Will the real pop idol please stand up?
Alexis Petridis
Three weeks ago Will Young topped the British charts with the biggest-selling single in that country’s history. The show that spawned him promised to discover a pop idol, someone colourful, larger-than-life and slightly unpredictable Marc Bolan, Boy George, Madonna. Instead, we have ended up with the millennial Engelbert Humperdinck, crooning a cover version so saccharine that it makes Westlife’s original sound like the Dead Kennedys.
Perhaps the most galling aspect of his success is that it has eclipsed an artist who displays real pop-star credentials. That week’s second biggest-selling single was Whenever, Wherever, the British debut by Colombia’s Shakira Ripoll. At 25, Ripoll is Latin America’s biggest superstar. She has sold eight million records, won three Grammys and last year broke the United States, selling 200 000 copies of her first English-language album, Laundry Service (Sony), in a week.
Her image lies somewhere between Britney Spears, Beyonce Knowles and glamour model Jordan. That means she has virtually every media base covered. To the tabloids, she is a sexy stunna. Teen titles think she is the new Britney. In men’s magazines, she is a leggy diversion from endless articles on Achieving Your Best Sex Ever.
In marked contrast to Will Young, Ripoll could never be described as ordinary. Her boyfriend’s father is Argentina’s recently deposed president, Fernando de la Rua. Her favourite artists are not divas but Pulp, the Cure and Radiohead. She spent a recent interview with an American magazine discussing existentialism and Freudian psychoanalysis.
If that sounds weird, it’s nothing compared with Laundry Service. From the inexplicable title onwards, this is a very peculiar record. On Whenever, Wherever, Ripoll trills perhaps the most thought-provoking line of recent memory: “Lucky that my breasts are small and humble, so you don’t confuse them with mountains.”
Every song contains at least one non sequitur so eccentric that it could be the work of 1970s rock surrealist Captain Beefheart. “To buy more thongs and write more happy songs, it always takes a little help from someone,” asserts The One. “With my tears, you’d make a sea a desert,” offers Fool. “Baby, I would climb the Andes solely to count the freckles on your body,” suggests another verse of Whenever, Wherever. Ripoll, who writes her own lyrics, belts every one out with a conviction that would shame Alanis Morissette, her powerful voice leaping octaves to add emphasis.
The music gives the lyrics a run for their money in the oddball handicap. The opening Objection features a tango played at breakneck speed, a twanging Duane Eddy guitar solo and a genuinely peculiar rap. Poem to a Horse mixes Nirvana-influenced guitars with a soul horn section. Underneath Your Clothes straps a racked vocal and a Beatles-influenced brass arrangement to a power ballad. Indeed, Laundry Service displays an attitude to plagiarism that Noel Gallagher would consider cavalier.
Pleasingly, the one thing Laundry Service never sounds like is the conveyor-belt pop favoured by virtually every major star. While no one could claim Laundry Service was a groundbreaking work of art, its ramshackle production and imponderable lyrics are striking and unique. These days, it’s hard not to find any pop record that provokes those adjectives rather cheering.