Review Summary: Don' read this review, go to your convenience store and buy this album, invite your hottest colombian friend, play the last track on the album and enjoy all the booty shaking and tit clashing you'll get. Just learn how to dance first, I guess.
Unless you are a latin american browsing the Internet (ehem), then it’s highly unlikely you know Ricky Martin outside of his worldwide One Hit Wonder “La Vida Loca”, but probably you don’t really know a lot about this Puerto Rican outside of that.You probably didn’t know he’s been in the business since he was a young boy, and don’t really care about all the success he has in Latin America. Well, after the massive hit he became back in late nineties, he just disappeared from the limelight and dedicated himself to other things, among which I think there is humanitarian service and stuff like that. This yeart, he decided to go back to the spotlight and released this nifty little unplugged-series album, endorsed by MTV, in which he goes through his greatest hits in Spanish (unlucky for you English-speaking fanatics =[ ) but as the limits say, it’s all with acoustic instruments.
Strangely enough, I’m not a fanatic of pop music, period. But what made me like, and for *insert deity* effing sakes, why review it? Well, because this album is just… really awesome. The only reason why I reviewed this was because of
Pégate, the only song I absolutely adore in this album, I realized that overall, the instrumentation used here is excellent, and of course, this young man knows how to work them into popular music. Unlike what I usually expect in pop music, which is usually really dumb synthesizer drum beats and probably a cool bassline in the back, but that’s as far as it goes. Looking at the massive following of people involved in the creation of the ambient… well. It’s really nice-sounding, overall. For instance, the guitar sections in
Pégate,
Perdido Sin Ti,
Maria and
Tu Recuerdo, which I must point out has a most delightful intervention by La Mari, singer of another band named Chambao, well all this songs feature some very interesting guitar work.
Overall, the most rhythm-filled songs are what make me like this album. As I’ve said all over this review,
Pégate,
Maria,
Pégate,
Lola, Lola, and
La bomba, are so joyful-filled it’s impossible not to feel good while listening to them. They are good for those who dance (yeh I’m not looking at you if you are reading this review, maybe you are just not quite the dancing type…), because the rhythm is contagious, and as it’d be refer to by the common-american: “sexy latino vibe” overflowing right there. Well I felt it. Yeh.
The romantic songs though are not really my thing, except maybe for
Tu Recuerdo, but otherwise, I don’t really like the romantic side of the album, although it’s what most of Ricky Martin fans like, still they are lyrically not my thing, but I must confess I like the instrumentation in
Volverás, but the rest of the songs are piano-filled tunes, and
Asignatura Pendiente, which is one of those songs you’d use while getting drunk in order to induce suicide, for it’s sentimental value and what not, and being Ricky Martin’s life told by himself… it’s touching. But hey, really I don’t like this side of the album.
So overall, the album sounds good, despite being live (although most MTV live productions at studios sound marvelous) the sound is pretty bright, and of course as I’ve whored all over the place the instrumentation is very well achieved, compared to the original versions of the songs (except the ones played exclusively there, I think Pégate being one of them, as well as Tu Recuerdo) the upbeat songs sound great with all the percussions and what not, and the soft songs that didn’t consist exclusively on piano and Ricky Martin, they sound great.
So my only complaint is that the album should have consisted of more upbeat songs, but if you are a Ricky Martin fan you want to listen to the cheesy songs and cry along to his weeping, so yeah. But if you are a music fan in general you’ll just want to listen to this for the instrumental value, and nothing else. And you can’t possibly say no to that man’s a
ss.
