Amarte Es un Placer () is the thirteenth studio album by Mexican singer Luis Miguel. It was released by WEA Latina on 13 September 1999. Produced by Miguel, it is a pop album with R&B and jazz influences. Miguel was more involved with the songwriting on this record than on earlier albums and was assisted by composers including Arturo Pérez, Armando Manzanero, and Juan Carlos Calderón. Despite the popularity of his contemporaries Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias who crossed over to the English-language market, Miguel preferred to sing and record in Spanish at the time.
Four singles were released to promote the album: "Sol, Arena y Mar", "O Tú o Ninguna", "Dormir Contigo", and the title track "Amarte Es un Placer". Miguel embarked on a world tour which lasted from September 1999 into May 2000. He performed in Spain, South America, Mexico, and the United States. It became the highest-grossing tour by a Spanish-speaking recording artist.
Amarte Es un Placer debuted at number one in Spain and on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart in the United States. It was certified gold in the United States and achieved multi-platinum status in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Spain. The album has sold 3.5 million copies worldwide. On its release, the record received mixed reviews from music critics; several praised the production as well as Miguel's vocals and the compositions, but others felt it did not differ from his earlier recordings and found the music outdated. Miguel received several accolades, including the Latin Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album and a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Pop Performance.
Background
In 1997, Luis Miguel released his twelfth studio album Romances. It is the third record in his Romance series where he performed covers of classic Latin American boleros. It sold more than 4.5 million copies and won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Performance in 1998. To promote Romances, he embarked on a tour of the United States, Latin America, and Spain which lasted more than a year. By 1998, Miguel was among the most successful Latin artists internationally with album sales of more than 35 million copies worldwide. In October 1998, Mexican composer Armando Manzanero, who worked with Miguel on the Romance albums, confirmed to a reporter from Notimex that he was assisting Miguel with a new project. After a two-year absence from the music scene, Miguel announced on 19 July 1999 that he would release a new album by September. He indicated the forthcoming album would be a return to pop recordings as opposed to the bolero cover versions he had recorded on the Romance series. The album's title, Amarte Es un Placer (), was announced on 17 August 1999.
Miguel held a press conference at the Casino de Madrid in Madrid, Spain, on the album's launch date of 13 September 1999. He confirmed it was the first album where he was more involved in the tracks' composition: "Here something special was done, probably because I had more time to write a few things," he added. When asked why he opted to not record an English-language album, like other Latin acts such as Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin had successfully done, Miguel replied: "I think that Spanish is a good language. I like my language and I really feel proud of it. I'm not saying that I won't do it in the future, sing in English, I mean. But it's just that it's not the right time for me. Why should I do it, just because everybody else is doing it?" He was also asked about the lack of a duet with his then-girlfriend, American singer Mariah Carey, to which he responded he does not like to mix his personal life with his career. He added that the music he performs is based on his feelings at the time, and hinted that the album's title was influenced by his relationship with Carey.
As well as co-writing several of the record's tracks, Miguel was assisted by other composers including Manzanero, Juan Carlos Calderón, and Arturo Pérez. Recording took place at the A&M Studios, Cello Studios, Ocean Way Recording, Watersound, and the Record Plant in Hollywood, California; Miguel handled the productions himself.
Composition
Amarte Es un Placer is a pop album composed of twelve love songs. It consists mainly of orchestrated romantic ballads and several uptempo numbers. Unlike his earlier pop record Nada Es Igual... (1996), which featured dance music and hip-hop influences, Amarte Es un Placers emphasis is on adult contemporary music. The opening track, "Tu Mirada" is a rock ballad with a guitar solo. Manzanero composed three ballads for the album: "Soy Yo", "Dormir Contigo", and "Ese Momento". The latter deals with a "narrative account of the instance when two bodies merge in fiery passion". On "Dormir Contigo", the protagonist talks about the joy of sleeping with his love interest. "Sol, Arena y Mar" is a horn-driven uptempo track with jazz influences, which describes the "pain of separation" of a love that "disappeared as quickly as the foam at the seashore".
"Quiero" is an R&B "groove" track which incorporates strings on its crescendo, a saxophone solo, and brass instruments. "Tú, Sólo Tú" is a disco-influenced, mid-tempo "groove" song. "Dímelo en un Beso" is a pop ballad which also incorporates disco music. "O Tú o Ninguna" is a bolero composed by Calderón, while "No Me Fío" is reminiscent of a 1980s power ballad. "Te Propongo Esta Noche", the album's only dance number, begins as a "smooth" R&B track until it changes to percussion-driven club music halfway through the song. The album closes with the title track which features "dramatic orchestral sweeps" throughout the tune. The song caused controversy when Mexican composer Marcos Lifshitz accused Calderón and Miguel of plagiarizing his composition "Siento nuestro aliento" which he wrote in 1997. A court ruled in favor of Lifshitz and ordered Miguel and his record label to pay 40 percent of the song's royalties as compensation.
Singles "Sol, Arena y Mar" was released as the first single from Amarte Es un Placer on 19 July 1999. It peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart in the United States and topped the ballads chart in Mexico. A remix of the song by American DJ Danny Saber was released as a single; it peaked at number two in Spain. "O Tú o Ninguna" was released as the album's second single on 6 September 1999. It reached the top of the Hot Latin Songs chart in the US for one week. Rebecca Blake filmed the music video for the track in San Francisco. In Ibero America, it peaked at number five in Guatemala, number two on the Mexican ballad charts, number three in Nicaragua, number four in Nicaragua, and ten in Uruguay.
The third single, "Dormir Contigo", was released in January 2000 and peaked at number 11 on the Hot Latin Songs chart and number six on the Mexican ballads chart. In the same month, the music video for the fourth single, "Amarte Es un Placer", was directed by Alberto Tolot and filmed in Bel-Air, California. The title track peaked at number six on the Hot Latin Songs chart, seven on the ballads chart in Mexico, number two in Chile and three in Honduras. In addition to the singles, "Soy Yo" topped the record charts in Honduras and Panama, while "Tú, Sólo Tú" reached number ten on the ballads chart in Mexico.
Promotion
To promote the album, Luis Miguel began his Amarte Es Un Placer Tour on 9 September 1999 in Gijón, Spain. In Madrid, he performed three sold-out shows, and spent a month touring Spain. His performances in Barcelona, Marbella, and Tenerife were among the country's highest grossing shows of 1999. Miguel then toured South America where he performed in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Venezuela. In Argentina, he drew more than 50,000 attendees to his concerts. His eight shows in Chile attracted more than 101,800 spectators, the largest audiences of the year for an artist there. The first leg of the tour ended on 11 December 1999 in Maracaibo, Venezuela. A concert was planned for the San Jose Arena in California on New Year's Eve but was canceled because the gross income would not meet Miguel's requirements.
Miguel began the second leg of his tour at the Centennial Garden in Bakersfield, California, on 1 February 2000. Two days later, he performed at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, California, for five consecutive nights drawing more than 24,000 spectators. In the same month, he performed four shows at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and grossed $1.4 million. He also appeared in Minneapolis on 12 February and in Fairfax on 14 February. Following his concerts at Radio City Music Hall, Miguel performed 21 consecutive shows at the National Auditorium in Mexico City beginning on 24 February. Beating the previous record of 20 set by Mexican group Timbiriche, Miguel also set the record for most attendees with an overall count of 255,000 patrons.
Miguel returned to tour in the United States on 24 March 2000, performing in several cities including Miami, Chicago, Atlantic City, and Houston. He later presented five shows in Monterrey, Mexico, from 13 to 17 April 2000. After a few more performances in the US, he ended the tour in San Diego, California on 6 May 2000. Miguel had the 23rd highest-grossing tour in the US that year, earning more than $15.7 million from his 44 shows in the country. The tour was recognized by the William Morris Agency as the highest-grossing tour by a Spanish-speaking artist.
Miguel was accompanied by a 13-piece band during his tour which included horns, keyboards, guitars, and three female backup singers. His hour-and-a-half show consisted mainly of pop songs and ballads from Amarte Es un Placer and his earlier career, as well as medleys of boleros from the Romance-themed albums. During his concerts in Monterrey, he was joined by Cutbert Pérez's band Mariachi 2000 and performed live covers of Mario De Jesús Báez's "Y" and Rubén Fuentes "La Bikina". The shows included a large live-screen behind the stage and featured fireworks and confetti.
Of Miguel's performances in Los Angeles, The Orange County Register editor Daniel Chang commented that he "delivered a classy show that was as much fun to watch as it was to hear". He noted that Miguel "emotes a contagious energy through dramatic facial expressions, fetal-position-like contortions and physical outbursts in time with the music," and complimented his dance moves and the visual sets. Of his concert in Houston, Michael D. Clark of the Houston Chronicle wrote that Miguel "proved, once again, that it isn't necessary to change languages to reach U.S. audiences". He observed that Miguel seemed "determined to balance the upbeat with the overwrought" in contrast with his previous concerts, which were dominated by ballads. Clark was disappointed that the boleros were sung in medleys which did not allow any of them to stand out.
Jon Bream commented in the Star Tribune that Miguel's presentation in Minneapolis was "one of the most ambitious concert spectacles ever presented at the theater" and that the singer had a "captivating presence," but added his music was "not particularly distinctive". He likened Miguel's uptempo songs to Earth, Wind & Fire albeit without the "rhythmic and jazzy sophistication," considered his ballads to be "conservative pop, bathed in synthesized strings with Chicago-like horn filigree," and felt let down by Miguel's choice to perform his boleros in medleys.
On 24 October 2000, WEA released the Vivo live album and video from Miguel's concerts in Monterrey. AllMusic editor Perry Seibert gave the video album two-out-of-five stars. He criticized its lack of subtitles, closed captions, and supplemental materials, but stated it should not "dissuade fans of Latino music from checking out this entertaining DVD from Warner Bros."
Critical reception