Does Shiina have a Western equivalent?

[mizer_unmei]

The one I'm a little confused about is France Gall. Isn't she just a ye-ye pop artist? Unless she turned a backwards Shakira that I don't know about?

[frecklegirl]

Originally Posted by Scribble R

Shakira? Really?

I'm not trying to get at anything. But I don't know anything about Shakira apart from WHEREVER WHENEVER and HIPS DON'T LIE, and I didn't, er, think of Ringo.

Shakira is much more than her sexy image she has in the west. She writes all her own lyrics for the most part and they're very clever and honest. She's quite intelligent and a versatile, dynamic artist. It's never occurred to me but I can see several similarities between her and Ringo. I suggest you give all her albums starting with Pies Descalzos a chance.

But I disagree, Jihad. Shakira has never been "rawk" in a way that she still isn't now.

[justriiingo]

if said "western" artist is from Australia is that considered "western" too?

[kuro_neko]

Shakira can be rock. Her early album would better be classified as primarily folk, her second album alternative. her whole process is extremely creative and she is always 100 percent responsible for the final results of each song, she writes, composes, mixes, choreographs, and prepares each song herself. recently what she has been doing is pairing herself up with pioneers in the fields she wants to work with and kind of bouncing the ideas around and coming up with really different results. Despite Hips Don't Lie being really mainstream and pop, the album it was later added to (it was written afterwards and slapped on after to help sales) is most definitely what I would consider rock pop.

she is probably one of two or three artists who consistently puts out commercial singles that I generally dislike, anchoring more experimental and less-commercial albums. if you have only heard her singles, I suggest you try some of the actual non-single album tracks.

live Poem to a Horse is a fav of mine, this is Laundry Service era-meaning during her American pop crossover. this video kind of sucks cuz they edit her when she says "hydroponic pot" a few times. everytime they edit her out its her saying that. She also did a cover of ACDC's Back in Black during this tour, which got an official DVD release and is available all over the place (youtube).

poem to a horse

she also did the hands down best performance at a tribute to Aerosmith on MTV, singing Dude Looks Like a Lady and getting Steven Tyler involved in the actual act a bit. She put her own spin on it and while its a bit difference from the original, her spirit was a perfect match for the song. The harmonica rawk out is pretty hot too, she got the sweet harmonica skillz.

dude looks like a lady

[mizer_unmei]

She also didn't completely write Hips Don't Lie -- it was a song Wyclef Jean wrote for the Dirty Dancing 2 soundtrack. Ugh.

Otherwise Shakira is soooo lovely. Of her Laundry Service and after songs "La Totura" is fantastic, and possibly my favorite from her which can't really be considered pure-pop by any stretch of the imagination.


Oh, and this song:

No Creo

[kuro_neko]

Originally Posted by mizer_unmei

She also didn't completely write Hips Don't Lie -- it was a song Wyclef Jean wrote for the Dirty Dancing 2 soundtrack. Ugh.

where did you hear about that? from my understanding, Shakira bumped into Wyclef and it just kind of happened. they get along very well, so it was pretty much natural, I think perhaps he had been working on it (maybe for the movie?) but shakira kind of took over and the final result was Shakira and Wyclef writing together.

wait, I just found this. I guess this earlier song was the prototype and it evolved into Hips Don't Lie later on...

Wyclef Jean does the rap. This is based on his song "Dance Like This," which he recorded with Claudette Ortiz for the Dirty Dancing (Havana Nights) soundtrack in 2004. Jean explained to livedaily.com why he remade it with Shakira: "God works in mysterious ways. I had to do a record for Shakira. They wanted me to remix 'La Tortura.' I was like, 'No. I have this record that I really think if Shakira comes in with me and we redo it, I really think it'll work.' I think it just missed in 2004 because it wasn't promoted right and probably the right artist wasn't on the record. I guess my instincts were right."


hahaha, so I guess Shakira just rewrote her vocals. this is kinda hilarious. they changed it from Havana to Columbia, LOL.

dance like this

[Cosmo!]

Shakira's badass. I can see the similarity in her and Ringo's willingness to try something new and switch up their styles. she may be more mainstream than Ringo, but she does mainstream pop like no other.

[a_grumble_cake]

Originally Posted by justriiingo

to make many friendshipisms with EMFers...

(not gonna take credit for this... NipponRock basically posted a link to this artist when he reviewed SG)

haha that was great. The video is what the Vogue PV should have been.

[Scribble R]

Lol @ the idea of Shiina being able to move like that.

She should just continue doing the Aaaajikkuujii Asobi Dance!

JM's good, but why is it that whenever an artist's lyrics consist of stuff like "Stop all the shooting" or "What has this world come to" or "Respect yourself, ladeez", critics say that's 'deep?' I think it's totally cliche.

[Entry№1]

Originally Posted by mizer_unmei

The one I'm a little confused about is France Gall. Isn't she just a ye-ye pop artist? Unless she turned a backwards Shakira that I don't know about?

France Gall became famous for winning Eurovision in 1965, but became infamous for a song called "Le Succettes" released in the mid 60's. It was a song about lollipops, but had many double entendres about oral sex.

Phallic Symbols!

France Gall became a laughing stock afterwards, as she claimed she didn't know it was about sex since she released it only at the age of 18.
I've always thought she secretly did know what it was about from the get-go, but didn't like the large amount of negative publicity it created so she lied about not knowing what it was about. I found some parallels to the "Honnou" music video and the effect it had on SR's career.
There are a lot of other parallels too, but it would take me too long to write about all of them here. I can at least point out the similarity between the arrangement styles of FG songs like "Les Quatre Elements" and SR's own "Mokuren no Cream".

Mokuren no Elements