They Say Music Is The Best Medicine

Shakira, the Colombian pop star, has two therapists. “I like to get a second opinion,” she explained in a recent magazine interview, though sadly she did not reveal what either analyst thinks of her latest English-language album, Oral Fixation Vol. 2, whose cover depicts her as Eve in the Garden of Eden, naked and holding an apple beside the Tree of Knowledge, in whose branches lurks a small baby determinedly reaching out for the forbidden fruit.

Slick yet emotional, Pink follows in the footsteps of Alanis Morissette, who brought anger and anguish to adult-oriented rock on Jagged Little Pill (which Pink seems to allude to when she sings about a “bitter little pill” in “Long Way to Happy”). Whereas male performers such as James Blunt and Coldplay make emotional music that says little about their emotions, Pink follows a tradition of young female singers who manage to sound simultaneously overwrought, candid and polished.

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