"La Bomba" (transl. "the Bomb") is a song recorded by Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin for his fourth studio album, Vuelve (1998). The song was written by Luis Gómez Escolar, K. C. Porter, and Draco Rosa, while the production was handled by the latter two. It was released by Columbia Records as the third single from the album on June 16, 1998. A Spanish-language salsa, dance, samba, bomba, and pop song, it is a metaphor in which Martin compares the music that makes the listener high from the rhythm of the dance to an alcoholic drink. The song received widely positive reviews from music critics, who complimented the danceable rhythm and highlighted it as one of the album's best tracks.
"La Bomba" won the award for Best Danceable Tune at the 1999 Premios Eres. The song was commercially successful, reaching the top-five in several Spanish-speaking countries, including Guatemala and Spain. The accompanying music video was filmed in Miami, and directed by Wayne Isham. It shows Martin singing and dancing surrounded by people. The song was included on the set lists for all of Martin's tours since 1998, while he also performed it at the 8th Annual Latin Grammy Awards. Several contestants on various dance competition talent shows have danced to the song, including Louis Smith and Flavia Cacace.
In 1995, Ricky Martin released his third studio album A Medio Vivir. On it, he shifted from his traditional ballad-style compositions to a riskier fusion of music focused on traditional Latin sounds, epitomized by the song "María". Taken aback by the starkly different musical style, the executives at his record labelSony Music Mexico felt the song would ruin Martin's career. Despite this, "María" was chosen as the album's second single and became a breakthrough hit, reaching number one in 20 countries.[1][2] As of 2014, A Medio Vivir has sold over three million copies worldwide.[3] While on tour in 1997, Martin returned to the studio and began recording material for his fourth studio album. He said the experience of touring and recording at the same time was "brutal and incredibly intense".[1] On December 7, 1997, Martin confirmed he was completing his next project and that the album would be released in February of the following year.[4] He worked on the album with producers K.C. Porter and Robi Rosa, and recorded it in studios across the United States, Puerto Rico, and Spain.[5][6] The album's title, Vuelve, was announced on January 25, 1998. In an interview with CNN en Español, he emphasized the album is going to "reaffirm the internationalization of my career and I know that it will help me a lot to destroy the stereotypes that may exist with my culture".[7] The album consists mainly of "red-hot" Latin dance numbers and "melodramatic" pop ballads.[8][9]
A Spanish language up-tempo dance song,[10][11] "La Bomba", along with "Por Arriba, Por Abajo" and "Lola, Lola" combines salsa music with elements of rumba, jazz, and rock.[12] Ramiro Burr of the San Antonio Express-News described "La Bomba" as "samba-flavored", a statement which The Dallas Morning News editor Mario Tarradell echoed.[13][14] The track features Cuban musician Paquito Hechavarría on the piano solo.[6] The song was written by Rosa, Porter, and Spanish musician Luis Gómez Escolar, with the production being handled by Rosa and Porter,[15] It runs for a total of 4 minutes and 34 seconds.[16] The song's title, which translates to "the Bomb" in English, is derived from the Afro-Puerto Rican dance music of the same name.[17] Lyrically, it is a metaphor in which Martin compares the bomba music, a genre native to Puerto Rico, "to a drink that makes you drunk; the listener is high from the rhythm of the dance".[18]
Release and promotion
A screenshot from the music video, depicting Martin singing the song and dancing to it.
"La Bomba" was released on CD as the album's third single on June 16, 1998.[18][19] The track was included as the sixth track on Martin's fourth studio album Vuelve on February 12, 1998.[16] A CD single, titled "La Bomba (Remixes)", which includes four remixes of the song alongside the original, was released in the US by Sony Discos on November 24, 1998.[20][21] The song's music video was filmed during April 1998 in Miami, and directed by American director Wayne Isham, who had also directed the videos for Martin's previous singles "Vuelve" and "The Cup of Life".[22][23] It depicts Martin singing and dancing surrounded by people. At the beginning of the visual, he appears in a party on a beach.[24] An author of Cultura Colectiva listed it among the "13 Videos to Appreciate Ricky Martin's Talent and Sickening Good Looks".[25] The clip was later included on Martin's video compilation albums The Ricky Martin Video Collection (1999) and La Historia (2002).[26][27] The music video was uploaded on the singer's YouTube channel on October 3, 2009.[28] The original version of the song was also added to Martin's compilation albumsLa Historia (2001),[29]Greatest Hits (2011),[30]Greatest Hits: Souvenir Edition (2013),[31] and Esencial (2018),[32] while the remix version was included on 17 (2008).[33]
Critical reception
"La Bomba" has been met with widely positive reviews from music critics. An author of Cultura Colectiva gave the song a positive review, saying: "This song is one of those that automatically makes you move your hips and destroy the dance floor."[25]Newsday critic Richard Torres praised the track's "hip-swaying elegance",[34] while Selene Moral from Los 40 argued that "there was no nightclub that did not play" the song in the summer of 1998.[35]AllMusic's Jose F. Promis mentioned it as one of the album's highlights, as did Rolling Stone critic David Wild.[8][36] Burr stated the singer "stokes the fire" on the track.[13] Tarradell listed "La Bomba", along with "Lola, Lola", and "Marcia Baila" as being the record's "best of the bunch".[14]
In 2016, Marco Salazar Nuñez from E! Online placed "La Bomba" on an unranked list of "9 Ricky Martin songs perfect to liven up your own wedding", citing how the song's lyrics "sound perfectly" at the time when drinks would be served.[37] Writing for O, The Oprah Magazine, Amanda Mitchell ranked the track as Martin's ninth best song on her 2019 list, saying like the title suggests, it is, "in fact, 'the bomb'."[18]Leila Cobo from Billboard acknowledged the song as one of his "signature dance hits",[38] while Agustin Gurza from the Los Angeles Times described it as a "festive dance hit".[39]
Accolades
Los 40 ranked "La Bomba" at number two on a list of "20 songs that turn 20 in 2018".[35] In the same year, El Diario Vasco placed it at number one on the list of "10 songs that turn 20 in top form". The list included the songs that "continue to sound at parties and celebrations" or "have refrains that have never been forgotten" after two decades.[40] In 2021, 20 minutos listed the track among "20 songs from the summers of the '90s".[41] The song won the Eres award for Best Danceable Tune in 1999.[42]
Commercial performance
"La Bomba" is one of Martin's most commercially successful songs in his career.[43] It was a top-five hit in Central American countries, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.[44][45] The song debuted at number 32 on the US BillboardHot Latin Tracks chart on July 11, 1998, becoming Martin's 16th entry.[46][47] It subsequently peaked at number 27 on the chart issue dated August 15, 1998. In the same week, the song peaked at numbers 11 and 13 on Billboard's Latin Pop Songs and Tropical/Salsa charts, respectively.[48] In Spain, it reached number five, giving Martin his second top-five hit in the country, following his chart-topper hit, "La Copa de la Vida" (1998).[49][50] "La Bomba" also peaked in the top 40 of several non Spanish-speaking countries, such as Australia and Sweden.[51][52]
Live performances and appearances in media
Martin performing "La Bomba" on his Movimiento Tour in 2020.
^ abMartin, Ricky (1998). Vuelve (Album liner notes). United States: Sony Discos, a division of Sony Music. 7 509948 878922.
^Barquero, Christopher (January 25, 1998). "Ricky Vuelve". La Nación (in Spanish). Archived from the original on June 12, 2020. Retrieved June 12, 2020. Es un LP que lo voy a usar para reafirmar la internacionalización de mi carrera y sé que me va a ayudar mucho a destrozar los estereotipos que pueden existir con mi cultura.
^Roiz, Carmen Teresa (April 4, 1998). "Música". Vista (in Spanish). The Hanford Sentinel. p. 72. Archived from the original on June 3, 2020. Retrieved June 4, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
^ abChristensen, Thor; Tarradell, Mario (March 8, 1998). "Eric Clapton's 'Pilgrim' doesn't make any progress". The Dallas Morning News. A. H. Belo. p. 12C.
^ abLa Bomba (Remixes) (US CD Single liner notes). Ricky Martin. Sony Discos. 1998. LAK 82929.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
^"Alejandro Sanz arrasó". El Siglo de Torreón (in Spanish). March 5, 1999. p. 79. Archived from the original on September 20, 2021. Retrieved September 20, 2021.
^"Hot Latin Tracks". Billboard. Vol. 96. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 1998. p. 42. ISSN0006-2510. Archived from the original on October 5, 2021. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
^"Hot Latin Tracks". Billboard. Vol. 96. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 1998. p. 39. ISSN0006-2510. Archived from the original on October 5, 2021. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
^ ab"Spain-Singles". Billboard. Vol. 134. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 1998. p. 91. ISSN0006-2510. Archived from the original on October 5, 2021. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
^"Spain-Singles". Billboard. Vol. 96. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 1998. p. 63. ISSN0006-2510. Archived from the original on April 24, 2021. Retrieved April 24, 2021.
^Hilburn, Robert (November 13, 1999). "Going Beyond 'La Vida Loca'". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on October 5, 2021. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
^Woodward, Mel (October 23, 2013). "[Live Review] Ricky Martin". Reverb Magazine. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved August 23, 2015.
^Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. p. 205. ISBN978-951-1-21053-5.
^"Ricky Martín lanza la bomba". El Siglo de Torreón (in Spanish). July 24, 1998. p. 44. Archived from the original on October 7, 2021. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
