Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well, it being Tuesday and all. Today I'm going talk about an album that is one of my favourite music albums of all time as well as my favourite album from this particular artist. It came out in 2001 but I didn't get it until 2002, so we're going to be going back to those years and talking about where I was and what significance this album had in my life at that time. So let's get into it.
I think it's safe to say that everybody has that album that defines a particular era in their lives. For me it was Enrique Iglesias's second English language album from 2001, Escape. When the album came out on October 30th, 2001 I had just started high school the month before. The first single from the album, "Hero" had been playing on the radio for two and a half months and I heard it at least once a day, usually on the bus on the way to school though I occasionally heard it on the way home from school too. Now, I was a radio junkie. If I wasn't watching TV or talking to my friends on the phone, I was listening to the radio. So chances are pretty good that I'd hear "Hero" on the radio a few times a day because of how often I listened to the radio. Especially when I didn't have the album the song is on.
Of course this wasn't the first time I'd heard a song from Enrique Iglesias. His first English album, Enrique, came out in 1999 and the singles from that album, "Bailamos", "Rhythm Divine", "Be With You", and "Can I Have This Kiss Forever" had all been on the radio at various times between 1999 and 2000. The radio station that I listened to the most, MAJIC 100 (which no longer exists), continued to play all four songs alongside the new singles coming out from Escape with "Bailamos" being played at school dances when I was in middle school alongside Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca". So I was pretty familiar with Enrique Iglesias by the time "Hero" was being played on the radio.
Fast Forward a year and I was in grade 10 and was going to be turning 16 in December. My parents decided to let me have a party because turning 16 was special and I had actually never had a birthday party before though I had been to my friend Claire's surprise party for her 16th birthday a month earlier. So anyway, I could only invite ten people, which was easy since I only had ten actual friends in total. So I invited all of them. One of them was a girl named Jessica. Not the same Jessica who had introduced me to Animorphs back in 1998, a different one. This Jessica and I had been going to OTHS since Grade 9, so a year, though we didn't have any classes together until the first semester of grade 10 when we had History class together. Despite being a geek and she being friends with some of the popular girls, Jess and I became really good friends. Naturally I invited her to my birthday party for my 16th birthday.
With the party coming up, Jess asked me for some suggestions for what to get me for my birthday. I think she was the only one who asked me for suggestions as everyone else coming to my party knew me well enough to know what I liked. So I told her that I wanted the album, Escape by Enrique Iglesias. If I remember correctly, Jess and I had similar tastes in music so she was more than happy to buy the album for me. And she, and her boyfriend at the time, Andy, did get it for me, giving it to me the night of the party. The party was pretty great and a bit weird too. Mainly because I'd never had that many people over at one time before, and with the exception of Keira and possibly Andrew, who I'd met three years earlier when I was in grade 7 at Metcalfe Public School, I hadn't actually had any of my friends over to my house before so that was exciting. I opened presents, we had some cake, and watched Spider-Man (2002) on VHS.
Anyway, the party ended and everybody left. Except for Keira. She had to wait for her dad to pick her up so we stayed in the basement and since I got Escape from Jess and Andy, and Keira liked Enrique Iglesias I put the album on and skipped to "Hero" since that was a favourite song of both of us. The song started playing and before I knew it Keira and I were singing along to the song, and singing it to each other basically, and that was the moment where I realized that Keira, my friend, who had already done so much for me that year, liked me as more than a friend. That, and the fact that we'd spent most of the time when Spider-Man was on sitting on a mattress, side by side, our legs (her right and my left) touching each other, under a blanket with the movie on and nobody paying attention to us, made the lightbulb inside my head turn on with "Oh, Keira and I like each other!" Unfortunately my patience was not like it is now, so I tried to rush things and screwed things up for Keira and I and we ended up staying friends right until just after Amber's funeral in 2009. That's neither here nor there though.
My point is that a single song can bring two people together in an instant. That's why love songs exist and why couples, as cheesy as it sounds, often choose a particular song to be their song. Either because it was playing the day they met or at the place where they had their first date or whatever the circumstances are. "Hero" was that song for Keira and I and even though I haven't seen or talked to her in 12 years, every time I listen to that song today, I think about Keira and just how important she was to me when we were in our teenage years. She helped shape who I am today. And along with my other friends in high school lifted me up when the bullies and jerks tried to put me down.
There are other songs on this album too. One of the things that I find unique about Enrique Iglesias's music, particularly the albums he put out in the 2000s, is that he includes Spanish versions of three songs on each album. For Escape it was the three singles that I heard on the radio at that time, "Hero" ("Heroe" in Spanish), "Escape" ("Escapar" in Spanish), and "Don't Turn Off the Lights" ("No Apagues la Luz" in Spanish). Which is pretty cool. And I mean, I'm sure other artists at the time did that too, like Ricky Martin, but I had, and still have, all of Enrique's English albums from 1999 through to 2007 and his Greatest Hits album from 2008, and I didn't have any of Ricky Martin's albums, so Enrique was the only artist I listened to who did that.
Alrighty that's going to be it for me for today. I'm not going to talk about music too much on the blog, but the 20th anniversary of "Hero" coming out as a single was 11 days ago, and the 20th anniversary of Escape is coming up this October, so I decided to talk about it. Especially since it played a part during a pivotal moment in my life, and the 20th anniversary of my starting high school is coming up, in a couple of weeks too. So that's why I talked about this album like I did Savage Garden's 1997 debut album and Planet Pop 2000 last year and earlier this year. It felt like the perfect time to do this post.
I'll be back tomorrow for a look at two of the most epic storylines from DC Comics's Star Trek: The Next Generation series from the '90s from issues #39-44, and issues #47-50. Until then have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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