Hooked on Julio
By S. Indra Sathiabalan
Pictures: Legendary singer and heartthrob, Julio Iglesias recieving a LifetimeAcievement Award from Adrian Lim, the managing director of SonyMusic Malaysia. Sunpix: Anwar Faiz
PETALING JAYA (April 6, 2010): IF you measure a singer's success by the number of albums sold, or the number of platinum and gold awards received, then Julio Iglesias would certainly rank high on the list.
The Latin crooner has, to date, released 79 albums, and sold a staggering 300 million copies in 14 languages, besides being a recipient of more than 2,600 platinum and gold awards. Not bad for a football player who turned to singing after a near-fatal car accident left him paralysed and unable to walk for almost two months.
Julio got his big break when he won the prestigious Spanish song festival The Benidorm with his self-penned song 'Vida Sigue Igual' (Life Goes On) in 1968.
By 1971 he has sold his first million records and charmed millions of ladies across the globe.
To date, Julio has given over 5,000 concerts in 600 cities around the world and more than 60 million people have seen him live.
The 66-year-old was down in Kuala Lumpur recently for his fifth concert in the country, and though he has aged a bit, his smooth-as-silk vocals still managed to vow the crowd at the Plenary Hall at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on April 1.
Earlier, Julio gave a press conference, where he admitted that "the biggest privilege for an artiste is to come back to places they have performed in before".
Read more about the interview in theSun newspaper tomorrow.
Meanwhile, here are some Julio quotes.
>> On his future plans after recording a 35 song compilation album and a tribute album to his favourite artistes: “After that if I am not dead, I will make a new album of Christmas songs because I have never done a Christmas album. You never know. The future for me is to work, to learn, to help, to enjoy, to be thankful to the people and to be grateful.”
>> On contemporary music:“With contemporary music I get confused. Because everyday there are new artistes. They asked me about Lady Gaga the other day. I promise you, the first time I heard about her was in the Philippines a week ago and my promoter said to me that people are crazy about Lady Gaga’s music. So I wanted to see who was Lady Gaga. So I was interested and I turned on MTV to see who she was.”
>> On touring and singing:“Organically I know if I stop singing, I will start to die.”
>> On being a successful Latin artiste: "I'm the Latin artiste who has been the most successful in history at representing the Latin culture. The stylings of my words are immodest, but it's the truth."
>> On Love: "Love is like wine. To sip is fine, but to empty the bottle is a headache."
>> On retiring: "You retire when you are sick and when you can't do it any more or when the public retires you. That's the most painful, because that's the one that leaves you wanting to accomplish more." -- theSun
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