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AMSTERDAM – With his new, bilingual album Euphoria, Enrique Iglesias wants to serve both the English and Spanish speaking market. He says it is his most eclectic work to date. “I've been able to get out of my comfort zone, which is not easy”, the Spanish singer says.

Enrique Iglesias (35), born in Madrid, Spain, debuted in 1995 with an epynomous, Hispanic album. In the first week, half a million copies were sold. The fourth record Enrique (1999) was Iglesias' first album in English. Follow up Escape (2001) was his biggest commercial success: worldwide, over ten million copies were sold.

The ninth studio album Euphoria includes collaborations with international pop stars like Usher and Akon, but also with Wisin & Yandel from Puerto Rico and Dominican singer Juan Luis Guerra. “I never used to do a lot of collaborations on my albums,” Iglesias says, “but in this one there's a bunch. I think it's made this album way more eclectic than any other album I've ever done.”

Iglesias admits that the songs were hard to write. Sometimes, his life as an artist annoys him. Indeed, he thinks about quitting every single day. “I got to be honest. There's moments when you just want to give up and you say: Man, am I still up for this? And then songs come along, that say: It's all worth it.”

The singer explains: “Always when you make an album you search for moments that give you extreme happiness. And that happens when you write a song you wish the whole world could listen to. I really honestly believe that in this album I got to capture four or five of those moments.” Iglesias mentions I Like It (with Pitbull), Cuando Me Enamoro (with Juan Luis Guerra), One Day At A Time (with Akon) and Heartbeat (with Nicole of the Pussycat Dolls). According to him, those are the “golden” moments on Euphoria.

It is not likely that this album will be as successful as, for example, Escape was. Iglesias sees how the music industry encounters a lot of difficulties nowadays. “They haven't found a cure yet for what's going on with the piracy”, he says. “Behind me there is a whole team. That team used to be maybe hundred, and now it's fifty. A lot of people are getting layed off because of this piracy thing. I've also noticed that there's not a lot of new artists, because record companies are not investing. They are attaching themselves to the names that already have careers, that are already famous. Don't get me wrong: it's good for me, but it's not good for the new artists.”

Euphoria was released on July 5th through Universal Republic

Interview: Martin Kuiper
Text: Tom Springveld

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