We started hearing snippets of this back in May, and she already played it at Glastonbury in June, but now we have the full studio version of Shakira's cover of the xx's "Islands." For one song, she's really been stringing us along for a while.
And it sounds pretty shrug-worthy, to be honest. She adds a cheesy drum machine and gets a little too excited about the vocals to make them seem sincere. She was originally going to call this cover "Explore," which kind of sums up the difference between it and the original: whereas Romy Madley Croft sang about the comfort of being alone with someone, Shakira transforms it into something exotic and overly dramatic. I don't believe that's she's "froze by desire," as she yells, or that she's done exploring anything except a dancefloor. The xx made "Islands" sound like home; Shakira makes it sound like a vacation.
And whatever her intentions for actually recording this song, releasing it on the Fader seems like a cheap gimmick to get music blogs like this one, which probably would ignore her otherwise, to tell people she has a new album out.
I'm disappointed in Shakira.
Sale el Sol is out October 19.
[Fader]
It would be much more interesting if she recorded a video for it like the one for "She Wolf." Those are some amazing... dance moves.