Sony,
Pop, 2021
Well, Final (Vol. 1) is supposed to be Enrique Iglesias’s last ever album… at least until the second volume comes out, I imagine. Yes, we’ve all heard that before, and sometimes they come back when the money runs out or when they realize they miss the limelight, but who knows, maybe he’s serious. If he does come back later, well, I hope he takes a nice long break first, as this album feels lethargic.
The lead single Feel the Sun sounds a lot like a Katy Perry song… oh, wait, it’s by the same producers, but it’s sung as if Mr Iglesias were at the brink of falling asleep.
The same lethargy is injected into the entire album, and it doesn’t improve matters when the songs feel like tepid rehashes of his greatest hits or, worse, hits by other acts.
Te Fuiste, which also features Myle Towers, is Luis Fonsi’s Despacito on sedatives, and the last thing I need to hear is that horribly overplayed song in slow motion.
I’d think a song with a title like Pendejo will be feisty or angry, but nope, it’s auto-tuned snoozing over a sleepy drum track.
The only times when everyone’s even a little awake are few.
One such instance is when Súbeme la Radio plays, and that’s mostly because the featured acts Descemer Bueno and Zion & Lennox are injecting some energy where Mr Iglesias is on cruise control. Even then, hello, this is Bailando all over again.
El Baño is probably noteworthy in that the music video with Eric Roberts probably had more views than his last 100 movies combined, but I’d think a song urging a lady to the nearest bathroom for a quick shag will be more sordid and raunchy than the limpid “Woah-oh-oh!” found here. I liked the song a lot when it first came out, but then I realized it was because I was distracted by all the pretty in the music video. Ahem. The backing track is nice, and Bad Bunny injects some energy in the song during his parts, but the parts with the main star sound like he’s actually asking the lady to the bathroom to help him fix his wig or dentures or whatever.
The best song is the last one on the album: El Perdón with Nicky Jam. Again, this sounds a lot like Bailando rehashed, but the chorus is so damned catchy and Nicky Jam sounds really good here. He sounds so remorseful and passionate that I don’t care what he has done, I just want to give him a reassuring hug and cop a feel while I’m at it.
You know, with such an album like this, probably someone needs to remix the songs here to make them less anesthetic in nature. Maybe Mr Iglesias is packing the songs performed when he’s wide awake in the next volume, I don’t know, but this one is definitely not making me regret that this is allegedly his final album ever.
