Pop Picks of the Week 4/2/14

Can't Remember To Forget You (Shakira ft. Rihanna)

Wooo! A contender for pop song of the Summer…except it has been released in a gloriously apocalyptic, storm molested January.  Here we have the lead single from Shakira’s upcoming album and everyone’s favourite mechanoid Colombian is off to a great start. This is a shamelessly catchy song, saturated with Shakira’s trademark controlled vocals, roaring guitars and playful brass. The fact that the other featured artist (Rihanna) doesn’t overpower Shakira’s vocal is testament the great production of this track. This is pure distilled Shakira- it has all of her usual tics- extensive lyrics that aren’t actually words (woo-oo-ooahh), demure and ghostly oooh-ing and eee-ing (it’s hard to make up words for those noises!), and an infectious, triumphant chorus.

As for the video, it’s rendered more closely in Rihanna’s house-style, all arse-wiggling (not that Shakira has been averse to arse-wiggling in her career), phallic cigar chomping etc. It’s all pretty innocent and enormously tongue-in-cheek. More interesting are the call-backs to other Shakira videos, and to the videos of other pop divas. There’s one moment that calls to mind Britney and Madonna’s “Me Against The Music” as the pair slam and dance against the wall that separates them and their love. Hang in there girls, your lipstick lesbianism cannot be separated by mere plywood walls. It also evokes fond memories of Beyoncé and Shakira sharing a similar love for walls in “Beautiful Liar.” Girl loves her walls!

A fun side effect of the video in Shakira’s native Colombia is the uproar it has caused among conservative politicians who have decried the video for “promoting lesbianism.” So, it’s a fun song AND a spot of unintentional LGBT activism. 

Once Upon a Dream (Lana Del Rey

Vastly less controversial to the Colombian government (I presume) is my other pick of the week- Lana Del Rey’s version of the Jack Lawrence and Sammy Fain (with a little help from Tchaikovsky) penned “Once Upon a Dream” from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. This version of the song is from the soundtrack to the upcoming Maleficent (a movie whose unbridled camp appeal grows greater with each newly released publicity shot of Angelina Jolie gliding about the place).

Here, the classic Disney song is treated to an unsettling modification. I’m not the biggest Lana Del Rey fan in the world and usually find her music a little over-wrought, but this works tremendously well. Whatever has been done to the original melody (it seems to be slowed down and re-written in a minor key? Musicians, prove me wrong!), works hauntingly well. It’s possessed of a strange quality- halfway between dreamlike and funereal- perfect for a version of the song co-opted for the telling of Maleficent’s story.