Come on and give a guy a whirl

It's no secret that I love Enrique Iglesias's "Do You Know (The Ping Pong Song)," and even if I'm pretty disappointed that it appears "Somebody's Me" is the next American single while Spain and maybe all Europe gets the far better "Tired Of Being Sorry" (video here), this latest album has led to a mini-Enrique revival over the course of this spring and summer. I'd thought he was underrated before, but now I'm completely convinced of it--he's had some great singles and, even if I wouldn't say he's the most consistent artist ever, he's got some great album tracks, too. Today's is one of them, from the sadly less successful than it should have been 7 album.

Break Me Shake Me--oh, how I love this song--it must be one of my most played Enrique songs at this point. It's catchy, it's got some great production going on...like several of the songs I've recently written about, I'm struggling to find too much to say about it, but, unlike most of those, I have no doubts about its quality--it's a fantastic pop song. Everything about it is perfect, from the verse-bridge-chorus succession to the somewhat strange but completely appropriate for the song laugh to that almost spoken-shouted part at the end that goes over the top of the chorus. Plus, we even get an almost breakdown-like middle eight (or, maybe more properly, the chorus right after the middle eight), the kind that you can just imagine being clapped along with by a stadium full of people. The songs on 7 are thoroughly pop, and yet I find myself unable to resist comparing them to stadium rockers--and really, if you can take the best of that, the power, the urge to sing along, the "bigness," and put in a pop song, what's not to love?

To buy Enrique Iglesias's album 7, go here (physical) or here (digital). It's also available on iTunes.

Next up: maybe an American singer.