He was the president of the biggest record label in the world, and he put all the resources behind this music and he really advocated for it and he pushed it globally. I don't know that I would use the term the "father" of the Latin Explosion, but I would say that without him, it would not have had this impact. a little bit of surf guitar.Ĭobo: I think it's fair to say that without Tommy, it wouldn't have been this huge. That it's, you know, commercially - that there's a potential. Push to be honest, push to be as real as possible. because if anyone else had sung it, I don't know that it would have worked.ĭraco Rosa ("Livin' La Vida Loca" songwriter): The mandate was, you know, I had pop with some authenticity. There were all these little considerations, and I think they struck just the right tone, and it's having the right song and the right artist. How do we make it Latin without being too Latin, right? Because we want it to be a global hit. We need something like this, something that's kind of up-tempo, kind of universal." And they went into this mad rush to find the song and they wrote "Livin' La Vida Loca." And it was all about, how do we put a little bit of a Latin flair ? In a song that's in English, what kind of title do we give it that's Latin, but that everyone is going to understand, even if it's in English.
The great story about Ricky was that decided to do this 'crossover' with him.Īfter that performance, they said, "Oh my God, this was such a hit. Ricky already had a solo career, and in Latin America, Ricky was huge. You have an artist who used to be in Menudo - all of that. Leila Cobo: Ricky is such a big example of the way Latin music was regarded in this country and in the world for so many years. On Ricky Martin's success and his crossover appeal What were the business considerations that built these careers, and how did the streaming revolution upend the multi-genre landscape of Latin music? We'll reconsider this music moment with Cobo, "Livin La Vida" songwriter Draco Rosa and journalist Jennifer Mota. Sony music executive Tommy Mottola is often credited with driving this "crossover success" - launching the careers of Ricky Martin, Shakira, Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez.
#Aerosmith armageddon album series#
In the third part of our series exploring crossover in pop music, we reexamine the so-called "Latin explosion" of the late '90s: what it was supposed to be for audiences across the U.S., and what it actually came to represent. Though Martin was already at work on his first English-language album, the success of this performance led him to record another song destined to become a hit: "Livin' La Vida Loca." "But outside of the Spanish-speaking world, people really didn't know him." "He was an artist that would sell out stadiums throughout South America and Mexico," says Leila Cobo, vice president at Billboard and author of Decoding Despacito: An Oral History of Latin Music. This was the first time many Americans who had mainly listened to mainstream pop had ever seen or heard of him. At the center of it all was Martin, his hips moving constantly, singing and beckoning to the crowd. It was a perfect '90s time capsule.īut the most memorable part of that ceremony was Ricky Martin's electric performance of "La Copa De La Vida." It can only be described as a massive party - percussionists parading through the audience, banging on drums and tapping tambourines, dancers gyrating all over the stage on stilts. Even Aerosmith performed "I Don't Want To Miss a Thing" from the Armageddon film soundtrack.
Shania Twain and Alanis Morissette won multiple awards. Lauryn Hill won five Grammys, including for album of the year. (Blake Cale for NPR)ġ999 was a big year at the Grammy Awards. In the third part of our series exploring crossover in pop music, we reexamine the so-called "Latin explosion" of the '90s: what it was supposed to be for audiences across the U.S., and what it actually came to represent.
0 kommentar(er)
