A-hoooooooo!

The New York Times just had an article a few days ago about Colombian pop star Shakira's new album and her increasing visibility in international charity and political circles. Indeed, in some ways, she seems to be pulling a Bono, whose moments of greatest political influence also seem to come at times when his band is at its most relevant musically (the late 80s/early 90s and the first few years of this century, lining up with Joshua Tree/Rattle and Hum/Achtung Baby and All That You Can't Leave Behind--at least according to this observer). I wish Shakira nothing but the best in her charitable work, and I think she's kind of cool musically. "Hips Don't Lie" is undoubtedly a smash, a song we'll be dancing to at parties for the next twenty years. I'm also actually a huge fan of "She-Wolf," ("Loba," in Spanish). I think it's a great song, and I love the completely-out-of-left-field howls that she does. Great stuff. And everyone has had good things to say about her most recent tour.

It has to be said, though, that Shakira is just not a great singer. This becomes painfully clear on her ballads. All those little warbles and yodels she does can't quite make up for the fact that her voice isn't strong enough to sustain notes and have them sound decent. Which is too bad, because she's obviously an incredibly compelling performer and provides a much-needed Latin American presence in the mainstream pop world. But I can't help but thinking that it's not quite deserved.

You want proof? Listen to her version of The Pretenders' "I'll Stand By You" from the Hope for Haiti telethon last year.



Yikes! Her lack of vocal chops was made all the more glaring by the fact that she was preceded by my man, Stevie Wonder. Stevie does about a minute of his tune, "A Time to Love," which isn't a great song. But then he goes into "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and, frankly, just blows that song out of the water. Honestly, I brought this clip up on youtube, listened to it for about two minutes, then I was looking at something in another browser tab while the song kept playing. After another minute, I realized I was crying. It's really that good.




So I haven't had a chance to listen to Shakira's new album, Sale el Sol, yet. So we'll see. But as for now, if I'm looking for pop divas, I'll stick with Beyonce and Xtina--though she hasn't done anything very good recently, my friend Ave was right to point out that "Beautiful" is just a really stellar tune. But for everything else, Stevie.