What do *you* want?

There seems to be a constant tension in Shakira's work between what she wants to do, and what the public expect of her. Her 2005 album, Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 encapsulated this perfectly: it featured the biggest hit of her career, "Hips Don't Lie" - a song so transparently built around pop's concept of what a Hispanic female artist should be singing about, it was almost comical - but also "How Do You Do" - a song featuring mock-Gregorian chanting and questioning, not only God's motives, but also his very existence, something immeasurably controversial for an artist from such a staunchly Catholic country.

On Sale el Sol, her 7th Studio album, she seems to have found a compromise of sorts. There's plenty of almost-AOR pop/rock (stadium rock guitar riffs, huge choruses, Alanis Morissette vocals) - the kind of music Shakira, herself, seems to want to make the most, but also a hefty dollop of oh-look-at-me-doing-the-salsa/merengue/rhumba/bossanova-naked-in-the-streets-aren't-I-so-crazy-kooky-Latina.

Sometimes, as on "Gordita", it works brilliantly and sounds like a Quentin Tarantino pseudo-spaghetti-western soundtrack filtered through a barrage of squelchy, sinuous synths, but other times, as on the trite, unbecoming "Mariposas", it sounds forced and dated. One track, "Lo Que Más" sounds like an Avril Lavigne ballad performed and arranged by Sarah McLachlan and on "Antes de las Seis", a simple, one-line instrumental hook is established, sounding plucked out on an Oriental harp - it's strangely emotionally affecting.

As with many albums by intelligent'n'talented female artists who've found themselves inexplicably in the pop stratosphere, selling millions of albums, there are probably plenty of critics (and 'punters') who would (and will) dismiss the album as unimaginative, predictable and only vaguely cohesive. It's true, it lacks some of the balls-out audacity and scope of the all-Spanish Fijación Oral, Vol. 1, but it's full of surprise 'n' edge. You certainly don't hear lyrics about having sex in a funeral parlour every day.