The DJ drops a beat and a Colombian singer's voice stretches out for nearly ten minutes, riding a groove built for clubs from Bogotá to São Paulo. That singer is Shakira, and on October 21, 1997, she released The Remixes, her first and only remix album, on Sony Music Colombia.
Rebuilding Pies Descalzos for the club
The record took songs from Pies Descalzos, the album that had made her a star across Latin America two years earlier, and handed them to DJs who rebuilt them as extended electronic dance tracks. Nine of the remixes used the original music in new arrangements, and many featured fresh vocal parts Shakira recorded for the project.
The Brazilian DJ Memê, born Marcello Mansur, handled remixes on seven of the tracks. He opened the album with a six-minute-plus megamix named after himself and Shakira, then stretched the hit Estoy Aquí past nine minutes and turned ¿Dónde Estás Corazón? into an eight-minute dancefloor workout. The album runs well over an hour, a generous stretch for a remix collection. Among the other tracks, "Un Poco de Amor" appears in a 12-inch extended dancehall remix lasting 5:47, while its Portuguese counterpart "Um Pouco de Amor" runs 3:54. The Portuguese version of "Estoy Aquí," titled "Estou Aqui," runs 3:52, while "Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos" appears in a Memê's Super Club mix lasting 8:42. The album also includes a Timbalero Dub of "Estoy Aquí" at 6:06 and a Dub-A-Pella mix of "¿Dónde Estás Corazón?" at 6:40.
Portuguese versions and new markets
Shakira also stepped into another language. Three songs from Pies Descalzos appear on The Remixes in Portuguese versions she rerecorded, so the album speaks Spanish and Portuguese. That mattered commercially: the record was released in North America, Brazil and Spain, two markets where Portuguese and Latin pop had real pull.
The Remixes is now called a classic example of electronic dance music from the Latin pop world, and the numbers back that up. It became one of the most commercially successful remix albums ever released and the top-selling Latin American remix album worldwide, with international sales passing half a million copies. The record's international sales exceeded 500,000 copies, a figure that helped cement its reputation. On the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart it reached number 21, while on the Latin Pop Albums chart it climbed to number 9.
In the United States the Recording Industry Association of America certified it double platinum for 200,000 copies, a striking result for a remix collection built around a young artist who had not yet crossed over to English-language pop. The album also landed on Billboard's Latin Pop Albums chart inside the top ten.
The gamble was that a remix record, often a quick stopgap, could deepen Shakira's audience instead of treading water. The extended versions gave club DJs new tools, while the Portuguese tracks opened doors in Brazil at a moment when her next chapter was already taking shape. The album was released on Sony Latin and Columbia Records, and it remains available on music streaming platforms. Its recordings were created between 1995 and 1997, spanning the period when Shakira was transitioning from a regional star to an international name.
The gamble was that a remix record, often a quick stopgap, could deepen Shakira's audience instead of treading water.
A year after The Remixes, Shakira released Dónde Están los Ladrones?, the studio album that pushed her further toward global fame. But the remix record stands on its own: a young Latin pop star letting DJs stretch, twist and translate her songs until they filled dancefloors for over seventy-four minutes.