La Oreja de Van Gogh and Amaia Montero are preparing their respective new albums

Spanish band La Oreja de Van Gogh is currently preparing their new album, to be released early September 2008. At the same time, it is still unknown who will be the new main vocalist of this band from San Sebastian. The secret will be unveiled on July 15th during a press conference whose location will be announced soon. At the same time, Amaia Montero, the band's former leading singer, is also working on the recording of her first solo album, to be released on November 2008. For this album, she's working with some of the best international producers.

While La Oreja de Van Gogh, with their new vocalist, and Amaia Montero are preparing their respective new albums, this week has seen the release of the album La Oreja de Van Gogh, Grandes éxitos, which includes the best songs in the career of the Spanish band. All the songs have been specially remastered for this project. These great songs close a 10-year period in the history of this band from San Sebastian; a decade during which they clearly became the absolute leaders of Spanish pop music, with 5 albums released which surpassed 6 million records sold worldwide.

Amaia Montero (vocals), Pablo Benegas (guitar), Xabi San Martín (keyboards), Álvaro Fuentes (bass) and Haritz Garde (drums) released their debut album (Dile al sol) in 1998, and that release became their first number one hit. Ten years later, Amaia and la Oreja de Van Gogh have decided to follow different paths, leaving their records also at number one with their album “Guapa”, the best selling album in 2006, which obtained 11 platinum and 3 gold records worldwide. In this decade, the band released 65 songs that are already part of the history of Spanish music.

As journalist Diego A. Manrique wrote in 2003, “If anyone takes the time to analyze the structure in the songs of this band, he will soon discover that these songs were not designed just following the rules. They offer a lot of human emotions and even some experimentation in their structure, both in the lyrics and also in the instrumental treatment of these songs”.

16 of these songs have been compiled now, after being remastered, in the album La Oreja de Van Gogh. Grandes éxitos, which has been released in two different formats: CD and CD+DVD (the latter one includes the videos of all the songs on the album). The songs featured in this release are already part of our recent memory, and were all composed throughout their musical career, supported by a unique, personal, one-of-a-time style. The hits included on the album are “Cuídate”, “20 de enero”, “El 28”, “París”, “La playa”, “Muñeca de trapo”, “Puedes contar conmigo”, “Rosas”, “Dulce locura”, “Cuéntame al oído”, “Vestido azul”, “Pop”, “Geografía”, “Mariposa”, “En mi lado del sofá” and “Soledad” as a bonus track.

The album La Oreja de Van Gogh Grandes éxitos is a very special journey through a musical career filled with number one hits, which obtained the most prestigious awards (Latin Grammy, Premios de la Música, Amigo Awards, Ondas, MTV and Viña del Mar Music Festival awards, among so many others). The band traveled around the world immersed in long, extensive concert tours in Spain, United States, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Peru, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Nicaragua and France, among many other countries.

If a specific album could represent a fundamental part of the last ten years in the history of the most international Spanish music, that would be the case for this greatest hits album, featuring 16 songs that became worldwide hits and which now return to be part of the not-to be-missed albums collection. This is the perfect portrait of La Oreja de Van Gogh's story, which is now available to close one of the golden decades of Spanish pop.

Watch here their videos on the official youtube channel.

Source: F & F Media Corp. / Adolfo Fernández