Overproduction ruins singer’s potential

Most Shakira fans that come across the cover of her 1996 album Pies Descalzos would have trouble recognizing the singer. More than a decade later, the starlet has broken into mainstream success with a heavy dose of blonde hair dye and overt sex appeal.

Sunny day · Despite goals, the album’s optimism feels phoney. - Photo courtesy of Sony US Latin

Gone are the multicolored braids and controversial, quirky lyrics. Now, anyone can hear Shakira on local radio stations and in the World Cup soccer jingle.

Her latest release, Sale El Sol, does not lend itself to fans of her off-beat personality but instead to those who jumped on the band wagon during Shakira’s sudden transformation. Her latest tracks take listeners on a journey that is murky at best.

Looking past her drastic change from earthy to sexy, the album does not fare well on its own. The tracks succeed more at showcasing a recording studio’s ability to strain her voice to the highest pitch possible instead of displaying Shakira’s talent, and the results land somewhere in between a robotic screech and a computerized wail.

“Loca,” featuring Dizzee Rascal (the Spanish version features El Cata), launches listeners head-first into this strange, distorted voice. It does not sound like Shakira — more like the product of digital effects turned up to their max. The repetition of this tone makes the track difficult to listen to. The heavy mixing does not succeed in creating a sexy, smoldering voice, but rather a smothering, grating noise that reverberates painfully in the listener’s brain.

The trumpets in the track lend themselves to blaring speakers, and the bouncing piano help put listeners in a dancing mood, but the obvious effort Shakira exerts toward making her voice sexually attractive puts a damper over the otherwise infectious rhythm. As she chants I’m crazy but you like it in the chorus, the listener can bust out a few dance moves before getting a heavy dose of shrill tones that suffocate any dance floor.

Perhaps some assistance from another famous friend will help listeners forgive Shakira’s overt use of technological distortion. And who better to turn up the heat than the unapologetic and rambunctiously  sexual Residente from the Latin duo Calle 13?

The clever and risqué rapper teams up with Shakira to create a sex-laced track with characteristically shocking lines. In “Gordita,” Residente seems to take hold of the reins, adding pithy lines, such as Yo soy como Bambi, tu venadito which translates to “I am like Bambi, your little deer.”

Paired with other similarly sensual phrases, the track mostly revels in sexual tension and eventual conquest. The rendezvous, however, takes a strange turn as the lyrics mention vamos a tirarnos los dos del mismo puente / sin paracaídas … como hippies cuando están fumando, which translates to “lets throw ourselves off the same bridge without a parachute, like the hippies when they are smoking.” The strange turn only takes away from the song’s initial potential.

It’s an interesting idea, but the song fails to deliver and only launches Shakira into even more screeching high tones paired with overtly physical entreaties.

Aside from the official song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, “Waka Waka (This time for Africa),” no other track stands out or captivates listeners. The songs mostly follow the same formula, making the album feel like a little girl trying to fit into her mother’s  high heels rather than an artist fully aware of her musical persona and distinct style.

Despite the overtly sexual nature of most of the tracks, Shakira attempts to introduce some emotion in a few. The album begins with the title track “Sale El Sol,” a clichéd song that presents the tired idea of the sun always coming up the next day.

The potential for a bit of sincere emotion dissolves with its formulaic set-up. The optimism comes across, but the crafting seems plastic, with choruses put in where they would be expected.

“Islands,” a fully English cover of The xx’s song, manages to sound slightly more captivating, but Shakira’s vocals again disappoint, almost as if the notes in the song lay just out of reach.

Although Shakira makes a conscious effort to feed off the current interests of music audiences, the end result sounds like a hyperactive copy of the tracks that already exist today.

Even worse, this attempt is obvious, making the album lose more appeal and, most importantly, authenticity.

Some songs could invade airwaves — and some already have — but the album fails largely because Shakira attempts to satisfy the wants of a very fickle audience member. Perhaps she can look back at years past and take a leaf out of her very own book to see that mainstream success does not mean one must don a widespread and expected persona.

There’s room for a genuine and unique personality as well.