1999 Ricky Martin: Livin' La Vida Loca

I commented back on 'Spice Up Your Life' that there'd be a spate of Latin flavoured pop singles coming our way in the late nineties and I suppose Ricky Martin, being himself Puerto Rican and so no cultural tourist, was the standard bearer of this odd yet short lived phenomenon. And as if to firmly put the music of his birth on the map, Martin goes for broke on his vocal with a performance of wild eyed enthusiasm only to be let down by a fancy dress outfit of a backing that politely smoulders where it should burn like fire. Being (as it was) pieced together backstage entirely using pro-tools doesn't help to pump air into the flatness. Neither does the rather one dimensional tale that Martin is peddling, meaning the effect is one of the music keen to keep its distance from the Latin femme fatale with "devil red " lips and "skin the colour mocha" who's "into superstitions black cats and voodoo dolls". Oh, and drugging men before robbing them blind too.

Oh yes - 'Livin' La Vida Loca' was co-written by soft rock stalwart Desmond Child who knew a thing or two about how women are meant to behave in songs ("She'll make you take your clothes off and go dancing in the rain. She'll make you live her crazy life but she'll take away your pain") and his idealised woman from south of the border on a mission to wring men's hearts dry is as stereotypical as the Beach Boys' 'California Girls'.* But after the recent wave of boy band simper it's refreshing to meet a woman who knows what she wants, even if it is a backhanded male fantasy. So, clichéd business as usual then? Maybe, but come on - give him a break; 1999 has been a white bread kind of year so far and it's not going to get a lot better so it's how nice is it to see a burst of colour from a someone who actually sounds like he's enjoying himself for a change? Very.


* Maybe I'm being a bit harsh here; in the late eighties I worked for a well known Japanese electronics firm where Sarah from accounts was the epitome of Ricky's Latin siren. Sultry pout, olive skin and black coils of hair that all but hissed - she ticked all the right boxes. So much so that her nickname amongst us lads on the shopfloor was 'she-devil', mainly because she looked like she could cause a boy serious harm in the heart department and laugh in his face as she was doing it. Whether this was true or not I was never in a position to find out. None of us were really, which kind of explains a lot.