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LUIS FONSI, “TU AMOR”

24th February, 2007

Wiki | Video

Fonsi's fourth appearance here, and he's more invested in the legacy sounds of rock than ever, to a degree which seems inexplicable in today's post-urbano landscape.

 "Tu Amor" is one of those most unlikely of hits -- a new track on a greatest-hits compilation (Éxitos 98:06, in which the use of a colon rather than a dash turns the title from a mere descriptor into a Biblical pun) -- the occasional success rate of which continues to inspire the practice. It's a relatively undistinguished midtempo ballad, chugging along with no variation in tempo, just dynamics, while Fonsi's romántica-oriented voice, unsuited to the more idiosyncratic emotional signifiers of rock, wails glibly over top.

It was only #1 for a week in the interregnum between radio-only and streaming-plus calculations of the chart, which presumably means it was popular in digital downloads (this was two weeks after the release of the deluxe edition of the compilation). Fonsi was at his first commercial peak in the late 2000s, still young enough to be a heartthrob, but mature enough that, having found his voice, he could produce great music and not just generic imitations of it. If this leans more toward generic than great, it's firmly in line with contemporary trends: in the mid-to-late 2000s blustery ballads were all the rage on international versions of Pop Idol and X Factor, and it would be a couple more years before dance music became the center of international pop again. (And Fonsi will be there too. Stay tuned.)

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