EMI International
1998
Depende
About This Album
The title track of Jarabe de Palo's debut album, La Flaca, which won the prestigious Spanish Ondas Award for Best Song and Best New Artist kudos for lead singer and songwriter Pau Donés, was just so darn irresistible, so convincingly authentic, so undeniably sincere in its longing for a skinny girl glimpsed dancing in Havana, that it was hard to find anything bad to say about the group from Barcelona, except maybe that their name was odd. Donés turns out to have been one of those kids who had to keep switching schools because he picked so many fights, and in Spain what one prescribes for such a kid is a "jarabe de palo," the kind of cure that comes down to a good old-fashioned whupping. It's a phrase akin to threats to "fix your wagon." Unwilling to endure any more blows -- and above all, dismissal as a one-hit wonder -- Donés waited to tour until after his band's 1998 follow-up, Depende, exceeded all critical and commercial expectations. Depende is an outstanding album by any measure, the work of an already mature talent who more than holds his own with collaborators Ketama -- famous in Spain as pioneers of the nuevo flamenco movement -- and the inimitable Celia Cruz, who celebrates her friendship with Donés on "Lo Loco," the album's jubilant finale.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,6,7,10 and 14)

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