KWORB
Read here: https://fotpforums.com/topic/179982....
REVIEW #1: 55/100
It’s been quite some time since Shakira’s had an album out. The last time we saw her working on a full length project was her album Chyrsthantemum which followed her successful Jazz album which even netted her a Grammy nomination. The album received a mixed response at best and from there Shakira began to stumble with pcket single, a cancelled EP, and a slew of controversies. Even still, this album has been something of a talking point. Many wondered what Shakira was going to offer with the project whether it be more in line with her acclaimed jazz influenced past, her misinformed stab at the mainstream, or something new all together. The truth of the matter is The Rush falls firmly into the final category. But something new unfortunately doesn’t always mean something better.
The album opens with “Love At First Sight/Love for Life” and out of the gate there are some struggles. The production aspect of the song is actually pretty solid. While it’s certainly nothing groundbreaking or overly special, it gets the job done. The trap beat is kind of bland but the additional elements and main melody is interesting enough to hold our attention. Lyrically the song doesn’t hold up as much. Though it’s far from a lyrical disaster, there’s just not a real sense of direction or purpose with what she’s saying and it lcaves the track feeling somewhat aimless. The next track “Vision” follows the same path. Production wise the song sounds fresh and interesting with a slight guitar and a present but non-intrusive beat. But again the lyrics aren’t all that fantastic. The song appears to attempt to be both romantic and sexy but it fails at both with lines like “Her name, I’ll be screamin’/When we do it at 3 AM” coming across as unintentionally funny rather than sensual. It’s clear why Shakira chose to place her focus on this one with the release because it’s one of the better tracks here. “Sacred Matter” is next and it hasn’t improved a bit when taken in context. The song’s production is uninspired and a total bore from start to finish. Lyrically the song is one of the worst on the album with very little in the way of redeeming qualities. Again the song is supposed to be sexy but it’s nothing of the sort; it’s honestly quite funny even though that’s not at all what she was going for. Without a doubt one of the worst songs on the entire project. “The Rush”, the album’s title track is slightly better but still far from being a redeeming track. The production is again bland and uninteresting, with the only notable element being an admittedly nice guitar melody. The lyrics are once more the weakest aspect of the song. Lines like “I’m in love with this feeling/Oh tonight we’ll be sinning” and “Just started dating last weekend/But I know we’ll get hitched in the end” sound as if they came from a first draft and somehow made it into the final project. The song doesn’t really have much of a purpose or direction and at some points it feels like there’s no moving forward, it feels like a repeat of the same kind of ideas that were expressed earlier in the album. “Lovedance” doesn’t learn from any of those mistakes however. The production is, yes once again, bland. It sounds like everything else on the radio right now. Lyrically the song doesn’t do anything either. It’s a sex song, there’s no doubt about it, and there’s no maturity of nuance to any of it. She comes across as trying to be provacative at any cost and in the process just says things aimed to shock rather than say anything meaningful or mature about sex. Whereas Britney Spears sings about sex like a grown adult, this sounds like a teenager who just understands the basics and is writing what they think is sexy.
“Date Night” comes along as a fairly uncomfortable track. It’s another attempt at being sexy but this one actually comes across in something of a sinister manner. “Wake up the next morning, like a dream/I want more but I just can’t remember/What you did to me, so slowly” is one of the most uncomfortable lines in a sex song that we’ve heard recently. The rape undertones make the whole song hard to sit through. But again it just emphasizes how the general vibe is her aiming to say something provative and she just comes across as immature. Things do manage to pick up somewhat with “Worship Me” but it’s no thanks to the lyrics. No, the production here keeps the song afloat and it’s because it manages to be mainstream while also having some of it’s own identity. The synth lines in are especially interesting, most notablly the bridge. Lyrically the album has the same problems as the others: it feels like a draft that made it’s way to the end. There’s nothing sexy about what she’s saying and at this point, we’re on the fourth sex song and it’s beginning to grow tiresome to hear her make the same anologies and the say the same things just in a slightly different way over and over again. As a total surprise, “In the Danger Zone” arrives as a fairly solid track. It feels like more time was taken on this song and it benefits. The lyrics, while still not the best, feel more fully formed and cover some new ground (for the album that is). There’s no line that really jumps out as exceptionally brilliant, but it’s enough to keep the listener wanting to move forward. Musically, the song doesn’t at all fit in with the rest of the album (a problem that exists on a few songs but we’ll get to that later) but it’s still a fun piece of music. The beat is different from the diet trap we’d gotten so far and the guitar part breathes some life into the back half of the record. Now the Oprah part...well we’re just as confused as the rest of you First and foremost, there is absolutely no reason that “Touch” should be nearly SIX whole minutes in length. It drags on for three more minutes than it needed to. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a longer track, but there’s gotta be something lyrically that justifies and here’s there’s really not. That being said, the production is still solid. It drags on in the end but there’s interesting stuff happening in the background that gives the song it’s own unique vibe. Lyrically….well there’s not much to say. There aren’t many lyrics and most of the lyrics we do have are repeition based. It’s not peak songwriting, but the brevity seems to have worked in the songs favor because there isn’t a line that really stands out as terrible. She manages to pull it together for the final track “Running Back to You”. The instrumentation is a welcome shakeup and flirts with the lush instrumentation that populated her Grammy days. Lyrically the song’s decent. It’s still got some lines that sound like first drafts but overall it’s a big step upward from some of the more unforatunate choices earlier on.
There are several things about The Rush that inhibit it from being a winner for Shakira. First, and above all, this is not writing befiting a Grammy nominee. There are occasional flashes of good ideas in the lyrics but they’re masked and quickly buried by choices that don’t make sense. There’s so much of a focus that’s placed on making this album sexy and provactive that it scarfices being meaningful. The sexual aspects of the album, to be frank, cringey in many places. There’s nothing really sexy about this album despite what Shakira seems to think. It’s immature and for what reason, talking points? Musically the album is solid enough to stand on it’s own, but it’s wildly inconsistent. We move between trap beats, R&B influences, and a heartfelt piano ballad. It’s all over the map and no one idea really stands out because it’s never given more than a song’s worth of time to breathe. It makes for an incredibly inconsistent listen, even if on their own the beats are okay. Perhaps the second biggest problem with the album is that it doesn’t really have anything to say. Many of these songs don’t make much sense (try to explain what “Sip the Chardonnay, my vision’s getting/swirvy/Miss my ugly face, tonight I’ll be lookin’ curvy” is supposed to mean) and when they do make sense, they’re talking loud without saying much. Though the album is billed as a journey through the beginning of a relationship through it’s ups and down as it goes on, that doesn’t come through. It feels like most of it’s about sex with the occasional nods to there being more to the relationship (repeated mentions of “you’re the one” in multiple songs) and for that, it leaves the album feeling directionless. One could say it’s an improvement over her last body of work, but that’s not to say it stands as difinitively better. It’s just, as mentioned at the start, a different set of mistakes.
Love At First Sight/Love for Life 6/10
Vision 6/10
Sacred Matter 3/10
The Rush 5/10
Lovedance 4/10
Date Night 5/10
Worship Me 6/10
In the Danger Zone 7/10
Touch 6/10
Running Back to You (Infinite) 7/10
REVIEW #2: 55/100
The Rush is the third studio album from HER Records recording artist, Shakira. It is also her first release under the newly constructed label (previously: Salinity Sounds). The concept of The Rush is rather simple. It details finding love, relishing in lust, and uncertainties that are a part of every romantic relationship. It is also a huge shift in sound for Shakira. It draws more from R&B influences and strays miles away from her Pop and Jazz past. However, changing genres can either be a good thing, a “meh” thing, or a bad thing. For Shakira, it is unfortunately a “meh” thing. Sometimes it veers into “bad” territory. Most of the production on the album tends to blur together aside from a couple tracks, and isn’t all that interesting for the most part. I was kind of waiting for things to pick up only to be let down. An example of a song that could have been elevated greatly with a change of pace is “Lovedance”. The production is much too slow for the song and doesn’t really fit the playful nature of the lyrics at hand. While “Lovedance” is one of the stronger songs lyrically (which isn’t saying much), plenty songs suffer from the lack of care when it comes to lyricism bogging them down. A lot of the tracks could be ten times better if their concepts were more fleshed out and executed better. Sloppy songwriting can make or break a song, and “Worship Me” is probably the strongest showing of that. Personally, this album could have done without that song as it is the weakest link out of several “meh” tracks. Which means it is just not very good at all. The strongest song on the entire album would have to be the closer, “Running Back To You (Infinite)”. The lyrics are tight and written well enough to tell the story Shakira is attempting to display, and it’s kind of cute.
All in all, is this an improvement from Chryanthemum? Yes... though only in certain aspects. Her songwriting is yet to be cleaned up, and her sound has become so painfully monotonous. Often times it is visible that not a lot of reworking was done to ensure the songs were as good as they could possibly be. I don’t think this is the sound for Shakira, and think the “Paradise” route is more for her. She should also practice her writing; some genuine advice.
REVIEW #3: 40/100
Shakira has established herself as an omnipresent, but an odd figure in the music industry. Following the commercial and critical blunder of her first studio album, Chrysanthemum, the star largely went into hiding for a while before the release of her acclaimed and Grammy-nominated Jazz album, Classic (Deluxe). Since then, she's accumulated a boomer fanbase, rejected that fanbase by releasing sexually charged R&B songs, became a shark meme, and gave birth to a baby. In its own special way, The Rush was one of the most anticipated albums of 2020 so far. The people were eager to see what Shakira would come up with next, and The Rush was shaping up to be something that would certainly leave a lasting impression on its listeners. Unfortunately, this impression was more negative than positive.
The Rush is, ultimately, not better than Chrysanthemum in any way. Where Chrysanthemum failed, sometimes The Rush succeeds, but takes 5 steps back in other areas. The lyrics are scattered and messy, and is bogged down by monotonous and boring music production. And not just that, but it's evident that not a shred of effort was placed into creating this album. The album is rife with grammatical errors and incoherent lyrics, as well as an oddly written song that alludes to and romanticizes date rape. There is one, and I mean only one, highlight on the album, and it's the closing track, Running Back To You (Infinite). Ignoring the fact that it doesn't at all fit with the rest of the album, the song is perhaps Shakira's strongest writing to date, in a decent effort of writing a love ballad.
Overall, it's clear that with the lack of basic effort put into this reading, the faltering lyricism, and safe and risk-averse choices of production, that The Rush ultimately does not live up to any expectations, and even falls short of those set by Chrysanthemum.