, yes?

I lived all over the metro Boston area but my home for my last 10 years in the US was in Somerville. 😊
 

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Ashikaga
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