Two artists who are non-euphemistically "big in Latin America" are preparing new material for the summer, and trying out new ways of sparking our interest.

Shakira 'Shakira' Ripoll is hoping to build on the success of her Wyclef and Beyonce collaborations and score her first UK hit in 3 years with a single, She-Wolf, followed by an as-yet-untitled album in the autumn. For some reason, this is being promoted with a viral video of the hip-shaking Grammy winner eating people's faces.



There's no clip of the song - but Popjustice has heard it , and vouches for its quite good-ness.

Meanwhile, Nelly 'I owe it all to Timbaland' Furtado is about to unleash her first Spanish-language record (trans: about to have a flop album in the UK, where people who speak a second language are viewed with the same degree of suspicion as mothers who eat their own babies).

Here is her, rather less expensive, Youtube video:



While Shakira is trying something clever (it's an attempt to establish a narrative theme for her lycanthropic project) Furtado's trailer exists in a whole other dimension of crap. It's literally a 30-second music clip set to a cheap animation - sort of like an over-ambitious iTunes preview.

If this is how singles are being promoted now, what can we expect to see next? An exclusive first look at the typeface for Vampire Weekend's new record sleeve? A preview of the autotune settings Mr Hudson is using on his next album? Maybe Madonna could release her new single one note at a time, accompanied by a collectable magazine that builds up, week-by-week, into an exclusive partwork.

Actually. I'm copyrighting that last idea at the Post Office tomorrow.

Labels: Music, Nelly Furtado, Shakira