Sanz stays the course in La Musica No Se Toca

On again, off again, Spanish singer/songwriter Alejandro Sanz, who released La Musica No Se Toca last fall, his first studio album since 2009 and one under a new record label home, explores the lasting significance of music and plays tribute to the industry in lead single “La Musica No Se Toca”, because well, it will forever occupy the headlines, “reign when we’re gone” and “exist when there’s nobody else to love.”

Coming off 2009’s ‘Paraiso Express’, which like most of his studio work in recent years leaned heavily on collaborations with Shakira and Calle 13 aside from veering into political anthems and dishing at other music genres. Sanz, who composed all 13 songs on the album, plays it straight in “La Musica No Se Toca”, a production that exposes his seasoned songwriting ability and refined vocal prowess.
                                                                                    
Even with the reality of declining record sales in the Latin music industry and the evolution of digital media, which he has already taken advantage of with a digitally streamed live concert in Miami last December, Sanz stays true to his craft while not taking too many risks by going the romantic ballad route (“Mi Marciana”, “Para Decirle Adios”) while adding the customary, flamenco guitar splashed numbers (“Camino de Rosas”) elevated by his raspy and melodic voice.

While rarely unwavering from his defiant and emotive singing style, again Sanz plays it close to form in much-lauded singles, “Se Vende” and “No Me Compares”, nominated for two Latin Grammy awards shortly after its release. Sanz is clearly at his best in guitar-laden and hard charging rock-fused, “La Musica No Se Toca” and “Llamado a La Mujer Accion” but he strays away from his strengths to perhaps please his secured, mainstream audience with syrupy, pop ballads.

As a whole, La Musica No Se Toca affirms Sanz’s undeniable skills as a songwriter and love letter maestro, but fails in originality and freshness, both crucial for an artist that had been gone for so long and with a new record label address to boot.

                                                                                                          Fernie Ruano Jr.

Alejandro Sanz will perform Thursday, May 9 at the AmericanAirlines Arena. Tickets range from $55-$140. For additional informaton, contact the AAA box office at (786) 777-1000

 

                                                                                   

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Latin music stars looking beyond Twitter and Facebook

By Fernie Ruano Jr.  

A mid-March image posting @alexoficial of an unshaven and shaggy-haired Alejandro Fernandez walking up a railroad in washed jeans and bomber jacket in Mexico City not only sets off a cyber-riot amongst his 2 million Twitter followers, but sparks a lively stream of discussion and instant interaction that unites his diverse fan base during a 24-hour, photo-ogling period stretching from Cali, Colombia to San Diego, California.

There’s the grooming suggestion (“Estas mas guapo sin barba y con el pelo corto,” gushes Mele Fernandez on Facebook) to the PG-rated dissection of his physique (“You look hot!” writes TOTIGIRL on Twitter) somewhere in the United States with loads of adoration in between, resulting in 512 comments and 3,500 ‘Likes’ on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram combined and definitely increasing the popularity of his Facebook page (3,207, 747 ‘Likes’ and counting at last check).

Fifteen years ago, that might have sufficed to send a brainy publicist, looking to plug a new tour or album, into hysteria, if not onto South Beach to splurge on margaritas, after securing several interviews for the hunky crooner.

But while the response and statistics are undeniably respectable, especially given his studio inactivity in recent years, they’re a drop in the bucket for a management team crunching numbers as they ratchet up a mix of marketing and tech savvy strategies aimed at the favorite devices and wallets of Hispanic consumers satisfying their music listening and viewing habits with everything from an internet lifestyle channel to a digitally-streamed live concert performance, and expected to drive the totality of their spending power in the U.S. economy over a trillion dollars in less than three years.

 “Wow, this generation practically lives on a computer and doesn’t lose sight of their IPhone, so if it’s not 100% about social and digital media it’s pretty close when we sit down to open a (marketing) campaign,” said Press & Publicity Director Nayira Castellanos, of Miami Beach-based Acoustyle Digital and Marketing Communication about strategy in selling Latin music artists to freewheeling bilingual, Latinos growing up on ITunes and ipads and mesmerized by You Tube and iTunes.

“Whether it’s Alejandro, (Puerto Rican reggaeton singer) J. Alvarezor (Puerto Rican salsa singer) Tito Nieves our jobs depend on driving numbers and creating a buzz. So, when we pull somebody through the door, yes it’s we know, Ok, how many Facebook friends and Twitter followers do you have?

“But in today’s world, that’s just a small step in making sure an artist is creating a buzz. It doesn’t matter if you’re established or just starting out, everybody needs to know you’re out there and in today’s world that means going where people get their music and that extends promoting a tour or new album.”

According to a Selig Center for Economic Growth study conducted by Bovitz Research published by Adage.comin February, the spending power of Latinos will account for upwards of $1.5 trillion of the economy by 2015. Hispanics presently make up 16.3% of the total U.S. population, or just over 52 million people. By 2050 that number is projected to reach 133 million, according to the report.

Combine that with an in-depth Nielsen study of consumer interaction with music in the United States conducted last fall concluding that even though 48% of people still discover music through radio, it pales in comparison to the 64% of teenagers using You Tube, followed by radio (56%) and ITunes (53%), as their main gateway to music – numbers not lost on industry executives trying to keep up with digitally savvy and mobilized, multi-lingual Latinos in search of fresh faces and innovative platforms.

Castellanos, who with Sujeylee Sola operates the marketing and promotion of a Top Stop Music roster featuring upstart Dominican American singer Leslie Grace, is locked in with what’s happening on You Tube even more so than making sure to blast away that snappy release with bold colors and catchy slogans.

But that’s just part of the process for music executives trying in connecting the past with the present in hopes of getting younger bilingual Latinos to invest in music while also busy attempting to jumpstart the career of the next star in part by hooking new audiences and the marketing of Grace is no exception.

An ex-choir girl born in New York, the 18-year-old Grace made her debut last summer with a Spanglish, R&B/Bachata-fused rendition of The Shirelles 1960’s classic “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” that starts off as a hearty ballad before taking a turn into full-fledge bachata.  The song’s You Tube video (4,392,608 views), a throwback shoot entirely in black and white traveling everywhere from a Drive-In to the beach, depicts Grace at times in a classic convertible and singing into a standstill vintage microphone.

“It’s definitely a smart marketing ploy in trying to gain new followers and a create some noise among young Hispanics, especially when you’re trying to get a relatively new artist of the ground, but it’s a bit difficult when you’re also competing with established artists and their advanced presence in new media,” said a Miami-based DJ, who expressed concern for the longevity of mainstream radio with the emergence of internet radio and the likes surfacing as prime destinations for young Latinos.

While outlining the permeating presence of such internet radio services such as Pandora, available across a multitude of media platforms including home and office, The Selig Center for Economic Growth study found 88% of Hispanics listeners prefer mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets and that marketers and brands should consider enhanced options to to take advantage of location, with immediate calls to action, social sharing and interaction with the ever-growing demographic segment.

Just last December, Spanish singer/songwriter Alejandro Sanz, in the midst of pushing material off his new album, “La Musica No Se Toca”, gave online viewers an opportunity to connect with each other internationally and interact while watching a digital stream of his live concert from a lounge in Miami Beach broadcast on Terra.com in conjunction with Terra Live Music and Pepsi’s ‘Viva Hoy’ platform, the bottling company’s renewed Hispanic marketing effort.

The HD concert, marking the first time Pepsi’s U.S. Hispanic and Latin American marketing teams had worked together on a cross-bordering initiative, was broadcast in 19 countries reached by the Terra digital media company’s entertainment, lifestyle, sports and news content, including Spain and other European countries, according to Terra U.S. CEO Fernando Rodriguez.

The 60-minute performance, offered in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and accessible on PCs, tablets, smartphones and smart TVs, not only allowed Sanz the chance to promote new music across a wide spectrum, it generated over 11,ooo Facebook ‘Likes’ within minutes of the show starting, according to Terra.com, which reaches an audience of 100 million per month.

 Additionally, Pepsi ran a sweepstakes in 12 Latin American countries offering a grand prize, including tickets for two to attend a show next month in Miami.

“It’s going to continue to explode and sooner than later, it’s going to be crazy in an innovative sense,” said Metamorfosis Publicity & Marketing Director Ananay Castillo, who hinted at the possibility of Guatemalan singer/songwriter Ricardo Arjona (@Ricardo_Arjona) concluding his  agenda late this year with a live-streamed concert

Not to be outdone, Juanes(@Juanes), one of this generation’s most influential Latin music artists in the world, premiered 123: POV Juanes last summer, a docu-series chronicling the creative and humanitarian exploits of the Colombian rocker on a You Tube’s Latin lifestyle channel targeted at young, bilingual Latinos in the U.S. 

Yo Soy Juanes, a monthly-radio broadcast on SiriusXM featuring everything from his favorite music to career tidbits, hit the airwaves in September.

“The personal experience of buying a ticket and attending a show is something that will never get old with perhaps you and I, but the young generation is pretty much is about here and now. We’re definitely heading into the age of more digital concerts, more opportunities where people, no matter where you’re sitting or where you live, can take part,” said Castillo.

It doesn’t matter where you are it’s impossible to connect with an artist like Ricardo every day, so there’s no better way to get that access than being a click away. I definitely see more live streaming of concerts, web shows and chats with fans in the future. It’s the easiest way to bring everybody together at once”

So what better way for New York-born bachata baby-face Prince Royce (@PrinceRoyce), another of Latin music’s marketing jewels thanks to his fresh look and bilingual songs, than to take Twitter to announce to his 1,096,924 million followers and the world in a millisecond that “Te Me Vas” is the “No.1 song in the country.”

Or for the aforementioned Juanes to let 7, 443, 145 Twitter followers that he is indeed performing on Kelly & Michael and likely taking the chance to promote his new biography, “Chasing The Sun.”

And while Miami-bred Pitbull(@Pitbull) may not have the time to personally acknowledge his most loyal Facebookfollowers and Glaria McNamara of Seattle might never come within arms-length of Mr. 305 they will forever be connected on cyberspace for everybody to see.

“Something tells me Pitbull is well-hung,” wrote McNamara seconds after a photo posting went up of Pit bull on stage with Marc Anthony drawing 34,500 likes and 948 comments “Oops, why would my sub-consciousness make me comment this?”   

 

 

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La Santa Cecilia releases ‘Trenta Dias’

By Fernie Ruano Jr.

Latin Alternative band La Santa Cecilia has collectively made a push to be heard in recent months, most notably in their plight to back and break the ice on immigration reform.

Now, anybody can listen to their cause with the release of “Trenta Dias”, the Los Angeles-based group anticipated, major-label debut album earlier this week.  

 ‘Trenta’, a bilingual, 8-track production fusing Rock and Bossa Nova, among its diverse mixture of genres and rhythms, plays heavily through the chords of the immigration experience, namely of lead vocalist Marisol Hernandez and accordionplayer Jose Carlos.

Hernandez’s parents arrived in Los Angeles from Mexico without papers and Carlos is undocumented.

“El Hielo” (The Ice), the lead track of the album, details the everyday reality of being an immigrant and the human drama that comes with it through the stories of Rodriguez, Carlos and a family friend, who have gone through life clinging to a ‘hopeless’ dream to driving the streets without a license, as is the case with Carlos.

Carlos, in part the inspiration for “El Hielo”, arrived in the United States at 6 and part symbol for undocumented students, workers and housewives all over the country. The eclectic album also includes “Losing Game”, collaboration with Elvis Costello.

 

 

 

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Juanes receives ‘Humanitarian Leadership’ award

 Latin music star Juanes is making room in his trophy case.

The Colombian singer/songwriter received the 2013 Atlantic Council’s Distinguished Humanitarian Leadership Award earlier this week, along with additional recipients Hillary Clinton, singer Tony Bennett and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

“For me and others of my generation, art became more than just a haven, it was a powerful way to conquer fear and to transform our feelings of impotence into creative impulse,” said Juanes during the award ceremony.

The Atlantic Council outlined the initiatives Juanes carries out through Mi Sangre, his foundation which in part empowers Colombian youth with the necessary skills to become leaders in their respective communities.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        -Fernie Ruano Jr.

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