TThe cover of “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” features a close-up shot of Shakira crying, her tears turning into diamonds as they stream down her face. This is a nice summary of relatively recent developments in her singing career. Her 2023 single “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol 53” turned the toxic fallout from her breakup with soccer player Gerard Pique into one of her biggest hits of all time. Within days of its release, the song became the most streamed song in the world, breaking her record for most YouTube views for a Latin American song. It was so huge that it obviously affected the stock market. “You traded a Twingo for a Ferrari,” she said furiously, “You traded a Rolex for a Casio.” And incredibly, both Renault and Casio’s stock prices fell.
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Additionally, the cover suggests where it came from, “Las Mujeres Ya No Loran” is from Shakira’s big farewell album, namely her “Blood on the Tracks,” her ‘s “Hear My Dear,” a development that may surprise longtime observers of her career. Raise their ears. Her arrival on the international stage with 2001’s Laundry Service was one of the most joyful moments for 00s pop. Here’s a 24-year-old Colombian who seemed to be taking a totally unique approach to becoming a pop star. She paralleled her outlandish musical experiments with Gregorian chants, surf guitars, music hall blasts, and homages to Red Zeppelin that make you wonder how she managed to get accepted by her major record label. I suggested mainstream bangers and her AOR ballads. Her lyrics were so strange that some observers condescendingly suggested that the author’s grasp of the English language was shaky, but a cursory reading of the Spanish equivalent lyrics Then it turns out that she uses the exact same strange metaphors and images in her native language. It was all very funny until the box office failure of her 2009 American film She Wolf made her nervous. Since then, Shakira’s albums have become less specific and more sombre. Perhaps her hellishly angry atmosphere here might inspire her to regain her sense of boldness. Not, after all, the woman who expressed her feelings for her ex-boyfriend’s mother by allegedly placing a life-sized model of a witch outside her house. She seems to be quiet and likes curry.
Alas, those who have such expectations need to temper them. The album certainly ranges from the sadness of a relationship gone awry (Entre Paréntesis) to the brutal enumeration of an ex-lover’s failures (Te Felicito), to haunted by doubts and fears that seem to have been assuaged. It’s an album that finds her in romantic woes until she tentatively returns to dating. by Nassau’s conclusion (“After doing it nonstop/We repeat it”). The lyrics to “Puntería” occasionally have flickers of Shakira thinking about the blue skies of yore (if the translation provided by the record company is to be believed, the lyrics contain an interesting command: “Give me fire, strangle my ass”). ) and the moment when Cómo Dónde y Cuándo almost morphs from the stomp of We Will Rock You into ferocious drum’n’bass. But these are mostly scattered moments on an album that’s mostly concerned with strolling through a selection of familiar modern pop styles: some Afrobeats, big piano ballads (complete with guest vocals by Shakira’s children) ), a little sad reggaeton from TQG, and a lot of one-pop. -House, both EDM-inspired and disco-influenced. Melodies range from powerful to frustratingly rinky-dink. None of the songs have an appealing melody that counteracts the feeling that you’ve heard a lot of this kind of music before. There’s a guest appearance by Cardi B, who momentarily lights up the mood by comparing her vagina to an empanada, but there’s also the vocalist’s perpetually melancholic sound, which clearly doesn’t need auto-tuning. The reason you follow it anyway is because that’s the original purpose. The way things are done these days.
The best moments come when Shakira is looking for a band that plays with Mexico’s regional style, a sound currently popular in the Americas. Grupo Frontera in Entre Parentésis, especially Fuerza Regida, who plays a frenetic corrido in his El Jefe nearby. The latter will sway you not only because of the sweary-like lyrics, “I work harder than a whore, but I fuck like a priest,” but also because it unexpectedly Because you can feel it. This isn’t the kind of music Shakira has essayed before, but it suggests that her adventurous spirit, which was once her USP, hasn’t completely disappeared.
But if she’s still capable of making impressive music, why doesn’t she make it more often? For the most part, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran doesn’t leave much of an impression, settling for just sliding from one ear to the other, but it also doesn’t actively make you climb up the wall, and it’s not as impressive as it is now. It’s a state of sublime mediocrity that much of pop music chooses. Perhaps that’s the point here. Las Mujeres Ya No Jolan sounds like the work of someone who decided that sales would come from playing it safe and that success itself would be the greatest revenge.
What Alexis listened to this week
Charlotte Day Wilson – I Don’t Love You
It’s an exquisite, ethereal piano ballad with plenty of twisted vocal samples lurking in your peripheral vision. Fans of James Blake’s early experiments should definitely check it out.
