Mil historias que contar

(Post-writing preface: I sometimes run into a problem with albums or artists whose music I really enjoy, especially when few other people listen to them--I don't want to give the impression that they're world-altering or even for everyone, but I think that's often how it appears when I attempt to get across how much I enjoy listening to their work.)

Hmm...it's still June, right? That means I can't even pass off the fact that I listened to three Christmas songs yesterday as a "Christmas in July" phenomenon. Still, there can't be any bad time to listen to "All I Want For Christmas Is You" or Shirley Clamp's version of "Do They Know It's Christmas," and mention of the following song had me listening to it again. I promise not to get carried away again with Nash (I still refuse to write NASH or D'Nash or D'NASH or however it should be written now...maybe I'll start calling them D'Nash eventually) news, but I do think they're very underrated--"Que sabes del amor" is still the best straight-up (i.e., non guitar-playing) boy band song I've heard in ages, their performance of "Una lágrima" in the Misión Eurovision finals was a very interesting and good one, their Eurovision performance was leagues ahead of what they delivered back in the Misión Eurovision days, and their album has a lot of great songs on it--and, though "Dondé estás" may be a cover, on most of their songs they sound unique, very much in the boy band school but not really a rip off of any other group. I think it's fair to say I love them, or at least their music; their album is not only probably one of the most consistent boy band albums I've heard, it's just so fun to listen to even without the "for a boy band" qualifier. I mean, they're a boy band singing in Spanish, for goodness sake, and they get me to care more about the lyrics than probably any other artist I can think of (though sometimes they can be naff). The fact that there's a boy band out there making great music that doesn't sound out of date or doesn't make me feel uncomfortable is such a relief for me and something I didn't really think I'd see again (though that doesn't stop me from seeing that they can make some pretty dubious fashion choices at times). Anyhow, fulfilling a request; I've written about them a bunch of times (even over on A Kind Of Love In back in January, when I was far more snarky about them), but posted songs twice--here and with my album review.

Más allá de las estrellas--yes, I now have it, after all the complaining I did. I realize they were never exactly setting the album charts alight and so probably really wanted to sell as many copies as possible, but three copies of one album is pushing it, especially when there's no one album that has all their songs on it. Anyhow, this song was only released on the second edition of the album, which added two bonus tracks to the original. As the jingle bells probably give away, it is a Christmas song. It's also a ballad, but a pretty good one--their best, I think, though it might be close. Plus, considering they don't do that many ballads (the first edition of their album had twelve songs and three ballads), I'm able to appreciate it more--knowing that they're not an "all ballads, all the time" group does influence my perception of and tolerance for or enjoyment of the ballads they do do.

As I said, this song comes from the second edition of the album, but, assuming you've either grabbed this song or have no interest in it, you're better off buying Capaz de todo - Misión Eurovision, the third edition, which has all the songs from the first edition, one of the bonus tracks from the second edition, and all the songs they performed throughout Misión Eurovision; in other words, the only song it leaves off is "Más allá de las estrellas."

Next up: maybe something Estonian.