Shakira Shakira

I think Shakira is fantastic, she moves great and she sings with passion.
Here is a review of her concert from the NYT

When people call a pop star fearless, they're usually talking about something milder than that: a willingness to record a song full of weird noises, or to say something gently provocative in an interview, or to wear an outfit that may have looked better on the hanger.

Shakira performing Thursday at Madison Square Garden.
Shakira, the half-Lebanese singer and writher from Colombia, is fearless in a more literal and more absolute sense. She faces big audiences without betraying the slightest hint of anxiety. It's not that she doesn't appreciate all the adulation, it's just that she can't imagine why it would stop. Who doesn't love Shakira?

During her sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, Shakira seemed more invincible than ever. If she hasn't — yet — matched Madonna's triumphs, she also hasn't had to deal with Madonna-sized disappointments. Instead of suffering in tabloids and onstage, the way pop stars sometimes do (or seem to), she seems to have decided that her musical career is a grand game that she's destined to win.

"Here's the deal," she said, near the beginning. "You know I'm gonna be dancing and playing and doing all the required stuff." Then, having shrugged off her own role, she requested that the audience do its part and have fun.

Not that her songs lack passion. On the contrary, they overflow with it; she writes clever, stylized lyrics that keep bathos at arm's length — which is to say, within arm's reach. In "La Tortura," a Spanish-language hit so big that it converted lots of Anglo listeners, a sentimental love song turns out to be a petulant brush-off; the flowery language only makes it that much meaner. (She sings it as a duet with the Spanish balladeer Alejandro Sanz, who got a huge ovation when he emerged, unannounced.)

"La Tortura" comes from "Fijación Oral, Vol. 1," her excellent 2005 Spanish-language album; The concert also included a graceful version of "Obtenir Un Si," a hushed samba song from the album, and an interpretive dance set to the ballad "No," also from that album.

Not surprisingly, the Anglo music industry has simplified Shakira's appeal. To non-Spanish speaking fans in America, she's known less for playful, spiky rock songs (though Thursday's show had lots of them) and more for breathy ballads or frenetic club tracks or hip-shaking so vigorous it seems positively lethal. She led a sing-along during "Underneath It All," a lovely ballad that sounded just as lovely in 1988, when the Bangles called it "Eternal Flame." And, inevitably, the night ended with the reappearance of Wyclef Jean, the opening act, for "Hips Don't Lie," their pleasingly inescapable mega-hit.

That comes from the 2006 revised version of "Oral Fixation, Vol. 2," the not-quite-as-excellent English-language sequel to "Fijación Oral." Shakira realized early on that she didn't want to simply translate her Spanish-language songs in hopes of conquering America, so she has figured out a way to have dual careers that overlap (two songs appear on both "Oral" albums) without quite merging. Not surprisingly, she finds usual ways to use English idiom: when she sings "Whenever, Wherever," the words connote eager romantic devotedness; at your local high school, those words would more likely connote indifference.

For someone like Shakira, hurdling the so-called language barrier is nothing. More impressive is the way she has hurdled the attitude barrier. In America, we usually like our pop stars to work hard — to look as if they're working hard — for our pleasure. But Shakira glided through a two-hour set as if it were a merely one of her many hobbies. What kind of pop star can act as if she doesn't need us? Shakira has figured out the answer: a foreign one, who years ago conquered the rest of the hemisphere.

"Thank you so much for a wonderful night," she said when it was nearly over. Maybe it's a coincidence, but that sounds like exactly the sort of thing you say to a smitten admirer who can't live without you — right after you decide that the feeling isn't quite mutual.