‘Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran’: Shakira’s latest album is a monument to current pop culture

Colombian pop star Shakira has just finished the demolition job she started two years ago on her ex-partner and father of her two sons, soccer star Gerard Piqué. This has meant reinventing herself to become an artist determined to remain relevant in the current musical climate. The 47-year-old has emerged triumphant from the most turbulent period of her life, one in which her separation coincided with tax evasion issues and her father’s illness.

It was during this trying period that Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (Women No Longer Cry) came together. More than just an album, it seems like a monument to today’s pop culture, that of the sparkling world of TikTok, of frivolity, of the morbid fascination of watching two celebrities tear into each other, of music without musicians, of highly produced sound, and of the desperation to embrace ever-changing trends. It is also about female solidarity and fortitude, as suggested by the album’s title.

Throughout her 30-year recording career, the Barranquilla-born singer has always tried to position herself as a contemporary artist, someone with her radar tuned to the latest music trend, with varying degrees of success. But now, as she gets her second wind as a performer, this eagerness to adapt to current trends makes more sense and is commendable for an artist with a long career. There is a lot of urban genre and dominating tendencies in Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, including the obligatory collaborations — of the 16 tracks, she performs only four alone — and the standard three-minute length of each song, now considered as much as our attention spans can cope with, according to the consumption gurus of the digital era.

Shakira has successfully detected the current craze for the revival of disco, the vindication of Afrobeat, the emergence of regional Mexican music, and reggaeton in manageable quantities. And she is accompanied by leading artists in these fields, such as rapper Cardi B, the urban genius Bizarrap, the Mexican Fuerza Regida, Colombian Karol G and the reggaeton artist Rauw Alejandro. But there are still glimpses of Shakira, the shewolf, and a more classic pop sound. Almost all the songs are rabidly commercial, with their choruses chanted and fit for the world’s football stadiums. And since this is a concept album revolving around her break-up, it is laced with reproaches and jabs at her ex-partner, who was allegedly unfaithful to her.

Seven of the 16 songs on Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, her first full-length album since El Dorado in 2017, have already been released as singles. In these, the singer charts the different phases of her marriage break-up: the sarcastic Te Felicito, performed with Rauw Alejandro; the regretful Monotonía, performed with Ozuna; Te Quedo Grande with Karol G; the forgettable ballad promising her children to stay strong for them, Acróstico; the futile Copa Vacía with Manuel Turizo; the opportunistic El Jefe with Fuerza Regida, the only one of the seven that does not deal with the breakup; and finally, the irresistible ballad Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53, a hymn that is hard to get out of your head. It is this track that gives the album its title as she sings, “Women no longer cry, women cash in.” All in all, the lyrics hold a certain morbid fascination while musically the result could be described as a talented artist trying to adapt to the times, sometimes nailing it, at others not so much.

So what’s new in the album? Aim, featuring New York rapper Cardi B, is the first track on the album, a good uplifting choice of opener and a smooth dance track featuring a 1990s keyboard sound with playful lyrics such as “Bite me hard, never forget this ass.” In La Fuerte, we see more of the old Shakira, without the urban slant. And it’s powerful with the keyboards and Bizarrap’s 1980s-style production elevating the track. Tiempo Sin Verte is the poppiest part of the album, a Shakira playing to her old shewolf fans, with a spectral guitar pluck at the end. Cohete, with Rauw Alejandro, has a fun disco vibe, and Entre Paréntesis gives us a swaying, regional Mexican-scented melody, featuring Texans Grupo Frontera. In Cómo Dónde Cuándo, Shakira brings us back to the pop-rock of the 1990s, to that Shakira with guitar and famous blonde mane: “La vida es una perra, ya lo sé. / Pero por cada flor marchita. / Una siempre vuelve a nacer” (Life is a bitch, I know / But for every bloom that dies / Another flowers again).

On the track Nassau, which has become the subject of enthusiastic debate in the celebrity media, Shakira expresses an openness to love again: “Yo, que había prometido que nunca más volvería a querer, apareciste tú a sanar las heridas que dejó aquel” (I, who had promised I would never love again, then you appeared to heal the wounds left by that guy). Nassau comes with an Afrobeat, a rhythm that young musicians appear obsessed with right now.

Última is a final farewell anthem to the father of her two children, Milan and Sasha, which was, she says, recorded outside the deadline for the album. It would have been better if she had missed this deadline altogether as the track doesn’t add anything musically.

And that’s it. Well, no: there is the remix of Tiësto from Argentinian producer Bizarrap’s Bzrp Music Sessions, a song where she gets under the skin of her ex-partner, breathing new life into the track, though it’s debatable whether it needs it.

Time will tell if the tracks that make up this album can be considered a work of art or if they amount to not much more than passing entertainment. It’s unlikely we’ll have to wait long to find out as trends accelerate and albums are generally forgotten sooner rather than later. But right now, this March 2024, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran is the album that Shakira had to record, the musical and personal reinvention of the world’s most renowned female Latin pop phenomenon.

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