Her rise to fame may have been unexpected, but these days, Shakira is sitting comfortably atop the charts. She's also continuing to enjoy the positive fallout of her epic 2020 Super Bowl performance. But back in the early days of the singer's career, fans compared her artistry to someone surprising.
And as it turns out, Shakira's long since exceeded that artist's level of fame.
Fans Once Compared Shakira To Pop Stars Of Her Day...
Today, Shakira is a globally recognizable name, and even Mark Zuckerberg has congratulated her on her mainstream success. But when she was first starting out in the United States (teen Shakira released three albums in her native Colombia first), things were different.
In the early 2000s, comparisons between the young Shakira and her perceived contemporaries were promising for pop music, but not very flattering to the songstress' wide range of talents.
Early on, journalists pointed out, Shakira seemed like she'd fit right in with Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, and Jessica Simpson. It was mostly her looks and age that pitted her against that unlikely competition, though.
At that point, Shakira was still singing solely in Spanish and didn't have the repertoire of hits that other teen stars were already cashing in on. Which then led to an even unlikelier comparison that Shakira would later totally demolish all perceptions of.
But Critics Said She Was A 'Latin Alanis Morissette'
She started out as a mere footnote in many publications discussing the happenings in music around 1999. And in 2000, one publication dedicated only a sentence or two to Shakira's emergence on the music scene.
The journalist that penned a brief review of Shakira's music called her a Latin Alanis Morissette. The journalist, while admitting that the singer showed a "striking talent" for pop music, seemed to write her off as a pop sensation. At the same time, they also compared her to an artist whose records she would later completely shatter.
While Alanis Morissette has plenty of musical merits of her own, Shakira's music has long outpaced Morisette's on the charts. Not only that, but Shakira's diversity across genres (well, and languages) means she's really in a league of her own. Or, at least, in a league apart from Britney Spears et. al. and the separate but equally angsty genre that Alanis Morissette inhabits.
From making a list of "other hopefuls" to carving out her polyglot place in music, Shakira has blazed a lot of trails. While relating her to Alanis Morissette is by no means an insult, it definitely wasn't an accurate summing up of her talents. It also wasn't an accurate prediction of her superstardom (and her resulting impressive net worth).