Category: People

Shakira is one of the more interesting characters in pop music today.

Musically, she’s been all over the place. She started off on a sort of Alanis Morissette vibe, and then once she started singing in English, her music became more dance/pop oriented, but not really any more mainstream. “Hips Don’t Lie”, her song with Wyclef, was a huge hit, but it was still a bit odd compared to the majority of pop music out these days.

Her new single “Give it Up to Me” represents her most obvious dalliance with mainstream pop so far. Featuring the production of Timbaland and the rapping talent (I say that unironically) of Lil Wayne, the song is focus-grouped to hit #1 on the charts. Which it probably won’t, because, frankly? It’s not that good a song. Wayne’s verse is credible, and the song is catchy enough, but there’s barely 2 verses in it and ultimately it just sounds lazy. The video is suitably odd, with Shakira dressed up as Lady Liberty and some bodacious choreography, but…I dunno. Something about the song leaves me a little unimpressed. It’s similar to the transformation Nelly Furtado made when she started working with Timbaland, only nowhere near as good.

Sounds to me like her record company heard the album, didn’t hear anything they would consider a hit and had Shakira go back into the studio with the most obvious people they could find. Sigh. Some people never learn.

In the mid-late Nineties, when “alternative” became mainstream, the term lost it’s meaning. Bands like Counting Crows, who were as traditional a rock band as there ever was, were all of a sudden “alternative”. Alternative to what? A term that was first used to describe bands that were off the beaten path turned into a catch-all for any act that wasn’t dance/pop. I was gonna add R&B and hip-hop to the mix of categories, but there was an “alternative” division of each of those genres as well.

New York’s Soul Coughing was truly alternative. Led by Mike (then known as “M.”) Doughty, Soul Coughing invaded rock radio with a sound that dipped toes in genres ranging from jazz to hip-hop. They was definitely more cerebral than your average mainstream music, and although they were never huge, they do have a couple of tracks that would be easily recognizable to anyone that was watching MTV in the late Nineties, like “Circles” and “Super Bon Bon”, a live clip of which is included here.

After the band imploded in 2000, Doughty began making solo recordings that explored a more traditional singer/songwriter approach while still being inspired by beat poetry and hip-hop. He’s also a respected author and blogger (you can catch him at mikedoughty.com). His latest album, “Sad Man Happy Man” was released about a month and a half ago, and I was very fortunate to be able to see him perform a week ago.

This live clip isn’t the best quality, but it’s still enjoyable.