For her first music video done in both Spanish and English, Shakira wanted it to retain a naturalistic image. According to an article about Latin American Cultural Studies, Shakira designed her own video and wanted her music to be showcased instead of just the technology tricks or her body. Indeed, she stated only wanted one outfit in the video, because she “didn’t want the video to be all about clothes.” She also wanted the video to showcase the native Andean instruments that are in the piece, such as the quena and the charango. However, according to this article, “the scene didn’t fit “nicely” with the flow, so Shakira let it go.” Thus, while Shakira tried to make the video authentic and did try to give acknowledgment to her roots, she was unable to do so. Her overt ethnicity wouldn’t suit the national imagination of the preconceived notion of what a music video for a crossover star should look like.
Much later in her career, Shakira released Fijacion Oral and Oral Fixation. For these videos, Shakira has created images much more like those seen on MTV: the visual seems to have more importance than the song itself.
As opposed to her first English album, Oral Fixation is not merely an English version of her Spanish album. It stands on its own. As of yet, there are no albums that are mixed languages. Why not? It seems as though Shakira has gained respect in both the English and Spanish speaking world. Why hasn’t Shakria released an bilingual album? Will she? Looking at the videos, her visual representation seems to be the same in both languages. It would follow that her themes in her songs would be as well. Would she lose agency by combining the two?
Laundry Service was a bilingual album.
She made 2 albums. Fijacion Oral v1 and Oral Fixation v2. since she had 60 songs she had written to choose from. Instead of choosing 10 for one bilingual album she picked 20 to make it a double.