Best known for her skillful blend of Latin and pop music, Shakira has shown throughout her career that her interests lie elsewhere, too. But on her self-titled tenth studio album, the Colombian pop star takes the challenge of creating an all-encompassing record a bit too literally.

“Shakira.” still has the singer’s characteristic Latin pop sound, but it also throws in a pinch of electronic dance music, a dash of country and a whole lot of pop, creating a mishmash of genres that might exhibit where Shakira is as an artist and a person, but doesn’t work as a cohesive collection of songs.

The most jarring genre experiment comes toward the end of the record on “Medicine,” a duet with country singer Blake Shelton. While their voices sound lovely together, this song would have worked much better on one of Shelton’s albums, since it’s unmistakably a country song — and a pretty cheesy one, at that.

“Medicine” is followed by “23,” another track that could make it to country radio. The acoustic guitar-driven, pop country song could follow up a Miranda Lambert tune without question. But, again, it has no place on “Shakira.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Shakira also experiments with EDM on the album’s first track, “Dare (La La La).” The song is a powerfully pumping opener that leads the listener to believe Shakira has hopped on the dance music bandwagon.

But she hasn’t — not quite. While “Dare (La La La)” is a fine example of the marriage of EDM and pop, it is also the only example of this on the album, and its appearance seems random in retrospect.

Instead, Shakira seems to be stuck in the early 2000s, when bubblegum pop stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera dominated the radio.

“Spotlight” is the most obvious offender. While the instrumentation and use of electronic music updates this song slightly, it still sounds like something a 10-year-old girl would have been listening to in 2003. But Shakira’s not trying to sound nostalgic; “Spotlight” just doesn’t work as a serious pop song in 2014.

Despite the eclectic genre shifts, there are still plenty of examples of what Shakira does best: blending pop, rock and Latin influences.

The first single, “Can’t Remember to Forget You,” featuring Rihanna, is the strongest song on the album and the most obvious example of Shakira’s rock ‘n roll influences. Its chorus features crunchy electric guitars and pummeling percussion, and the song has the catchiest melody on the record.

Rihanna is great on the track, too. She adds her own Barbadian flavor with a sexier, buttery smooth vocal delivery. She offers contrast and doesn’t lose her identity in Shakira’s Latin-infused rock song.

Aside from the Latin pop tracks that work well on the album (“You Don’t Care About Me,” “Cut Me Deep”), Shakira’s saving grace is her voice. It’s still wildly unique and instantly recognizable, but also much more listenable than it was 10 years ago. It’s amazing how she’s trained herself to meet somewhere in the middle of weird and unoriginal to deliver vocals that are pleasant to listen to, but still very much her own.

Her best vocals are on “Broken Record,” an acoustic guitar-driven ballad about telling the man she loves over and over how she feels about him. Her voice is so delicate on this track. The vulnerability is beautiful and intimate, as if she’s sitting right next to you singing live. It’s a shame “Shakira.” wasn’t made up entirely of these strong moments.

It’s pretty brave for Shakira to self-title an album more than 10 years after her English language debut. Maybe “Shakira.” is supposed to serve as a representation of all her sides, all her tastes, all her favorite genres.

But an album still needs to be cohesive. “Shakira.” might represent the artist as a person, but the music as a package suffers because of her crazy shifts in genre.

Published on April 1, 2014 at 1:00 am

Contact Jessica: jmcabe@syr.edu | @Jessica_Cabe