ENRIQUE IGLESIAS, “QUIZÁS”

22nd February, 2003

Wiki | Video

A significant landmark in the career of both Iglesias fils and the Hot Latin chart at the time, "Quizás" is probably the best song, and certainly the best performance, he's delivered to us since "Ritmo Total," back in 1999. After two album cycles aimed at the English-language market, with Spanish versions as an afterthought, he's returned to the comfort and perhaps the sincerity of a Spanish-only release. It was also, as his 15th number one, the moment he tied with Luis Miguel as the artist to have the most number ones on the chart. That contest will continue, but it will probably not surprise you to learn who eventually won.

"Quizás" is a new mode of song for Iglesias: a personal, even confessional song. It starts with the words "hola viejo," or "hello, old man" -- it is, in fact, addressed to Iglesias père, whose voice we haven't heard since 1992 and whose imperial era we missed entirely -- and as a song sung by a wealthy, directionless young man to his wealthy, directionless father it's got all the emotional indirectness, protective philosophizing, and hedging acknowledgment of mortality and moral vacuity that aristocratic-poetry fans could wish for. The broader, more sentimental video is a beautifully-shot short film that backs away from engaging with Iglesias' (and Léster Méndez') lyrics in favor of a smushy universality.

Perhaps the best thing about the song having been at least partly written by Iglesias rather than for him is that there's nothing in it that's out of his range: he doesn't have to push into a strangled whine, letting most of the song inhabit the choked back of his throat. The quivering-lip emotionalism of his delivery finally sounds earned, or at least not entirely dishonest. But then again, perhaps I'm just more affected by songs about fathers (I've had one) than about lovers.

JOSÉ LUIS RODRÍGUEZ & JULIO IGLESIAS, “TORERO”

13th June, 1992

Wiki | Video

Here in the summer of 1992, the charts have at long last entered something of a groove, with song after song that interest and enthuse me, whether I actually like them or not. The opening bars to "Torero" are the kind of thing that will always put a smile on my face, flamenco flourishes over bolero rhythms, and José Luis Rodríguez being pushed by proximity to living legend Julio Iglesias to deliver a performance infused with the kind of graceful, assured masculinity that I'd bottle and spray on myself before going out if 'twere possible.

Masculinity, particularly the myths of masculinity which are very likely all there is to say about it, is very much the subject of this song, and it's worth spending some time thinking about the myths and figures of Latin masculinity in particular. It's no accident that the most extremely, even parodically, masculine figure at large in pop culture today, the guy in the Dos Equis commercials, speaks with a faint Spanish accent; even beyond the "Latin lover" stereotype (which can as easily encompass the gigolo as the bandito), there's a sort of subconscious sense in which Anglo-Americans believe that Latin men, with their machismo and fiery passions and earthy romanticism — I told you we would trade in myths — are naturally better at being men than Anglos, who are left to console themselves only with superior follicle density.

A torero, of course, is a bullfighter, the most masculine of professions according to that most masculinity-obsessed writer, Ernest Hemingway. Rodríguez and Iglesias use the image of the torero as a symbol of masculinity, one that's in danger of being lost and has to be reinforced. But since it's a pop song, sentiment comes first: like a bullfighter, a man must measure the distance to her heart, be brave and unguarded when he goes to steal a kiss, beware of the danger from her black eyes . . . . The metaphor is intrinsically sexist, of course — women aren't animals in need of tricking and taming — but it's a comfortably familiar one, and they sing it so well, that it's easy (at least for male-gendered me) for the space of the song to believe the myths and aspire to the tender, lordly masculinity their magical thinking creates.

JULIO IGLESIAS, “QUE NO SE ROMPA LA NOCHE”

14th November, 1987

Wiki | Video

What, again? He was just here! Indeed — and more recently than the strict chronology of this blog might indicate; he and Luis Miguel traded off the top spot a couple of times throughout the late summer and early fall of 1987. A fitting symbolism, in fact: this song would be (as of this writing) Julio Iglesias' last solo visit to the top of the Hot Latin chart, and few people would dominate that spot more completely in the years to come than — but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Here and now, this second single from Un Hombre Solo did exactly what it was supposed to do and made a worthy follow-up to "Lo Mejor De Tu Vida." Also written and produced by Manuel Alejandro, also sounding like the proverbial million bucks — listen for the harp glissandi and be surprised: it's so closely miked it sounds like a particularly silvery guitar.

But in classic singles-release fashion, the second is the same as the first, But With A Twist! The twist here being the bolero rhythm, which provides a poignant counterpoint to Iglesias' lovestruck crooning: this is a late-night, last-dance kind of song, only just uptempo enough to qualify as more rhythmic than "Lo Mejor De Tu Vida," and so much in love with the classic Spanish romanticism on display that the song very nearly forgets to be contemporary. Luckily some airy keyboard flourishes accenting the rhythm are on hand to remind us of the date on the sleeve.

The lyrics are typically (for Alejandro) evocative, using the concise allusiveness of poetry to build up the scenario without wasting our time on unnecessary details like setting, narrative or identity. And those lyrics, translated in full:

JULIO IGLESIAS, “LO MEJOR DE TU VIDA”

6th June, 1987

Wiki | Video

There are three emotional cycles I went through on encountering this song, over the several listens it has taken me to assimilate it. As best as I can reconstruct them, they are:

1. Goodness, you can tell without looking that whoever sings this is a Star.

2. Nevertheless it is like the most boring drippy ballad evar.

3. Holy shit these lyrics are amazing.

Julio Iglesias is the first name I've encountered on this journey that I know I've heard before beginning it. (The only other challenger, Juan Gabriel, is a more doubtful case; I might have heard of him, but it's kind of a generic name). He is, to put it in as offensively reductive a manner as possible, real-world famous in addition to being Latin Pop famous, and in 1987 had been so for nearly a decade, a man who had breached the Top Ten in the company of Willie Nelson (of all people), who titled an album after the home he subsequently sold to Quincy Jones, who even went to number one in the UK — and it was the Popular crew's discussion of that number one, with its predictable reliance on the British institution of continental package tours as the only lens through which Latin music makes any sense, that first gave me the small inkling of a desire to tackle a project like this, and talk about Latin music from a provincial, blinkered American standpoint.

And here he sounds like the megastar he is, with the most expensive-sounding production we've encountered to date. Listen to it on headphones and marvel at the miles of room in it, with guitars and keyboards and drums and harp and accordion separated out in a mix that creates a soft, glossy pillow for his golden, infinitely tender voice. We've been talking about vocal styles here, perhaps somewhat incoherently; but if Iglesias doesn't have the greatest voice from a technical standpoint, he's a master at deploying his cracked baritone to the maximum emotional and sensual effect. (I'd compare it to Neil Diamond again, but only because pop singers who sound like men are so rare in American pop that he's about the only game in town; and Iglesias is way better than Neil Diamond.)

But after marveling at the surface effect of the song's presentation of That Voice (you couldn't possibly have a production like this for an unknown singer, it would be laughed out of court), I grew restless; it was a slow song, a ballad, and repetitive as all hell. I caught fragments of the lyrics, but my Spanish is Central American vernacular (I'm still not used to Castilian pronunciation), and what I did catch didn't impress me; the phrase repeated at the beginning of each verse translates dully as "You were mine, only mine; mine, mine." I've never liked ballads on first acquaintance, and even today it's rare for one to push through my low attention span to really get across to me.

But then I looked up the lyrics — as I do for every song here, to check them against my ear — and translated them on the fly, and sat staring. They couldn't possibly be that poetic! I looked up the words I was uncertain of. No; they were even more poetic than that.

Manuel Alejandro, the song's composer, has been one of the premier ballad composers in Latin music since the 1960s, and he's worked with Julio Iglesias since the early 70s. Un Hombre Solo, the smash hit record from which "Lo Mejor De Tu Vida" ("the best [years] of your life") was taken, was entirely written and produced by Alejandro. His lyrical style is highly romantic, even extravagant, and I'm still a bit puzzled by at least one metaphor (is "colina cerrada" an idiomatic phrase in some version of vernacular Spanish? its literal translation, "closed hill," defeats my powers of analysis), but his choice of a simple, even basic, structure allied to vivid, poetically-expressed imagery is inspired: the result is a song with a folk-like structure but layered with a patina of García Lorca-like lyricism.

And all this is without getting into the meaning of the lyrics. He sounds tender, but there's an undercurrent of possessiveness, of predation, even of coercion, that mitigates against the common image of Iglesias as some kind of standard "passionate but honorable" Latin lover. But it's also more than just a rape fantasy; there's genuine emotion (sorrow? regret? revulsion?) in his performance. I don't rate these songs (I don't as a rule believe in ratings), but this is the greatest song, in whatever sense of the word you choose to apply, that we've had yet.

My translation of the lyric follows; let me know if I've gotten something wrong. Also, please let me know if you'd like me to include such translations from here on out. I'd most likely be doing the work anyway; would it be useful enough to you that the additional scrolling is worth it? The comments box works.