SANTA MONICA, Calif., Feb. 22, 2000 — What a difference a year makes.
Last Feb. 24, Enrique Martin Morales emerged from the stage of the 1999 Grammy Awards in black leather pants and matching ribbed shirt.
In the next few minutes in front of an estimated worldwide television audience of 1 billion, Ricky Martin electrified the airwaves with an infectious, hip-swiveling, over-the-top performance of “La Copa De La Vida,” the award-winning song he recorded for 1998’s World Cup.
Beck, along with the rest of the audience, stood and applauded after the Grammy performance. Host Rosie O’Donnell exclaimed, “I’ve never heard of him before tonight, but I’m enjoying him!” (For the record, she also referred to him as a cutie patootie.) And Grammy winner and performer Madonna gushed to the media after the show, “He’s just SO cute!” and signed on for a duet on his next album.
“What I presented that evening … was special because of the cultural exchange I tried to create. I guess people are willing to feel new things with new rhythms and the Latin sounds that I was performing that night,” Martin told NBC’s “The Today Show” shortly after the Grammy show.”
And that was only the beginning for Martin.
In May, a mere three months after his breakthrough performance at the Grammys and win for Best Latin Pop Performance, Martin stopped traffic outside a Tower Records store in Manhattan like only an appearance by the president of the United States of America can. And wherever Martin went during his reign as Grammy Award winner — to Miami (where his resume also includes restaurateur), to Los Angeles (where he would again stop traffic with public appearances) or to San Juan, Puerto Rico (his birthplace) — fans were awaiting their Ricky in droves.
Martin‘s self-titled follow-up to the Grammy-winning “Vuelve” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart (it sold 661,000 copies the first week out), sold more than 6 million copies before year’s end, and spawned the No. 1 single “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and follow-up hits “She’s All I Ever Had” and “Shake Your Bon-Bon.”
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“Livin’ La Vida Loca” became arguably last summer’s inescapable anthem.
“We’ve been blessed in pop radio. We’ve has some of the best music out there in terms of mass appeal in probably the past 10 years,” said Clarence Barnes of 102.7/KIIS-FM in Los Angeles. “We’ve had a great roll of artists like Ricky Martin and the Backstreet Boys.
“Ricky Martin‘s music is very pop and very accessible. It’s a great album. It’s produced well. Everyone can relate to the overall sound. It’s pop, and it’s really, really cool.”
Fans have also sounded off for Martin.
Javier San Miguel of Los Angeles wrote to Time magazine in June, “Ricky Martin and the Latin-fused sound he represents are a welcome breath of fresh air on the otherwise dreary pop-music scene. It’s time to dance again, and not a moment too soon. !Viva la vida loca!”
By August, Ricky Martin‘s self-titled album became the music industry’s best-selling album for a Latin artist, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. People magazine named him one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world. And by the end of the calendar year, Entertainment Weekly bestowed Martin as its Entertainer of the Year in the magazine’s year-end issue.
It was the Grammy Awards performance that propelled Martin into superstardom, but he is far from an overnight sensation.
“Ricky has had a long career. He’s already had huge achievements in Asia and Europe,” said an assistant manager at his management company, Angelo Medina Enterprises, in San Juan. “But the Grammys certainly helped him in the U.S.”
In his more than 15 years in entertainment, the 28-year-old has been a member of the ever changing boy band Menudo, performed on Broadway in “Les Miserables” (he played student revolutionary Marius Pomercy) and appeared on the ABC soap “General Hospital.” Oh yeah, he also released four solo Spanish albums, which sold more than 13 million copies worldwide, and includes “Vuelve,” the 1999 Grammy Award winner.
Martin‘s unmistakable love of performing, charisma and energy that have won him fans the world over come across in his public appearances. His success as a child star perhaps has prepared him for adulthood stardom, for he wears his success comfortably and well.
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So well, in fact, that he’s been able to withstand the jabs that come with superstardom. Host Chris Rock at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards skewered Martin‘s “candy ass” and inescapable “Livin’ La Vida Loca” single during the opening monologue of the music awards show, but the singer would strike back with multiple wins and a charming cut-me-some-slack mention to Rock in his first acceptance speech of the night. Martin has also received his fair share of criticism from music reviewers.
Nonetheless, it has been Martin‘s year, and accolade upon accolade solidifies his place in the pop and Latin music world. In an interview with Time published in late May, he was euphoric over his success: “What are you kidding me? I’m flying! I’m flying!”
At the MTV Video Music Awards, Martin once again emerged from the stage, this time as a broken wing singing “She’s All I Ever Had” before launching into “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” Martin would pick up MTV awards for best dance and best ma
Ricky Martin was a multiple winner at the Billboard Music Awards
le pop.
In yet another MTV awards appearance, this time at the music television company’s movie awards hosted by “Friends'” Lisa Kudrow, Martin graced the stage with Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones. After an introduction by Kudrow that described the duo as “hot, hot, hot,” Martin re-enacted a kissing scene with Zeta-Jones that left rapt audience member Keri Russell (of the WB’s “Felicity”) blushing.
Rickymania expanded beyond music stores, concert venues and newspaper features sections to the Internet. An online auction of Ricky collectibles on eBay became Front Page news of business sections and even garnered some controversy. Two anonymous peddlers in early November posted advance copies of CBS’s Thanksgiving week special “Ricky Martin: One Night Only” on the auction site. The first tape, from a seller in Washington state, was purchased by CBS for $305. CBS was able to persuade eBay to remove the second advance copy, this time from a seller in New Jersey.
Along with performing his sold-out U.S. concert tour and appearances on shows such as “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” and “Saturday Night Live,” Martin continued his longtime commitment as a spokesman for Puerto Rico. His itinerary in November included a meeting with President Clinton to protest the U.S. test bombing on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico. “Puerto Rico is united in the cause, and I am part of it,” Martin told Puerto Rico’s El Mundo newspaper.
Perhaps Martin has inherited James Brown’s crown as the hardest working man in show business.
Wayne Isham, who directed the “Livin’ La Vida Loca” video (his fourth for Martin), says of Martin in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, “He works constantly. When we shot ‘Loca,’ he flew in, did the video, did the Grammys that night, and left to headline a festival in Italy the next day.”
On Wednesday night, Martin returns to the Grammys in Los Angeles (the Shrine Auditorium has been replaced by Staples Center) as a performer and nominee. He is up for awards for Record of the Year (“Livin’ La Vida Loca”), Song of the Year (“Livin’ La Vida Loca”), Best Male Pop Vocal (“Livin’ La Vida Loca”) and Best Pop Album (Ricky Martin).
The 42nd Annual Grammy Awards airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. PST on CBS.
Let’s hope he wears leather pants.
Marcus Reynaga contributed to this report.
