Oral Fixation, vol. 2 by Shakira

Oral Fixation, vol. 2 by Shakira, Sony, 2005
ASIN: B000EQH2QK

Plot Summary and Critical Evaluation

While Shakira’s music is lively and complex, it is her lyrics that truly make this album shine. Shakira, a gifted lyricist, expertly crafts her words to fit her moving music, particularly during poignant songs such as Your Embrace, a song which all women can relate to. “Tell me what’s the use/Of a 24 inch waist/ If you don’t touch me?” she asks her best friend, sentiments echoed by any woman who suffers from unrequited love. Of course, Shakira’s lyrics are brilliant in her more upbeat songs as well, such as Don’t Bother, where she describes her 5’1” self as a flea compared to her fictional ex-boyfriend’s new, tall, girlfriend or in La Tortura where she makes a Biblical reference when talking to her cheating boyfriend, “You say you love me like no other but you can’t live on bread alone”.

Shakira is also talented in allowing listeners to step into another person’s world through her music. For example, in her song Dreams for Plans, an immigrant woman asks her lover to remember a time when all they needed was their love in order to survive in a foreign country: “I remember all the times before/When we could spend our living/Staring at the ceiling, lying on the floor/Our vocabulary wasn’t broad/ And I spoke so little English/ That the word ‘stess’ would sound like something odd”. She then goes on to implore her lover to tell her what went wrong in their relationship. “Have we changed our hopes for fears/And our dreams for plans?” she asks him. Later in her album Shakira includes a song about the island of Timor, a place that has been divided for two centuries and now consists of West Timor and East Timor. In her song, Shakira challenges listeners to question their comfortable lives and to remember those in need: “It’s all right, It’s all right/If the news says half the truth/Hearing what we want is the secret of eternal youth…If we forget about them don’t worry/If they forget about us then hurry/How about a people who don’t matter anymore?” Shakira even takes listeners into the secret world of the rich and famous through her song Animal City. In it, she details the life of a wealthy man whose relatives wish to take advantage of him because of his great wealth: “Why do all my friends now want to be your lovers?/Your family got bigger when they thought you were rich/…They believe you now have everything you wanted/And once you have become a star you’ve got no right to bitch/But someday when you fail/They’ll put you on sale/And buy you by the inch”.

Certainly Shakira’s talent to challenge her audience’s preconceived notions makes her a brilliant lyricist, and performer. Indeed, from Oral Fixation, Volume 2, it is easy to see how she is one of the world’s most popular artists.

GlamItUp (2008, Oct. 30). How tall is Shakira. Retrieved from http://theglamourouslife.com/articles/how-tall-is-shakira.html

Reader’s Annotation

In Oral Fixation, volume 2, Shakira serves up sexy, incisive lyrics and a beat you can’t help but dance to.

About the Artist

Columbian artist Shakira “began writing songs at the age of eight; learned to speak English by studying the work of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Walt Whitman; and took history classes at UCLA during her break between albums. The compassionate side of Shakira is most obvious in the remarkable work of her Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) Foundation, which she started at the age of 18 and has now opened its sixth school. The foundation currently provides education and nutrition to over six thousand impoverished children in Colombia and is expanding its work to other countries, including newly launched projects in Haiti and South Africa.

Over the course of her career, Grammy winner Shakira has sold close to sixty million albums. Her collaborations with such stars as Beyonce and Alejandro Sanz have helped keep her audience expanding continually. She is the only artist from South America to have a Number One song in the US, and her performance was a highlight of the 2009 concert celebrating President Obama's inauguration. She has four of the twenty top-selling hits of the decade, more than any other artist—including 2006's unforgettable "Hips Don't Lie," the biggest-selling single of the 21^st Century, which reached the Number One spot in an astonishing 55 countries” (Bio, n.d.)

Bio. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.shakira.com/biography/

Genre

Latin, Pop, World

Curriculum Ties

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Booktalk Ideas

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Reading Level/Interest Level

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Challenge Issues

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Why Was This Included?

I decided to include Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 because I noticed that Shakira’s music was shelved in the Young Adult section at my local library and I think that Shakira is a brilliant artist. In fact, she is one of my favorite female vocalists and I enjoy all her work except for her album, She Wolf.