My Top 18 Albums Of 2013: # 17 – 3.0 – Marc Anthony
Marc Anthony returns to his salsa roots
After a poorly judged marriage to J Lo and a decade of Latin American pop of varying degrees of completely average, in 2013 Marc Anthony ,the Spanish superstar, returned to his producer Sergio Georges, a salsa master who has worked with the likes of Tito Nieves and discovered he had lost none of his powers, on this masterful work.
Spanish pop stars crossing over in the States is a difficult nut to crack, and after the Iglesias and Tito Puentes, who has done it? Ruben Blades didn’t, not really, Pitbull isn’t a Latin American pop King, nor was Big Pun or Big Joe: it is a rarity and Marc Anthony did cross over but not on the level of his Spanish language hits, and there was a price to pay for this and the price was a hit on his skills. Marc’s big balladeering was too much, he was the Celine Dion of Latin American pop.
But 3.0 is something else, it is something special. Marc told the New York Daily News “I’ve been collecting songs for about nine years already and it’s a collection of songs that I was absolutely madly in love with and I had years to live with. Part of my process when I choose a song is I know that I’m going to be with these songs for the next 20 or 30 years and I have to absolutely love them and be able to live with them.”
These songs are perfectly chosen gems, “Vivir Mi Vida”, an invigorated I did it my way for the 21st Century leads the way and the next three songs are just as good. Julio Reyes’ brooding “Espera” is so good it re-jump started Anthony’s musical center of gravity and “Flor Pakida” will have you doing a modified waltz to the smoothiest of salsa beats and song after song is just exactly what it should be.
At 45 years of age, Anthony has had his midlife crises and has now returned to his roots on this huge hit in Latin American, a perfect album which proves Anthony has the voice and the chops, and the arrangements, and the ear, to still be the biggest Salsa star living.
