El Canto Del Loco

It seems like it’s suddenly a busy time on iTunes for El Canto Del Loco… Not only is their new single “Quiero Aprender de Ti” up there, but now also they’ve just put up the video for it too (click here for the iTunes Music Store link) and just a day or two later they’ve actually added the extended album “De Personas A Personas”, which was originally released as a beautiful ‘hard’ package that was little short of a box set presentation.

Whilst the iTunes release of “De Personas A Personas” misses out on conveying the lush packaging – and the nifty extras like the little diary and most obviously the DVD full of promo videos and documentaries, it nonetheless provides the meat of the offering with the extra tracks, including the excellent “Vivir a Ras de Suelo”, “Quiero Ser” and “Madrid” – and it does also contain one of iTunes’ “digital booklets” which is basically a PDF of a selection of the photoshoot nudey artworks at a reasonably high resolution.

If I have any criticism it is that this is actually something of a missed opportunity to go the whole hog and be one of the first of the iTunes “LP” format releases, when they could have done the whole package of artworks, notes, studio diaries and videos as well as the extended album itself. That would have been a seriously brilliant offering and would have got their name right at the forefront of iTunes forward-looking products.
But that’s me being a bit over-fussy. You can’t complain at this coming out at all; it’s great to have the extra songs out there, and it can only add to their international profile.

My recommendation – get onto iTunes, here’s the album link… – buy it, leave feedback and ratings, and also email Apple and campaign for more ECDL releases up there anyway. Let’s ask them to get the “En Directo” series on in full and including the videos of the performances, and all the unreleased promo videos too.

For now though – an excellent addition

I suppose the main question here is if you already own Personas, is it worth buying De Personas A Personas?
The answer depends very much on how big a fan you are. Released in early December 2008, De Personas A Personas is a special limited edition “box” that expands on the content and in many ways references the delivery and history of Personas itself as well as adding bonus material.

For a start, as well as the original 13 tracks on Personas; De Personas A Personas delivers an extra 6, including the bouncy “Quiero Ser”, the punky “H.D.P.”, a 2008 version of “Foto en Blanco y Negro” and – perhaps best of all – David Otero’s terrific “Madrid”.
Then there’s the self-referential stuff on an accompanying DVD; central to which is the 15 minute film De Cerca which follows ECDL through 2008 from the release and promotion of the album, to the concerts and signings, and the departure of Jandro. It has some excellent live footage, showing off the band’s innovative and spectacular lightshow really well. There’s also a short film on the nudey photoshoot by Rubén Martín and another shortie on the band’s friends and families; somewhat poignant following the death of Dani’s sister.
Beyond that you also get a set of three alternative promos for Eres Tonto, the promo for Peter Pan, and a little ‘making of Peter Pan video’ clip too.

The packaging is pretty much impeccable: all bound up in a thick card booklet of about 30x30cm, with many pages of band and technical notes, artworks based on the photoshoot and further photographic variations and compositions from it too. There’s also a nifty little blank diary inside for the owner to use, though I imagine most of these are destined to remain intact.

All in all a beautiful piece of work, lovingly produced with some great fan goodies in it – and at anywhere between €35 and €40 usually on eBay, very good value indeed.
As far as I’m concerned it’s a definite hit, and in no way a superfluous addition to Personas itself… Excellent.

The band have posted “De Cerca” on their El Canto Del Loco Youtube Channel.
De Cerca is a 15 minute movie that appears on the DVD in the “De Personas A Personas” set, and focuses on the band’s 2008 – from launching the Personas album, pulling together a very very nifty stage show, promos, signings, the departure of Jandro, and some excellent live clips.
Highly recommended…
Sadly it’s not possible to share the Youtube video here as they’ve diabled embedding on it, so you’ll have to click here to go and watch it.

Hailing from Madrid in Spain, El Canto Del Loco was started as a project by two acting students who shared a passion for Spanish power pop / rock. Daniel Martin Garcia (aka Dani Martin) and Ivan Alejandro Ganchegui were soon joined by guitarist David Otero, drummer Alejandro Velazquez Insua (Jandro), and bassist Jose Maria Ruiz Cesares (aka Chema Ruiz).
After recording a demo and asigning with BMG-Ariola, El Canto Del Loco recorded a self-titled album produced by Alejo Stivel, featuring the band’s first hit “Pequiñita”, and a cover of Camilo Sesto’s “Vivir Asi Es Morir de Amor”.

The band’s second album A Contracorriente (2002) was produced by Nigel Walker (who also produced La Oreja de Van Gogh among others) and sold over 85,000 copies, reaching number 10 on the Spanish charts.
After this album Ganchegui departed the band, leaving a four man line-up.
Their third album, Estados de Animo, also produced by Nigel Walker, was released in 2003 and hit number 4 in the charts after selling more than 100,000 copies and going platinum.
En Directo Sala Bikini, a recording of a live set in Barcelona, was released at the beginning of 2004.

The next year El Canto Del Loco released their fourth studio album, Zapatillas, featuring the title track as a single. This effort cemented the band’s reputation; it reached the top of the chats after selling over 100,000 copies in the first week of its release. With this album the band joined Hombres G for a tour around Spain.
After the release of two more live sets, Directo Sala Caracol and Directo Sala Oasis - and a combo box set of 3 CDs and 3 DVDs of all the Directo albums – Pequeños Grandes Directos, their fifth studio album, Personas, was released in April 2008 amidst great expectations and to huge critical acclaim and commercial success, becoming Spain’s top selling album of the year.

Jandro left the band in the summer and the remaining three – Dani, David & Chema – released an extended special edition box, De Personas A Personas towards the end of the year, featuring several extra tracks and a DVD of bonus material centring on the release, promotion and touring of Personas.

This website is a labour of love by Gareth Bouch (that’s me…), a Brit who discovered El Canto Del Loco through an interview with MotoGP star Alvaro Bautista. Having decided to track down and listen to all I could, I fell in love with the band and made it my mission to promote them and pimp them to anybody I could.

The result is this site, though I also mention them on my other Alvaro and MotoGP sites and my personal blog.
Although there’s not anywhere near as much news about ECDL for those of use outside of Spain, I always try and keep my ear to the ground for anything interesting and, with the help of a couple of friends, aim to keep this site as updated and relevant as is possible.

If you have any news that you think I should be posting and sharing then please do get in touch by emailing me at info@elcantodelloco.co.uk

If you want to know more about me, you can follow my personal blog here…