Andres Calamaro

Andres Calamaro ranks among the most commercially potent and genre-fluid figures to arise during the Rock en Español period. As a singer, songwriter, and producer who has charted repeatedly, his command of Latin and pop idioms has won listeners worldwide. The solo releases he issued throughout the 1980s, among them Hotel Calamaro, Vida Cruel, and Por Mirarte, established him as a meticulous songwriter and an unhesitating innovator. Nadie Sale Vivo de Aqui, released in 1989, marked his first major commercial success. After relocating to Spain at the start of the 1990s he formed Los Rodriguez alongside Ariel Rot and Julián Infante, releasing three charting albums that included 1995’s Palabras Más, Palabras Menos. He resumed solo work with the 1997 hit Alta Suciedad and then entered a prolific songwriting phase, composing more than one hundred songs for 1999’s Honestidad Brutal, of which thirty-seven were ultimately selected. El Cantante, issued in 2004, became his initial collection of tango covers. Following the Gardel Award-winning live album El Regreso, which earned the prize for best rock album in 2005, he delivered the widely praised Tinta Roja in 2006, a set of classic tangos. Calamaro shifted back to pop on the aptly named On the Rock in 2010. In 2015 he recorded Hijos del Pueblo together with Spain’s Enrique Bunbury. Cargar La Suerte, released in 2018, received a Latin Grammy, while Dios Los Cría in 2021 assembled fifteen original duets written for numerous leading figures in Latin music.

Born in 1961, Calamaro launched his professional career at seventeen as keyboardist for Raíces. In 1981 he joined Los Abuelos de la Nada, one of the principal acts in the Argentine rock scene of the 1980s. Although Miguel Abuelo led the group, Calamaro wrote the majority of its hits, among them “Mil Horas,” “Así Es el Calor,” “Sin Gamulán,” and “Costumbres Argentinas.” He made his solo debut with Hotel Calamaro in 1984. The record blended disparate styles and personnel yet received limited public or critical attention. After departing Los Abuelos de la Nada in 1985 he issued his second album, Vida Cruel. Even with contributions from Luis Alberto Spinetta and Charly García the release fared poorly both commercially and artistically. Although songwriting success remained elusive, Calamaro enjoyed a strong run as producer for los Enanitos Verdes, los Fabulosos Cadillacs, and Don Cornelio y la Zona. He also collaborated with musicians across many styles, a practice he maintained throughout his career. His third album, Por Mirarte, presented him with a settled band and appeared in stronger form. Released in 1988, it featured standout tracks such as “Con los Dientes Apretados” and “Me Olvidé de los Demás,” while “Cartas Sin Marcar” and “Loco por Tí” helped broaden its appeal. When Calamaro released Nadie Sale Vivo de Aquí in 1989, Argentina was mired in economic crisis; few albums appeared that year, and production of the record suffered accordingly. He left Argentina for Spain, following a path taken by many Argentine rock musicians. There he encountered Ariel Rot and Julián Infante, both formerly of Tequila. Together they formed Los Rodríguez in 1991, a pop-rock band that gained wide popularity in Spain and Latin America. Calamaro’s songs again found favor in the early 1990s, and the hitmaker resumed touring. Working from Spain, he paradoxically gained renewed traction in Argentina. While active with Los Rodríguez he issued no new solo material aside from the archival Grabaciones Encontradas, Vols. 1 & 2, which gathered unreleased and rare 1980s recordings. After the band disbanded Calamaro returned to solo work, issuing Alta Suciedad in 1997, an album produced by Joe Blaney. The record achieved the commercial breakthrough that had eluded his earlier solo efforts, selling three hundred thousand copies in Argentina alone, a notable figure for that market. Alta Suciedad placed him among the leading figures of the national rock scene. Prior to the album he had been respected by fellow musicians yet remained outside broader popular culture. Following the end of a relationship with his Spanish girlfriend he released the double album Honestidad Brutal in 1999. Recorded at age thirty-seven, it contained thirty-seven songs exploring despair, lost love, drugs, and regret. Though less commercially successful than its predecessor, the album revealed a different Calamaro—desperate and decadent yet frequently elegant, with a raw new lyrical voice. El Salmon appeared in spring 2001: a five-disc collection of 103 songs, reportedly drawn from more than four hundred written the previous year. Eighty percent were previously unreleased original compositions, while the remaining twenty percent comprised covers ranging from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to tango and Argentine folk, plus new versions of several of his own songs. At the time the set was widely viewed as chaotic and indicative of a drug-fueled, obsessive-compulsive writing and recording process, and it was considered commercial suicide. Throughout 2001 and 2002 Calamaro issued numerous free downloads and authorized fans to remaster his recordings. He returned to the studio for El Cantante in 2004 and released the live album El Regreso the following year. His next studio effort, La Lengua Popular, arrived in 2007 and centered on cumbia. The subsequent year he issued the live recording 2 Son Multitud, captured in Getafe, Spain, with Fito & Fitipaldis. Nada Se Pierde followed in 2009 before he released On the Rock, his twentieth studio album, in 2010. To mark the tenth anniversary of El Salmon he issued Salmonalipsis Now, condensing the original box set’s material onto two discs containing fifty-four songs—forty-nine in their original versions plus five newly selected tracks from the same sessions. In a move consistent with the project’s disorderly character, the tracks were sequenced in an entirely random order, altering the original sequence. Critics praised it as an effective distillation of one of the most eccentric and compelling albums in Rock en Español history. After its release Calamaro uploaded roughly two thousand songs to SoundCloud. In 2013 he surprised listeners with Bohemio, introducing a new band and ten fresh songs produced by Cachorro Lopez, who had also overseen La Lengua Popular. Regarded by critics and audiences as his strongest work since their previous collaboration, it sold briskly and remained in the Spanish Top Ten for weeks. The following year Calamaro released the live albums Jamon del Medio and Purasangre and toured as opener for longtime associate Enrique Bunbury. The encores of those concerts featured the two performers together, backed by Bunbury’s band. The ten songs from those appearances were collected as Hijos del Pueblo in 2015.

The next year brought Romaphonic Sessions, recorded with only pianist German Wiedemer. The album was in fact a demo Calamaro had prepared for film director Fernando Trueba in hopes of securing his production involvement. Consisting of tangos, a cover of Litto Nebbia’s “New Zamba para Mi Tierra,” and stripped-down reworkings of his own material, the recording prompted Trueba to decline, declaring the project already finished.

Later that year Calamaro released Volumen 11—its title denoting maximum volume—which gathered eighteen varied tracks recorded between 2012 and 2016. The collection entered the Grabaciones Encontradas series. For Record Store Day 2017 he issued the four-song vinyl EP Licencia Para Cantar, recorded with Wiedemer, Tono Miguel, and Martin Bruhn.

In 2018 he joined Lila Downs for a rendition of “En El Ultimo Trago” on the tribute album Mundo Raro: Las Canciones de José Alfredo Jiménez, issued to honor the ranchera composer on what would have been his seventieth birthday one year after his passing. The track served as one of the album’s advance singles alongside Julieta Venegas’s “Te Solte La Rienda.” Produced by Camilo Lara and recorded across Mexico City, Monterrey, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Madrid, and Texas, the project featured thirteen songs performed by an array of artists including Bunbury, Carla Morrison, Beto Cuevas, and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos.

Later in 2018 Calamaro issued the full-length Cargar La Suerte on Universal; it received the Latin Grammy for best pop/rock album. A sold-out worldwide tour ended when the COVID-19 pandemic halted live music. While on the road he had been composing new material with specific iconic voices in mind. For Dios Los Cría in 2021 he realized that vision through duets and trios with many of Latin music’s foremost artists. His guests included Downs, Mon Laferte, Enrique Iglesias, Alejandro Sanz, Juanes, and others.