Olga Tanon Soy Como Tu CD

Personnel: Olga Tañón (vocals); Conjunto Primavera (vocals); Luisa Payan (acoustic guitar); Roden Santos (trumpet); Juan De La Cruz (percussion).
On 2006's SOY COMO TU, Puerto Rican merengue star Olga Tanon offers up a dynamic set that includes both blazing dance numbers ("Maria") and thoughtful ballads (the international hit "Desilusioname"). The latter song is also presented as a dramatic collaboration with the Norteno group Conjunto Primavera and as an upbeat salsa number, with the three renditions serving to showcase the husky-voiced Tanon's impressive stylistic range.
Olga Tañón moved from Sony Discos to Univision for Soy Como Tú, the follow-up to Una Nueva Mujer (2005), the latter an excellent album that had been a welcome return to form for the Puerto Rican merengue legend, who had been out of the limelight for several years prior. The curious label change seems to have affected the marketing more than her music, thankfully, as little changed creatively for La Mujer de Fuego: she once again collaborates with mainstays José Luis Morín A. and Manuel Tejada, co-writes about half the songs herself, and features one blockbuster hit, "Desilusióname," in multiple versions (including a dynamite Sergio George salsa production). Soy Como Tú is a notable departure from Una Nueva Mujer in one regard, however, as it offers a much greater variety of musical styles. By and large, Una Nueva Mujer was a tropical album through and through, even exhibiting moments of full-on merengue. Soy Como Tú is a departure from that. Its songs are a diverse mix of Latin styles -- tropical (the album-opening "María") as well as pop (the soaring ballad "Desilusióname"), urban (the reggaeton-lite duet "Sigue Moviéndote" featuring Mikey Perfecto), and even regional Mexican (the Marco Antonio Solís cover "Mi Rechazo") -- and their sum is a dizzying album that darts to and fro stylistically. On an album like this, not every song is as effective as the next, and surely a lot depends on your personal preferences. Any way you cut it, though, there's a healthy serving of grade-A music here, even if it's not all to your liking stylistically; for instance, lead single "Desilusióname" may be a little out of character for Tañón, but it's undoubtedly an impassioned song destined for heavy airplay, thereby ensuring plenty of commercial promise for Soy Como Tú. There's something for everyone here, and while that means Soy Como Tú isn't a start-to-finish tropical blast like Una Nueva Mujer -- indeed, it's overlong, bogged down by too much MOR midway through -- it's still a laudable effort from Tañón relative to troubled previous albums like Yo por Ti (2001) and Sobrevivir (2002) that likewise aimed to appeal across the board, albeit too generically for comfort. ~ Jason Birchmeier