There are very few who have outsold her (Rihanna, I guess Celine Dion, not sure who else) and you look at the diversity of her music, personally I would take her over either of those two.

I haven't thought too much about an actual number, but what do you all think?

when she is on tv we turn the volume off and love her in Mute. in Mute she is arguably one of the best female artists over the past 20 plus years.

vocally she sounds like a Billy goat being Pimped Slapped by a hungry Fox.

>when she is on tv we turn the volume off and love her in
>Mute. in Mute she is arguably one of the best female artists
>over the past 20 plus years.
>
>vocally she sounds like a Billy goat being Pimped Slapped by
>a hungry Fox.
I agree 1000%.

Her music is awful. They used to play her all the time at my gym and I used to beg them to turn it off.

Agonizing.

That's some funny funny.

she's not been a factor on the US Pop charts, for the most part. i know a bit about her international success - and good for her. but i don't think about Pop stars who don't show up on the US charts when i rank Pop stars of the last 20 yrs.

every one of her albums has gone anywhere from gold to almost 4x platinum. she has 10 top 40 singles, including 4 top 10 and a #1 single.

of course, she's never been backstreet boys/n'sync big, selling wise, but then she also didn't blow up with non latin listeners until 2001 (still has two prior albums that are platinum tho)

she doesn't rate on my list of the best pop stars of the last 20 yrs, or my favorites.

she's a non-factor.

...because Celine is another artist that, in spite of her HUGE audience, I never think of as a pop-star in the Beyonce/Rihanna/Britney/Katy Parry/whatever sense; she has a different target-audience.

While I guess Shakira is a bit more "Youthful"/less MOR than Celine, I'd put her there too; she's not really pop (tm) like that.

It's like Tom Jones and Dionne Warwick had a shitload of hits in the 60's but they are never really written about as being part of the 60's pop-culture the way Beatles or Motown (possible exception for Supremes who I guess was targetting a somewhat similar crowd) was.

Basically, there's pop-stars and there's *pop*-stars; Shakira isn't *pop* like that IMO...

and found this particularly interesting:

According to Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems, "Hips Don't Lie" was the most-played pop song in a single week in American radio history. It was played 9,637 times in one week.

and this:

According to Yahoo!, her song "Hips Don't Lie" is the best-selling single of the last decade.

both musically and appearance-wise.. that MTV Unplugged appearance was bananas in both regards:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiaG0eROYds remains one of the greatest things I've ever seen.

she was still sexy to me in the US pop-star era as well, but in a trashier way... she'd lost that wholesome appeal.

She had a few hit singles, including one that will make one of those VH1 "Remember the Aughts" episodes.

That's about it.

The last 20 years? 1994-2013? Top female pop stars (based on what matters to them, sales and pop culture influence) would be:

Mariah Carey
Britney Spears
Beyonce
Rihanna
Janet Jackson
Shania Twain
Rihanna
Katy Perry
Mary J. Blige
Taylor Swift

In no particular order outside the top 3 I mentioned. Once you get past those 10, it's pretty debatable. You got....

Madonna
Alanis Morrisette
Gwen Stefani
Christina Aguilera
Jennifer Lopez
Alicia Keys
P!nk
Kelly Clarkson
Celine Dion
Toni Braxton

And even groups like
TLC
Destiny's Child
Dixie Chicks

It's pretty clear to me that Shakira isn't even top-20.

for American audiences. She's above Nelly Furtado, but below Fergie.

Shakira already had hits before anybody knew about Britney Spears...

Also she probably has more range as an artist than most being mentioned in this thread... but you cant compare her against US pop stars since she is from a different market...

her voice but as a musician and as a creative force i think she has a lot more going for her than a lot of other pop stars.

what i dont get reading this thread is the downplaying of her presence in the U.S. she sold a shitload of records here. she was not like a huge superstar in colombia initially and i imagine she did bigger numbers than in the USA than there, Argentina, etc, places where she is arguably the biggest star.

10 million is a lot of records. but when we're talking about Pop stars of the last 20 yrs...i mean, there are ppl on that list who've sold 10 million copies of ONE album.

Shakira is basically a non-factor if i'm making a list of the biggest Pop stars of the last 20 yrs.

she's got talent and if i were making a list of the most talented Pop stars of the last 20 yrs...i still wouldn't put her on it. LOL.

but the woman is fine and i like some of her work and i agree she's talented.

maybe you were looking for a Shakira appreciation post?

personally.

i'm not sure i was expecting "non factor" but i wasn't expecting "NUMBER ONE!" from even a single person, obviously