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Addicted to Enrique
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The Bailamos man is back, this time with more melody and meaning
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This time round, instead of his usual Latin passion, Enrique Iglesias sounds more mellow and slow in his new album, Seven.
SON OF Latin music maestro Julio Iglesias, he is the man who shot to fame with "Bailamos" and "Rhythm Divine". By the time his album Escape was released, he became a household name, and gave other Latin music superstars such as Ricky Martin a run for their money.
Beginning his singing career as early as 1975 in Madrid, Spain, under the shadow of his talented father, Enrique Iglesias formulated his very own brand of music which was soulful, yet foot-tapping.
Though his first couple of albums were purely in Spanish, his third self-titled album, and Escape were in English, which led to a huge fan following even outside the Latin music world.
It is surprising to know that Enrique has grown up listening to the likes of rock music acts such as Journey and Foreigner, but he attributes this to be a result of the fact that most of his childhood was spent in Miami. Though his other brothers such as Julio Iglesias Junior tried their hand at singing pop (Julio Iglesias Jr. released a mediocre album called One More Chance a few years back), none except Enrique made it big. In fact, he is one of the very few artistes whose song was part of a Hollywood biggie like the Will Smith-starrer Wild Wild West.
Enrique released his first English album in 1999, and this was the time when other Spanish music acts such as Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin had just made it big. With Enrique joining the bandwagon, Spanish and Latin American music received a global facelift. After this, many traditional Spanish songs and rhythms were revived and incorporated by modern pop artistes.
Within a span of three to four years, Enrique won himself over 10 prestigious music awards, including the Grammy in 1997 for the Best Latin Performer, the Billboard Award for Artiste of The Year in 1999, and the Latin Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Album (Escape) in 2003.
It is interesting to note that unlike other artistes who stick to one prize-winning style of music that clicks, Enrique improvises his music and presents a different variety of songs in each album. But of late, his songs seem to be going the slow and soulful way. Though hardcore Enrique fans wouldn't mind this, some of us may still want that raw Latin energy back in his songs. The latest album, Seven, reflects his tendency to sound more mellow and slow. For instance, the first number, "Addicted", is catchy and hummable, so are the other tracks in the album, but the "Latin" element seems to be getting lost somewhere along the line.
Typically, any listener who has been a fan of the kind of music boy bands produce would definitely appreciate this album. But the rest of us cannot help feeling that if his music continues to sound this way, a day would come when listening to Enrique or Justin Timberlake would sound just the same.
A. VISHNU
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