Still from Shakira's new video Gypsy

It looks like we have to wait a little longer before Shakira lets her brilliant ‘Men In This Town’ loose, as the next single from She Wolf is ‘Gypsy’, set for a release April 12th. ‘Gypsy’ follows the hits ‘She Wolf’ and ‘Did It Again’, while the album ‘She Wolf’ entered the album chart at number 4 making it Shakira’s fastest selling album to date in the UK.

The video for ‘Gypsy’ was directed by Jaume and apparently features a special guest, although we can’t quite make out who he’s supposed to be, any guesses?
Update: The man in question is Spanish tennis player Rafa Nadal.

For those preferring the Spanish, here’s the same video, titled ‘Gitana‘.

Shakira performed the Pretenders classic ‘I’ll Stand By You‘ at yesterday’s mammoth Hope for Haiti telethon.

Prior to her performance, she announced plans to build a new school in Haiti through her Barefoot Foundation (Fundación Pies Descalzos) in partnership with Architecture for Humanity.

The Barefoot Haiti School will be modeled on the work of the Colombia-based Foundation, which provides education, nutrition and psychological support to over six thousand Colombian children displaced by violence.

“There is a great need for immediate aid in Haiti, but also for longer-term reconstruction” said Shakira. “For that reason, we are doing our small part to help Haiti rebuild and give the children affected by this disaster the chance to learn and thrive. I hope we can use some of what we’ve learned working in Colombia to help Haiti’s children recover.  When we educate children we empower societies, and right now Haiti needs all of our help.”

American readers can donate to the Haiti relief effort at hopeforhaitinow.org, while UK readers can donate at dec.org.uk and Oxfam.

A live album, Hope for Haiti, is available from itunes.com/haiti. The telethon will be shown tonight on MTV UK at 9pm.

Unfortunately with ‘She Wolf’ and ‘Give It Up To Me’ Shakira failed to ignite the US charts, so now it’s up to bring out ‘Ethnic Shakira’ to save this album campaign. Check out her performance of ‘Gypsy‘ on Home For The Holidays.

We’re still holding out for the amazing ‘Men In This Town’ and quirky ‘Mon Amour’.

It’s been a busy year in pop, and WAPS has been delighted to guide you through it!

Looking back over our articles prompted us to compile a rundown of 2009’s best pop songs – you know, because there really aren’t enough lists flying around at the moment…and with this in mind, we whittled a shortlist of almost 200 tracks down to 50. There were arguments, believe us, but here they are.

We hope you’ll agree that our selection represents the year in pop rather well, and we apologise if your favourite song or artist fell by the wayside. The list is presented in alphabetical order by artist because we think each track is equally important (not very scientific, but there you go.)

Finally, to celebrate our Top 50, Nokia Music have generously supplied us with two vouchers – worth 50 songs each! – which we are giving away to two lucky readers (one per winner). If you’re a winner you could download our entire Top 50 from the Nokia music store – or 50 entirely different tracks, the choice is yours!

To be in with a chance of winning*, all you have to do is leave a comment telling us your favourite track of 2009 and why you love it. The winners will be selected at random.

* Nokia Music Store is only supported on PC with Internet Explorer. Prize draw open only to UK residents. Competition closes at 31st December 2009. Terms and conditions apply.

	Alexandra Burke ft Flo Rida – Bad Boys With the public behind her and celebrity backing from Beyonce, X Factor 2008 winner Alexandra Burke couldn’t go wrong with her first ‘proper’ single, ‘Bad Boys’ -and yet for some curious reason Flo Rida was roped in for a cameo. If you’re reading, Flo, she’s not called Alexander. Mispronunciation-issues aside, ‘Bad Boys’ was a pop song you couldn’t help but bounce along to. Swanky video, too.
	Alphabeat – The Spell Exuberant Danish pop group Alphabeat bounced back from label limbo with their strongest single to date. ‘The Spell‘ was an irresistible take on early 90s dance acts such as Black Box and Snap, but sadly failed to translate into mega chart succes
	Beyonce – Halo Although ‘Halo‘ pretty much marked the point that Ryan ‘One Republic’ Tedder’s sound became overly familiar to the world and his wife, nobody minded because the sound was coming from Beyonce. Emotional pop of the highest order.
	Beyonce – Sweet Dreams A ferocious slab of electropop that showed Beyonce – sorry Sasha Fierce – at her most deadly. Ms Knowles stole the show with her rendition of this single at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards.
	Black Eyed Peas – Boom Boom Pow WAPS declared BEP’s ‘Boom Boom Pow‘ almost unlistenable the first time round, yet by the end of the summer it was rarely off our ipods. A bizarre dancefest of epic proportions that kickstarted six months of world domination from the Peas.
	Britney Spears – 3 An odd year for Britney – her ‘Circus’ tour ran to 97 dates and made millions, while its star released a series of increasingly lackluster singles that she failed to promote. ‘3‘ was the only new one, and was intended to showcase her frankly unnecessary ‘Singles Collection’. The pervy ode to threesomes divided fans, but WAPS loved it.
	Calvin Harris – I’m Not Alone Scottish producer/electro-bod Calvin Harris was unavoidable in 2009, and unfortunately so were his vocals – but his refusal to hire a guest vocalist didn’t stop ‘I’m Not Alone’ from storming to the top. His mega-wacky Jedward stage-invasion, however, may yet become his defining career moment. D’oh.
	Cheryl Cole – Fight For This Love What is there to say about Cheryl Cole that you haven’t heard already? How about: ‘Fight For This Love‘ is actually brilliant and deserved to be a number one smash. It also resulted in one of the best X Factor performances of the year. Shame her album’s a bit ropey, but hasn’t she got lovely hair?

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