Interscope
Pop, 2001

I have to hand it to this young man. Aside from the fact that he is snogging Jennifer Love Hewitt in the video for Hero and he has this tendency to sleep with all the women on his videos, he actually makes the corniest lyrics seem like the most heartfelt sentiment in the world. Normally, I would be running for my lead umbrella when lines like “Would you dance if I asked you to dance? Or would you run and never look back?” (Hero) are thrown my way.

But really, I can’t resist. I won’t run, dear Enrique, I will – never mind.

I can argue that so much corn in an album must surely be bad for health, but I don’t know what kind of mojo Mr Iglesias has. It’s like radio sex – I am hooked. I am actually moved by the corniest of the corn that are Escape and Hero. When I hear that I can’t escape his love, I actually shiver inside. It’s humiliating. I should know better than to be affected by greeting card nonsense.  I can take his breath away, he says, and I cringe to remember how I hug my pillow and sigh dreamily at that.

Don’t Turn Off the Lights, he pleads, because he can’t read my mind. Good idea. We’ll do it with the lights on and a mirror overlooking the bed. Okay, maybe not. Poor darling, so hurt that he is used in a One Night Stand by this heartless woman named Jenny. Hey, my name’s Jenny, and I get an instant hot flash. Ugh, I’m acting fifteen all over again.

I must be crazy because when he is howling like a hyena in heat in Don’t Turn Off the Lights (oh my, those guitar licks are devastating, and they remind me of another… sort… of… licks… must… stop… drooling), I actually giggle in an airhead way.

The songs here are rougher, rockier than his English debut. No Latin music pandering here – toss the flamenco guitars, let’s take out the electric guitar and rock, baby! Oh, what a guilty pleasure. Listening to Escape is like walking in the shoes of an incurable groupie. It’s hot, it’s sexy, and all my brain cells melt like cheese ooze in an oven as I listen to him howl like an off-key hyena in heat. Hmm, in heat. Let me slap myself in the face before I degenerate into a babbling love-struck idiot. What, is it too late already?

Enrique Iglesias isn’t a good singer. His lyrics are corny as hell. But I’m a willing prisoner of his mojo, heaven help me, and I so hate Jennifer Love Hewitt for getting all naked and snoggy with him in the video for Hero. I’m getting more and more air-headed by the moment – someone shoot me with a tranquilizer dart before I degenerate into a fifteen year-old fangirl!