 Critical reception towards Laundry Service ranged from favourable to mixed , with critics expressing different opinions regarding the production and composition of the album . Alex Henderson from AllMusic commended Shakira 's songwriting abilities in English , calling it a " challenge that she handles impressively well . Shakira , it turns out , sings quite convincingly in English , " and also praised her different mixes of musical styles , saying " Like Shakira 's Spanish @-@ language albums , this self @-@ produced CD is enjoyably eclectic ; she successfully combines pop / rock with everything from tango on " Objection ( Tango ) " and Andean music on " Whenever , Wherever " to Middle Eastern music on " Eyes Like Yours " . He concluded that " Dónde Están los Ladrones ? remains Shakira 's most essential album , but Laundry Service is an excellent English @-@ language debut for the South American vocalist . " A critic from Billboard also favoured the presence of various musical styles on the album and commented that " Laundry Service finds the 24 @-@ year @-@ old artist unafraid of merging musical flavors , " and complimented Shakira 's vocal talent . Similarly , the Entertainment.ie review of the album deemed the lyrical content " surreal " and the production " no less bizarre [ ... ] imposing breakneck tangos , twanging guitar solos and bizarre raps onto a familiar soft rock template . " They felt that Laundry Service could not be called a " great album " , reasoning that the " The line between fascinatingly strange and offputtingly weird is a thin one , and Laundry Service crosses it far too often , " but also stated that " Even so , Shakira 's star quality can hardly be denied - and in today 's increasingly conformist pop industry that deserves at least two cheers . " Alexis Petridis from The Guardian lauded Shakira 's originality , opining that " In an age of personality @-@ free pop idols , Shakira 's glorious eccentricity makes her a true star , " and commented that " Every song contains at least one non sequitur so eccentric that it could be the work of 1970s rock surrealist Captain Beefheart " and " The music on Laundry Service gives the lyrics a run for their money in the oddball handicap . " Although he felt that the use of samples on various songs " displays an attitude to plagiarism that Noel Gallagher would consider cavalier " and that " no one could claim Laundry Service was a groundbreaking work of art , " he concluded that " its ramshackle production and imponderable lyrics are striking and unique . And these days , it 's hard not to find any pop record that provokes those adjectives rather cheering . " Music critic Robert Christgau termed Laundry Service " the Cher album Cher never made " and attributed this to Shakira 's blend of Middle Eastern styles in her music ; he commented that the " stylistic appetite of this Colombian superstar is pure rock en Español " and appreciated Shakira 's confident songwriting . Christgau also noted Shakira 's strong vibrato and constant changing of timbre in her vocals . Lisa Oliver from Yahoo ! Music said that Shakira 's experimentation with different styles yield " results ranging from corking to minging , " but experienced difficulty with the formatting of the CD , saying " the biggest problem with ' Laundry Service ' is the anti @-@ copying device that renders the CD useless in anything other than a conventional CD player [ ... ] A shame then , because this Latino hottie could dilate the musical pupils of even the most ardent homebody if only they could get off the computer long enough to hear it . " 
