Latin Music Album: Carlos Vives “Corazon Profundo”

It’s been 9 years since Carlos Vives released his last Latin music album. That album was “El Rock de Mi Pueblo” released in 2004. Now Carlos Vives comes back with “Corazon Profundo”, another typical Vallenato-pop-rock album.

After 9 years of recording silence, Carlos Vives is back with “Corazon Profundo”, another typical vallenato-pop-rock album from the Grammy award winning singer-songwriter. The expectations were high since “El Rock de Mi Pueblo” had 2 songs that reached Billboard’s Top 10 Hot Latin Tracks, received 2 Grammy nominations, and won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Tropical Album.

“Corazon Profundo” has less rock, but plenty of the Vallenato-pop, the Carlos Vives musical style that although was widely critiqued years ago by Vallenato purists, gave the Latin music genre an infusion of popularity it needed badly.

The 1st single from “Corazon Profundo” (“Volvi a Nacer”, which is one of my favorite songs of the album) was released in September 2012 and quickly climbed to the #1 spot on Billboard’s Latin Pop Songs, and Hot Latin Songs lists. The 2nd single (“Como le Gusta a Tu Cuerpo”, a duet with Brazilian Michel Teló) was released on January of this year and performed live at the Billboard Latin Awards this year, climbing to the # 3 spot on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs list.

“Corazon Profundo” was finally released in April 2013 under the Sony Music label.

 

What I Liked About “Corazon Profundo”

Great lyrics – I have to start with the songs, which are well selected. When you take 9 years in-between albums, you have time carefully select the songs, which is what Carlos Vives did. Most of the album, with the exception of the last 2 songs are love themes, so this could have been an album of “Vallenato Romántico” (just like we have “Salsa Romántica”).

Good quality of music – this could be debatable depending on where you stand in the traditional vs. contemporary Vallenato style. The music in “Corazon Profundo” is certainly a fusion of Vallenato with pop and rock. But the music is well arranged, the prominence of the accordion is never downplayed too much, and it’s executed beautifully. All comes together to make an album that is a nice to listen.

Passionate singing – as an artist that besides a musician is also an actor, Carlos Vives injects his songs with true passion. He also sings with the characteristically Vallenato pronunciation from the rural Colombia, shortening the words to sound just as the street-like traditional Vallenato from Valledupar to Santa Marta, Carlos’s hometown.

My favorites – I like almost all songs in this album, but curiously enough my favorites are the 1st 3 songs of the album, which I don’t remembering ever happening to me before. “Volvi a Nacer”, “Como le Gusta tu Cuerpo”, and “Bailar Contigo” are 3 great, happy songs. My other favorite, which as I keep listening to the “Corazon Profundo” album has become my album favorite, is “La Foto de los Dos”. This is a beautifully written song, with a great melody and fantastic singing by Carlos Vives. It’s a nostalgic song, but I love it!

Here is the video of the 1st single of “Corazon Profundo”, “Volvi a Nacer (Quiero Casarme Contigo)”:

What I Didn’t Like About “Corazon Profundo”

Too much love – perhaps the only thing that I don’t like about “Corazon Profundo” is that 8 out of 10 songs are about love, and mostly about how crazy I am for you. So there is nothing about broken love or anything like that, it all about “I’m crazy about you”. Since that is what you listen for 8 straight songs (unless you use the “shuffle” function in your MP3 or CD player, it starts to get old after a while. As I said earlier, I’m tempted to call this a “Vallenato Romantico” album.

My Recommendation of “Corazon Profundo”

I really liked “Corazon Profundo” and do recommend it. I love the accordion enriched vallenato sound, it’s happy lyrics, and the passionate, rural town lyrical execution by Carlos Vives. The fact that most songs are about this over-the-top fall in love themes could make the album almost diabetes-prone over-sweet, but Carlos Vives keeps it fun (not “corta-venas”) and danceable.

In my opinion this is one of Carlos Vives best recent albums, besides the “Clásicos de la Provincia” and “Escalona” albums, which were the more typical-style Vallenato albums and are still my favorite Carlos Vives albums.