Like much of corporate America, McDonald's is reaching out to the 30 million Spanish-speaking people in the United States, a demographic that will become the nation's biggest minority by 2002. McDonald's recently signed on for the stateside portion of his world tour, that company's inaugural entry into concert sponsorship. Antonio Guernica, general manager of Washington's Mega Broadcasting stations, WKDL and WKDV, heralds the development of "Latin Adult Contemporary." Enrique Iglesias, he says, "personifies that format. "It's great to go back to our roots and to know where Spanish music came from and what it is, but it was people who were dead 20 years ago." Today, there are more Latin stations playing contemporary music to an increasingly younger audience. "You'd turn on the radio and think what the hell is this?" Iglesias says. "I used to listen to a lot of Anglo acts - Fleetwood Mac, Dire Straits, Billy Joel, Journey, John Mellencamp." Spanish-language radio at the time was, Iglesias suggests, obsessed with the past, with oldies formats that embraced neither the present nor the future and seemed designed to repel listeners under 30.
Despite all the luxuries his father's career provided, Enrique says he didn't really listen to Julio's music while growing up. Because of that, father and son did not spend a lot of time together and Enrique was essentially raised by his nanny, Elvira Olivares (his first album was dedicated to her). Julio has long had a reputation as an ambitious, hard-working entertainer who spends much of his life on the road. Enrique was born in Madrid, but after his parents divorced in 1979, he went to live with Julio in Miami, partly to learn English and partly for security reasons (his grandfather had been kidnapped in Spain). "I say stuff in my music that I would never dare say face to face, I'd be too embarrassed." Six years ago, Enrique Iglesias was still the shy, neglected child of a famous globe-trotting pop star, the youngest son of Julio and Madrid socialite Isabel Preysler. "I'm more romantic in my music than in real life," says Iglesias, 24. His third album, "Cosas del Amor" ("Things of Love"), was released in November. Since its 1995 release, Iglesias's eponymous debut album has sold 6 million copies, as did its follow-up, "Vivir" ("To Live"). They've made him the world's biggest-selling Latin artist over the past three years. And Enrique's songs, most of which he writes himself, have more of a contemporary pop feel. Enrique Iglesias, who performs tonight at the Patriot Center, shares his father's gift for delivering romantic Latin ballads convincingly and dramatically.
People en Espanol, the Spanish-language People magazine, named him "El Hombre Mas SEXY del Mundo 1998." It's not just Enrique Iglesias's smoldering good looks that make millions of women swoon over "the sexiest man in the world." Nor is it merely his lineage as the son of internationally renowned Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias, whom he now outsells in record stores and concert venues.
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