Premios Billboard Musica Latina – more of the same!

Posted on 27. Apr, 2009 by Hector Aviles in Blog

After the results of the “Premios Billboard 2009” of latin music, you have to wonder if whoever chooses the award winners even listens to the recordings. These latin music awards, as with the Grammy’s, “Lo Nuestro”, etc., seem to reward the most popular and conected artists than the quality of music they play.

My particular grief this time is with Gilberto Santa Rosa’s Christmas album winning “Best Tropical Album by a  Soloist”. Let me start by saying I’m a big “Gilberto Santa Rosa” fan. I admire how this “gentleman of salsa” can re-invent himself and his music, evolving from being a “sonero” into a true “entretainer”. But “Una Navidad con Gilberto” is not even close to his best work. And Billboard is telling me a Santa Rosa “B” album is the best tropical music we had in 2008? Nonesense; and let me give you an example.

Just to keep it in Puerto Rico, the album of fellow “boricua” José Lugo, “Guasábara”, released about the same time as Gilberto’s, is so far above in quality to Gilberto’s and to Aventura’s “King of Bachata, Live at Madison Square Garden”, which won “Best Tropical Album by duo or group”, that they don’t seem to even belong in the same league. José Lugo’s “Guasábara” is a master piece (Best of 2008 Editor’s Pick for Descarga.com), not more of the same thing by the same people. Its a collection of elite musicians doing “big-band style” “salsa” and “latin jazz”. It also brings some of the best “soneros” to sing, and among them is Gilberto Santa Rosa. “Gasábara” has great music, great musicians, great singers, and great instrumental tracks. A truly latin music collectionist album. An it didn’t even get a nomination for an award.

But, I think its no surprise to anyone that these type of awards are not given for best music in the category. And therefore my opening question. Do the “judges” even need to listen to the music, or just need to know that Gilberto came out with a new album? I suppose their thinking goes something like this….”is it Gilberto’s turn to recieve an award? Hummmm…yes, since “Gloria Estefan” didn’t release anything this year, and neither did “Juan Luis Guerra”, so its must be Santa Rosa’s turn”.

These awards are just marketing plots for the music industry, with a strategy of marketing their most popular artists with the goal to elevate sales in an industry which has seen steady declines in CD sales. But the strategy is flawed! To prove my point, I’ll give you the example of another award in a different industry; the “Oscars”. Who won the Oscar for Best Picture this year? Was it a movie full of Hollywood stars? No, it was “Slumdog Millionaire”, a medium-budget movie made in India with unknown actors (even in India). What happened afterwards was that the movie began making big money in the movie theaters, and the movie industry found itself another blockbuster-maker! I rest my case.

One last point is that I did enjoy the performance by latin music legend ”Rubén Blades y Seis del Solar”. We missed Rubén on his 5 years of service to his country as Minister of Tourism, and it showed in his singing. He was a bit “rusty”, especially through the first part of the song, improving as the song progressed. Its hard to tell if it is the effect of the long inactivity or if it is his age (60) [watch a video of his performance with Seis del Solar on our Latest Videos section of this site]. We’ll soon know when he gets in his “Todos Vuelven” tour on the road celebrating the 25 years of the “Seis del Solar”. The group sounded awesome!!! They have not missed a beat, and I think they are probably better now as they all have matured as musicians.

Keep the good music coming!

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Tags: Aventura, Best Tropical Album, Billboard, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Gloria Estefan, Grammy, Guasabara, Jose Lugo, juan luis guerra, latin jazz, latin music, Lo Nuestro, Minister Tourism, musica latina, Premios Billboard, ruben blades, salsa, Seis del Solar, Slumdog Millionaire, Todos Vuelven