9.9.10

RICARDO MONTANER, “PIEL ADENTRO”

13th March, 1993


Ricardo Montaner continues his string of polished ballads that are far more erotic than they sound to an Anglophone. "Piel Adentro" means "skin inside" or "skin within" and a Google search turns up, besides this song, sex-and-dating sites.

But for all that, it's still as crashingly romantic as the music sounds. He's looking back on the sex as a metonymy for the relationship, and it apparently wasn't a good one — love turned to dust, he goes sleepwalking through it, the usual surprisingly specific images which are a feature of Latin Pop the way they very much aren't of Anglophone pop of the same breed and vintage.

Montaner has carved out a space for himself as a purveyor of primo ballads here in the early 90s; could he possibly challenge Luis Miguel, unquestionably the reigning champion of Latin ballads since the late 80s, for his throne? On this evidence, probably not; his voice deals capably with the big dramatic chord changes, but it doesn't do more than that. He doesn't have Miguel's gift for nuance or phrasing, and as the song crashes its way to a finish, he starts to sound winded, like a sprinter forced to run a steeplechase.

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