The Spanish panther - Mónica Naranjo

Mónica Naranjo is the Spanish über-diva that makes every gay man's dreams come true. She is outrageous, vociferous, melodramatic, tacky and cheesy in all the right ways. But the important thing is, she has one of the greatest voices ever. EVER. If you listen to her, you'll just keep wondering how someone can be so unbelievably good and not be internationally famous. Her ability to reach impossibly high notes will leave your mouth agape, but it's the songs that will most probably make you wanna run out, tripping over your feet to get one of her records. The fact that she writes and co-writes all of her material is most commendable, because it's VERY good. You can buy her albums at Amazon.

Monica's career hasn't been without its accidents and few fairy tale-style highs. She left home at fourteen to make her own way in life, since her family was very poor. Soon enough, she started sending tapes to various recoding companies while struggling as a waitress, and that's how she met a music producer who would give her singing lessons through the phone for a very long time - when they finally met two years later, they realized that they were in love and married after a few days. The situation, however, wasn't a fortunate one: they both had to fight very hard to get Mónica a recording contract, which attests to the stupidity of record execs. Sadly, her awesome début album was totally ignored (and when I mean totally, I mean totally - she sold less than a thousand copies in a year). That's when her manager decided to take her to Mexico, and she became HUGE in Latin America, to the point where she sold in a short time a 3,000% more than she had sold in Spain during one year - 3 million copies.

If her début was huge, her follow up was massive. It's the best collection of songs that she's ever released, and almost touched the six million mark, which is exceptional for the Spanish speaking music market - sadly, attempts to promote it in Spain failed miserably due to lack of interest. Undeterred, Mónica fought with tooth and nail to make a place for herself, and came on top amidst a sea of controversy - while some said that she was a transvestite, other people said that her husband, jealous of her success, had abandoned her (seriously, don't tabloid reporters have anything better to do with their time?).



Anyway, Mónica has become one of the brightest luminaries in Spanish music, and although she decided to terminate her contract with her record label two years ago, it's rumoured that she's going to release an album internationally in 2007! Get ready for the hurricane Mónica!

El Amor Coloca/Love Makes You High

This was Mónica's fantastic début single, which was inexplicably ignored by the Spaniards (are they deaf??!?!?!?!?!!!!), but stormed the charts all over Latin America. It's a very unique song, and it's really difficult to pigeonhole it - it starts as a ballad, after a few seconds it looks like it's going to be a bubblegum pop song, and then it becomes a bombastic dance anthem. The message behind the song is a bit trite ("don't do drugs; make love instead"), but the melody and the voice are far too amazing to make you care about that. Video of a 'live' performance.

Tú Y Yo Volvemos Al Amor/You And Me Are Coming Back To Love

This is from Mónica's unsurpassable second album, Palabra de Mujer (A Woman's Word). It's the closest she's ever come to doing a sweet, teenybopper-ish kinda song. Only, this is a beautiful fast ballad with acoustic guitars and a rousing chorus. It's one of the lightest moments in an album that's full of wild dance epics and even wilder melodramatic ballads that will leave you speechless for days. It's TERRIFIC! If you have to buy one album from hers, this is it. Video.

Sobreviviré/I Will Survive

This is the Groove Brothers Club Mix for one of her most successful songs. The original is a spectacular hard rock song that has Mónica reaching heights that few people could ever dream of touching, but I thought that this post required something a bit less dramatic and a little more fun, so I've included this remix, which is beyond words - just what you need when you've had a hard day and want to forget about the world. Spectacular video for the original version.

Sacrificio/Sacrifice

This is yet another amazing dance track written by Louis Biancaniello and Sam Watters (the team behind Anastacia's biggest hits), and in its English version is called What About Love?. It's a really catchy dance song that will surely satisfy most pop fans everywhere, especially those who like a more 'international' feel to their music. The album from which this was taken, Chicas Malas/Bad Girls, also comes in an English version that was quite successful in Eastern Europe. 'Live' performance of the English language version. Enjoy! :-)