Luis Miguel today published “Mexico forever!”, A return to music after months of controversy, cancellations and criticism of his image with a disc that serves as a gift to his longtime fans, but that will not bring him closer to new audiences.
The so-called Sol de México, 47, publishes an album after seven years of record silence and approaches the Mexican musical genre that has given him such success in the past.
“It’s a glorious and triumphant return for his fans, they expected it, but I think Luis Miguel is repeating himself, looking for the easy formula, and I see it very complicated because the market is not ready for the mariachi,” the expert told Efe. in shows Víctor Hugo Sánchez.
In “Mexico forever!” Luis Miguel, born in Puerto Rico and nationalized Mexican, interprets classics such as “Do not threaten me”, “El Balajú”, “How beautiful is my land” and “Serenata Huasteca”, the latter popularized, among others, by José Alfredo Jiménez and Pedro Infante.
A formula with which he reaped great success with albums like “Mexico in the Skin” (2004), with which he won two Grammys and sold 5 million copies at a time when piracy was beginning to play havoc in the music industry.
But for Sánchez, who covered Luis Miguel for a decade, this new album is a safe but not very daring move. “He continues to release mariachi records in times of reggaeton,” he said.
The album also comes at a “timely” moment, said Sanchez, as Netflix and Telemundo are preparing a biographical series of the singer.
The return was also necessary after months marked by cancellation of concerts, controversy and legal problems.
In 2015, Luis Miguel suspended two presentations at the iconic National Auditorium in Mexico City and then starred in a series of high-profile dropouts until he canceled his tour of the United States claiming health problems.
In January of this year, the representative of the Mexican singer Alejandro Fernández sued Luis Miguel for breach of agreements to carry out a joint tour.
In May, the interpreter was arrested in Los Angeles after refusing to appear before the US courts for the case that confronted him with an ex-representative, with whom he finally reached an agreement.
“His audience does not leave him, so be sick, get divorced … Luis Miguel is like Juan Gabriel or Marc Anthony, and he does not need the media anymore,” Sánchez said.
But all this has tainted its public image, although Luis Miguel has always had a relationship between capricious and complicated with the media. Hieratic and jealous of his privacy, he has given four press conferences in the last fifteen years.
“He has played the game of hiding, of not being seen. (…) This worked very well 10 or 20 years ago, but today no longer,” explained Sánchez, who considered that the singer should “delegate” the management of his career, a multi-million dollar “company”.
This journalist was invited by the singer in 1995 to Monte Carlo and together with a select group of reporters he shared two hours with the artist in the middle of champagne glasses.
There he discovered the real Luis Miguel, a type “intelligent and brilliant”, but also temperamental. When asked about his missing mother – a dark episode in his biography – he got up and left the room.
Feeding his story and gestures of divo, which he continues to maintain in an era in which artists publish almost every day on social networks to get closer to the public.
Despite this secrecy, the singer continues to generate headlines and is a source of gossip. Her last ex-girlfriend, television host Desiree Ortiz, shot up her popularity after announcing her brief romance.
The actor Diego Boneta, who will play the singer in the Netflix series, has made a significant physical change to look like him, and has even come to separate the teeth, to emulate his particular smile.
Although Luis Miguel seems not to strive to please the media, he has struggled these months to regain his attractiveness and figure, much criticized in tabloids, which went viral in a retouched photo in which the artist appeared with many kilos of more.
On the cover of his album and his first single, “La Fiesta del Mariachi”, Luis Miguel appears smiling and very elegant with a suit of black pants and white jacket. Also visibly thin.
