Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 (English: Oral Fixation, Vol. 1) is the sixth studio album by Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira. It was released on 3 June 2005 by Epic Records. After attaining international success in 2001 with her fifth studio album and first English-language record, Laundry Service, Shakira wanted to release a fifth Spanish-language project as its followup. In the vein of her earlier work, Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 is a Latin pop album. Shakira enlisted Rick Rubin as executive producer, also working with Gustavo Cerati, Lester Mendez, Luis Fernando Ochoa and Jose "Gocho" Torres.
At its release Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 received generally favorable reviews from music critics, who complimented Shakira's evolution from her earlier work. The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 157,000 copies. It set the record for the highest debut for a full-length Spanish-language album in the country. Internationally, the album topped the charts in Argentina, Germany, Mexico and Spain. Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 was the Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album at the 2006 Grammy Awards, and the Album of the Year and the Best Female Pop Vocal Album at the Latin Grammy Awards. Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 became the highest selling Latin pop album of the decade in the United States and the second highest selling Latin album overall. As of May 2013, over five million copies of the album were sold worldwide and it is the eighth best-selling Latin album in the United States.
Four singles were released to promote the album. Although its lead single ("La Tortura") was the only track to reach the US Billboard Hot 100, the follow-up singles "No", "Día de Enero" and "Las de la Intuición" enjoyed moderate success on the Hot Latin Songs, Tropical Songs and Latin Pop Airplay charts. In November 2005 Shakira supplemented the album with her second English-language record, Oral Fixation, Vol. 2. The two were packaged together as a box set and released as Oral Fixation, Vol. 1 & 2 in January 2007. The projects were promoted with the Oral Fixation Tour in 2006 and 2007, which visited the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. A performance in Miami, Florida was filmed and released as a live album in November 2007.
Background
After achieving international success in 2001 with her first English album, Laundry Service, Shakira released a Spanish-language record as its followup (her first since 1998's Dónde Están los Ladrones?). Having co-written nearly sixty songs for the project, she decided to divide the release into two volumes and put herself "on the mission of selecting [her] favorite ones" to record. Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 contains all Spanish-language songs and Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 features all English-language tracks. Shakira initially said that the second volume would have a "completely new repertory of songs", although the completed album included two English translations of songs from the first record. It was reissued in 2006 as an expanded version with an additional translated recording and her future international-hit single, "Hips Don't Lie". When recording the albums, she worked with previous collaborators Lester Mendez and Luis Fernando Ochoa and new partners Gustavo Cerati and Jose "Gocho" Torres.
For the album, Shakira wrote all the lyrics, and the majority of the music. "To start seeing people's first reactions, and how people start relating to these songs and appreciating every single piece of work I have done over the past two years, is the best reward an artist can have after so much hard work," says Shakira. "I will not lie to you; it was not a path of roses. It was painful at times to come up with two albums, to write more than 60 songs and to fight my own insecurities and doubts." While speaking about the difference about expressing herself in Spanish and English, Shakira told, "When I express myself in Spanish, I find elements that help me express an idea in perhaps a different way than when I do it in English. There are different aesthetics, but there is a certain style to the way I write my own songs, a particular way of describing feelings and emotions that I have developed over all these years making songs. I have gotten in touch with my own gift – I am sure, 10 years ago, I was not half as good as I can say I am today, and I am still not good enough. There is a long way to go."