Songoftheday 11/10/21 -Tonight we dance I leave my life in your hands, we take the floor nothing is forbidden anymore...

 

 

"Bailamos" - Enrique Iglesias

from the albums Wild Wild West (Original Soundtrack) and Enrique (both 1999)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 16

 

Today's song comes from Enrique Iglesias, who grew up the son of one of the most revered figures in Latin music, Julio Iglesias.  At first in Spain until moving to Miami in the 1980s, Enrique actually went behind his father's back to start a music career (according to him), and initially using a fake surname for a demo was signed to the Spanish-language music giant Fonovisa Records. His first single, "Si Tú Te Vas" ("If You Go Away"), went all the way to #1 on Billboard magazine's Hot Latin Songs chart at the end of 1995, and even hit the top-40 in France at #21. That was followed by four more #1's on that chart from his debut album Enrique Iglesias; "Experiencia Religioso", "Por Amarte", "No Llores Por Mi", and "Trapecista", all of them being slow ballads. The Enrique Iglesias album made it to #148 on the Billboard 200 sales chart in 1996, going on to sell over a million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 1997, the record won for Best Latin Pop Album.

That same year, Iglesias returned with his sophomore effort Vivir (Live). Six of its ten tracks made the Hot Latin Songs chart, with three of them going to #1; "Enamorado Por Primera Vez", "Solo En Ti" (a remake of synthpop duo Yaz's "Only You"), and "Miente" (the latter his first midtempo single). The album was his first to reach the top-40 on the Billboard 200 at #33, also selling over a million. A third all-Spanish set, Cosas Del Amor (Things Of Love), spun off two more #1 Latin Songs hits with "Esperanza" and "Nunca De Olvidare". Both albums were also nominated for a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album, losing to Luis Miguel's Romances in 1998 and Ricky Martin's Vuelve in 1999. 

In 1999, with his profile expanding beyond the Latin music community, Iglesias was recruited by Will Smith to contribute a song to Smith's upcoming movie Wild Wild West. The result, "Bailamos" ("We Dance"), was released as the second single from the soundtrack after Will's title cut "Wild Wild West" which went all the way to #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 in the summer of 1999. Written by Paul Barry and Mark Taylor, two of the men behind Cher's comeback smash "Believe", and produced by Taylor with "Believe" co-producer Brian Rawling, the track, like "Miente", was an unusual mid-tempo lite-dance number for Enrique, and its production stayed more true to his roots than contemporaries in the "Latin Explosion" like Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and Christina Aguilera's debut English-language singles. The public responded quite favorably, giving Iglesias his breakthrough smash and immediately (with Martin) making them the heartthrobs of the genre...

"Bailamos" went all the way to the top on Billboard's Hot 100 pop chart in the U.S. in September of 1999. The song spent half a year (26 weeks) on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart, peaking at #14, while climbing to #35 on their older-skewing Adult Top-40 format list (a sign the cougars were out in full force). The remixes of the song, done by the likes of Davidson Ospina and Fernando Garibay, helped it spend a week at #1 on the Dance Club Play chart as well. Internationally, the single went to #1 in Spain, and reached the top ten in Canada (#2), Sweden (#2), New Zealand (#2), Hungary (#2), Norway (#3), the UK (#4), the Netherlnads (#4), France (#6), Belgium (#6W/#11F), Greece (#6), Switzerland (#8), Denmark (#8), Iceland (#8), and Germany (#10). The Enrique album, his first English set, was released in November of that year, and climbed to #33 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a million copies. Both Enrique and the Enrique album will return to this series.

(8/10)

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Before "Bailamos" appeared in Wild Wild West, the song was originally released in Europe as a bonus track on his Cosas Del Amor album, with a different video shot in Miami...

After the Wild Wild West movie fizzled out, yet another video shot by Paul Hunter was done to give a new plotline and alleviate the references to the film...

And here's the dance remix of the song with definitely mimics the hits from Ricky and Jennifer, and topped the dance chart...

Next up, Iglesias making a live appearance in 1999...

And live in Germany around the same time...

and finally on stage in Ireland in 2008...

Up tomorrow: another song of a music biggie ascends.