When Ricky Martin shook his bon-bon at the 1999 Grammy Awards ceremony, he was deemed the catalyst for the Latin explosion. In truth, that outburst reflected how interest in Latin music and culture �� which had already influenced Anglos for years �� had reached a point of critical mass.
If you believed the media hype, though, Martin was either the hombre whose broad shoulders would carry the future of Latin pop music, or a mannequin peddling watered-down salsa to the masses.
But Martin himself always maintained that he was neither. His self-titled English-language debut, released last year, reflected both the singer's pride in his heritage and his enduring fascination with Anglo rock 'n' roll.
With his new outing, Sound Loaded, Martin continues in that vein but also tries to show more musical ambition and sophistication. Love songs such as the flamenco-laced Nobody Wants to Be Lonely and Come to Me, one of several tracks also featured in Spanish-language versions, are more nuanced than the power ballads on Ricky Martin . More upbeat tunes �� among them the driving single She Bangs and the delirious romp If You Ever Saw Her �� offer a rhythmic panache owing more to contemporary urban music than classic rock.
There are also Middle Eastern accents and nods to jazz and swing.
Martin is still not a great singer, and the slick production and often trite writing contributed by Desmond Child, Robi Rosa and others fail to match the dynamism of the star's live performances. But Martin's new sound is loaded with enough hooks and heart to ensure that fans won't be bidding him adios any time soon.
Can one of Puerto Rico's biggest musical exports make lightning strike twice in English?
Martin has a lot resting on his swivelling hips with the followup to his 1999 self-titled English-language debut, which sold a whopping 15 million copies worldwide.
The ho-hum, Latin-tinged pop of the first dance single, She Bangs, certainly doesn't signal great things to come for this collection, in stores Tuesday.
Part of the problem is that Martin is working again with much of the same songwriting-producing team responsible for Ricky Martin.
Like that earlier album, Martin and his collaborators tend to go the predictable, often downright schmaltzy, route on many of the songs while his vocal delivery veers toward the melodramatic. (His background is Menudo, musical theatre and a soap opera, after all.)
That said, Martin's way with an audience in concert can make even the most humdrum music palatable.
Notable standouts are the sophisticated mid-tempo dance song, St. Tropez, and the sexy, partly Spanish, Amor.
This thing is loaded all right - with more infectious, hip-thrusting, butt-wiggling Latin rhythms and steamy lyrics than you can shake a stick at, plus the stick.
This is not a bad thing. As long as you take it for what it is: Good, dumb fun.
Analyze this line from Loaded, which is basically a variation on the Livin' La Vida Loca theme: "Get the bump to the bump de bump de bump soul ... move like a thing, swing like a thong and do your jiggy mama till the break of dawn." You guessed it: Ricky's crazy life continues.
Filled with flash, sex, drama and heightened emotion, his latest CD comes off more like theatrical revue than a collection of sure-fire hits. Which, by the way, it is. The guest list includes Desmond Child, Dianne Warren, Jon Secada, Emilio Estefan Jr., you name the pop heavyweight. While it's often the case that so many cooks in the kitchen results in an ambitious flop - like that awful new Spice Girls CD - these folks have obviously indulged their every whim and revelled in one of the most welcome styles of music to enter the pop mainstream in a long time. No expense has been spared in crafting the gaudy stage for this Latino heartthrob to prance around on, belting out one sexy sweet nothing after another: "If it looks like love should be a crime, they better lock me up for life. I'll do the time with a smile on my face." What a ham.
Imbedded in polished pop perfection, every Latin music cliche you've ever heard is here - from the cha-cha-cha rhythms to the Spanish guitars to the squads of trumpets that must've wandered in from a Mexican wedding. There's even a Middle Eastern element on One Night Man. Every note is carefully groomed for the hit parade.
Even so, there's a charm, honesty and sense of fun that shines through all the la bomba bombast. Call Sound Loaded a guilty pleasure.
Though Ricky Martin is to Latin music, what Boney M's Rasputin was to Slavic culture, he... -- stop looking at the picture, the important stuff is here -- ...is a phenomenon.
His 1999 self-titled English debut which sold over 15 million copies worldwide on the strength of singles such as Livin' La Vida Loca and Shake Your Bon-Bon, lit the match for the entire Latin craze that everyone from Jennifer Lopez to 98* are now reaping the rewards of.
Martin's much-anticipated follow-up Sound Loaded hits the streets on Tuesday, and the saucy (or salsa-y) first single She Bangs -- the album's Loca -- is already burning up the charts like a jalapeno through the lower intestine.
The rest of the disc follows pretty much the same formula as its predecessor, with a fairly even mix of bland ballad's and barely exotic disco pop. There are also three Spanish versions of English tracks -- to make it sound really global!
The lyrics themselves are ripe with enough innuendo and Latin love to keep female hearts palpitating and patrons of Detours nodding to one another knowingly.
To review Sound Loaded would be an exercise in futility -- and, in all honesty give it far too much credit -- so instead, let's just take a culinary approach to each of the 15 tracks on the album and rate them according to their temperature-raising potential, with one chili pepper being the mildest and five indicating a blood-bubbling sex facilitator.
(Note: All Spanish versions automatically receive one extra pepper because the language is that much hotter than ours.)
She Bangs: 4
Saint Tropez: 2
Come to Me: 1
Loaded: 4
Nobody Wants To Be Lonely: 1
Amor: 3
Jezabel: 3
The Touch: 1
One Night Man: 2
She Bangs (Spanish): 5
Are You In It for Love: 4
Ven A Mi (Come to Me): 2
If You Ever Saw Her: 3
Dame Mas (Loaded): 5
Cambia La Piel: 4
Martin's songwriters seem to have a thing for wild women. First, on his self-titled 1999 English-language debut, there was that crazy chick who was 'Livin' La Vida Loca. Now, on his new CD, the Latin pop star sings about sex-obsessed hotties on She Bangs and Jezabel. Much like that on Martin's last album, Sound Loaded's production is somewhat overdone, and the vocals are often overwhelmed by the surging instrumentation. But through is all, Martin has a charm that's hard to deny. The women in his lyrics may be rough and ready, but Martin is always smooth. - By Christopher John Farley
