(Sony)
Lawsuits and lost love couldn’t stop the Colombian powerhouse from taking her rightful place atop Spanish pop’s streaming-fuelled resurgence
Streaming and AI may yet destroy music for ever – don’t be sad, we had a good run – but one of the sweeter morbid symptoms of this era is the revealed popularity of non-anglophone music. In 2023, Shakira split messily from her long-term partner, Gerard Piqué, and was fined more than £6m for tax fraud. Yet streaming returned her to the US Top 10 for the first time since 2007 with the Spanish-language songs TQG (with Karol G) and Bzrp Music Sessions Vol 53 (with Bizarrap), hilarious, middle-finger-aloft disquisitions into her ex’s faithlessness (“You traded a Ferrari for a Twingo!”). Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (Women No Longer Cry) is her 12th studio album.
Vocally, the “queen of Latin music” isn’t particularly distinctive, but she ranges from seductive to strident in a single line and makes both equally appealing. Her Majesty’s moods are despondent (rare), thirsty (much less rare) or proudly powerful (nearly always) and she ensures you’re buffeted by every emotion billowing past. Última is a piano ballad on the edge of melodrama, though Shakira turns off the dry ice, dials down her wind machine and gives us something small, intimate and real. Puntería is also great, a breezy hookup-catching-feelings track, while Te Felicito is one of several sleek dance-pop gems.
