Personnel includes: Alejandro Sanz (vocals, Flamenco guitar, tres); Lulo Perez (various instruments); Michael Landau (acoustic & electric guitar); Jose Antonio Rodriguez (Flamenco guitar); Paco De Lucia (Spanish guitar); Hamadi Bayard (tenor saxophone); Carlos Martin (trombone); Anthony Jackson (bass); Vinnie Colauita, Horacio Hernandez (drums); Luis Conte (percussion); Raul Midon, Javier Valverde, Lena Perez, Maria Antonia (background vocals).
Recorded at The Hit Factory, Miami, Florida; Glenwood Place, Los Angeles, California; Sintonia, Madrid, Spain.
NO ES LO MISMO won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album.
There's a bigger beat to Alejandro Sanz's seventh studio album, but that beat isn't rock & roll, or Ricky Martin-type disco, either. The title track says it all--"It's Not the Same." And in case there was any mistake, Sanz throws us curveballs such as "Sandy," a title that on another singer's album would probably mean a run-of-the-mill love song. Instead, it's about 2003's catastrophic oil spill on Spain's Costa De La Muerte.
NO ES LO MISMO is perhaps the most European of Sanz's releases thus far in its confident melding of Latin and pop rhythms. His signature flamenco style is well represented here, as well as bossa nova and son, all set against a backdrop of blues, jazz, and a hint of disco. But to reduce Sanz's oeuvre to its component parts is to do the man a disservice. What is most compelling about NO ES LO MISMO is the way Sanz and his co-producer, the Cuban musician Lulo Sanchez, have synthesized these separate yet complementary elements into one purely individual style. In NO ES LO MISMO Sanz has crafted an album that, while it hews to his Spanish roots, has its eyes set firmly on the US charts.
