THE BEST PHOTO I SHOT FRIDAY NIGHT

I saw Latin hip-hop group Calle 13 at Irving Plaza on Friday night, and reviewed the show for the Village Voice website. You can read that here. The photos are also by me. But I'm seriously disappointed that they didn't use what both my wife and I believed to be the best shot I got all night. So I'm posting it here.

Calle 13 Make The Wait Worth It At Irving Plaza (Village Voice)

SHAKIRA DISAPPOINTS AGAIN

The new Shakira album, Sale el Sol, arrived in today's mail, and having nothing better to do, I listened to it. It's being marketed as her return to her Latin roots after last year's Euro-style dance-club disc She Wolf, which didn't do nearly as well as expected. Most of the songs on this one are sung in Spanish, but if you think that's gonna inspire Shakira to greater heights of vocal passion than she's mustered in the past half-dozen years or so, forget it.

The opening title track is limp rock, with a fuzzy electric guitar riff (by who knows who—the producers and guest vocalists are all credited, but none of the instrumentalists are, demonstrating convincingly that this is a pop album and not a rock record). The second track, "Loca," is electronic merengue, but it feels like it's playing at half-speed. Up next is an even more watery acoustic-guitar-and-piano ballad, "Ante de las Seis," and that's followed by another electronic, beat-driven number, "Gordita."

This is the first remotely interesting song on the album, because it features a guest spot by Residente de Calle 13, and he's jabbing at Shakira, speaking for (I'd bet) a sizable portion of Latin rock fans when he says that he liked her better before she moved to Miami and dyed her hair:

Shaki tú estás bien bonita aunque también me gustaba cuando estabas más gordita
Con el pelito negrito y la cara redondita
Así medio roquerita

Shakira tries to keep up, turning the song into a half-dirty (for pop) duo, but it's got nothing on Residente's back-and-forth with Mala Rodríguez on "Mala Suerta con el 13," from Calle 13's own Residente o Visitante CD. And the album's momentum sags a bit after that.

"Addicted to You" is an English-language song that seems about 90 seconds long; "Lo Que Más" is another boring ballad; and "Mariposas" is a Spanish-language take on the girl-and-her-piano almost-rock songs VH1 plays all morning.

"Rabiosa" is one of three songs that appear in two versions on Sale el Sol. This first one is another electro-merengue track, like "Loca" featuring El Cata, but this one's slightly faster and it could have been pretty good if Shakira's attempts at sexy moaning didn't sound like she was waking up from a siesta.

"Devocíon" is a postpunk track driven by throbbing bass and atmospheric keyboards straight from the Cure's Disintegration, and her vocals are probably the best on the whole record. This is the best song on the whole disc; for pure passion, I'd put it right up there with "Timor," the last track on Oral Fixation, Vol. 2, and the last track of hers that really surprised me (in a good way).

"Islands" is in English, all distorted keyboards and New Wave pulse; it's not bad, but I can't see it being a hit, 'cause it doesn't have much of a chorus.

"Tu Boca," which frankly I was expecting to be another drippy ballad, is actually another postpunk rocker, with tons of bass and a melody that reminds me of Natalia Lafourcade's second album (credited to her band Natalia y la Forquetina), Casa. Shakira even heads into Natalia's upper-register vocal territory on a few lines. This song and "Devocíon" are the two keepers.

The last song on the album proper is "Waka Waka (Esto Es Africa)," and I have nothing to say about that.

The bonus tracks are a remix of "Loca" featuring formerly-overrated, now-forgotten UK "grime" rapper Dizzee Rascal; a remix of "Rabiosa" featuring Pitbull; and an English-language version of "Waka Waka." None of them are particularly good. I used to like Pitbull a lot, but he'll appear on just any damn thing these days, and he always sounds the same. He hasn't been at full strength since his second album, El Mariel.

This is a short album (without the three bonus tracks, it'd be less than 40 minutes long) and not a particularly good one. Two genuine keepers ("Devocíon," "Tu Boca") and one mildly diverting novelty ("Gordita") out of 15 is not nearly enough to make Sale el Sol worth your money.

DADDY YANKEE IN SPACE

Published this in the Village Voice almost a month ago and forgot to link it here...enjoy!

Reggaeton's in a weird but kinda awesome place in 2010. The raw, adrenalized dancehall-in-Spanish sound that vaulted into the mainstream pop consciousness back in 2003 (in large part propelled by two swaggering Daddy Yankee singles, 2004's "Gasolina" and 2005's "Rompe") is all but gone, replaced by a fragmented but ambitious style that can encompass the omnivorous, smirking cultural juggling act of Calle 13, the culturally conscious electronica of Tego Calderón, and . . . science-fiction club tracks?

Yes, the dominant sound of reggaeton in 2010 is futuristic electro-trance. The major artistic statements of the past couple of years have emerged from two artists: Powerhouse duo Wisin y Yandel, they of 2007's Los Extraterrestres and last year's La Revolución, remain lyrically pretty straight-ahead (as sticking to love and sex has allowed the duo to sell out arenas worldwide), though musically, especially on the latter album, they've delved into Euro-disco with thick, squelching synth lines. As did Don Omar's awesomely bizarre iDon, wherein the self-proclaimed King of Kings rapped about zero gravity on Kraftwerk-meets-Daft-Punk tracks like "Sexy Robotica," "Galactic Blues," and "Virtual Diva."

As for Daddy Yankee (real name: Ramón Ayala), he's always been a more complex and multifaceted performer than "Gasolina" and "Rompe" might indicate. His breakthrough album, 2004's Barrio Fino, packed plenty of the thunderous beats reggaeton fans demanded, but also showcased his sensitive side (and his English) on "Like You," and mixed in some salsa on "Sabor a Melao," a collaboration with Andy Montañez, former vocalist for El Gran Combo. His 2007 followup, El Cartel: The Big Boss, offered some pure reggaeton tracks and another "salsa-ton" song ("Ella Me Levanto"), but it was in large part a calculated pop move, a 21-track disc packed with guest spots by such ultra-street titans of Latin music as will.i.am, Fergie, Akon, and Nicole Scherzinger, with production and songwriting credits for both Scott Storch and Kara DioGuardi. Though it sold very well, artistically it might have been a step too far; heard now, it seems like less than the sum of its many, many parts.

Daddy Yankee may have thought so, too; on 2009's soundtrack to his 8 Mile–ish movie Talento de Barrio, he returned to a harder, more explicitly urban sound, limiting the guests to fellow Puerto Rican artists. And now, on Mundial, while he's once again doing much more than the aggressive rapping casual listeners know him for, he's also riding the waves of rapid change in Latin pop. Multiple tracks here abandon the trademark reggaeton rhythm entirely, opting for a thumping electro 4/4. But very few do just one thing at a time. "La Despedida" is a hyperactive merengue track, with Yankee singing through a vocoder up top; "Daría" finds him in full loverman mode, backed by a booming hip-hop beat and a guitar-and-accordion melody that's pure vallenato (folk music from northeastern Colombia); "Mintiendo Con La Verdad" brings the accordion back atop a merengue rhythm; "Grito Mundial" is a soccer anthem propelled by massive Brazilian drumming.

Perhaps the most surprising track on the disc, though, is "Vida de la Noche," which is pure Daft Punk techno, with Yankee singing, rapping, and shouting out Guns N' Roses. In keeping with the album's high-tech sound, the cover looks like a patch on an astronaut's sleeve. Although Daddy Yankee and reggaeton have both been moving in this direction of late, Mundial is still a surprising album—an alien that new listeners may be surprised to find themselves loving.