Alejandro Sanz biography | The greatest Spanish artist in history

Alejandro continued to write songs, presenting the label (Hispavox) a demo that would become later his first official album, ‘Viviendo Deprisa (Living Fast)‘.

The record company rejected the demo, but fortunately, another label, Warner Music was interested in his great charisma and his special talent for composing songs:

• Warner signed Alejandro and set the marketing machinery in motion.
• The first thing they did was to change his surname from Sánchez to Sanz, because it was shorter and easier to remember.

At the end of 1992, Alejandro Sanz travelled to London to prepare his second album with the collaboration of Paco de Lucía.

Ever since Sanz was a child he used to spend his summer holidays in Cádiz, where he established a very close relationship with Paco de Lucía. In fact, Sanz has stated that listening to Paco at the age of 12 is what made him want to be a musician.

• Throughout his career Alejandro would follow the reference and advice of the great maestro.
• Sanz, as he himself says, is a flamenco without a flamenco card, he is not as intense, nor does he have the depth, nor the ‘quejío’, but he knows the nooks and crannies of the compás to take them to his own terrain.

In 1993, at the age of 25, he fulfilled an outstanding debt he had with himself, he started to learn to play the piano 🎹

In 1995 and looking for a more international sound, Alejandro travelled to Venice, to record ‘3’, together with his usual producer, Capi and the Italian producer Emanuele Ruffinengo. The label decided to release the album in Europe and America.

• The record included the awesome cut ‘Mi Soledad y Yo (My Loneliness and I)‘. The song tells everything you wouldn’t want to happen in a long distance relationship: the cheating, the betrayal, hearing that your partner is with someone else…
• ‘La fuerza del corazón (The power of the heart)‘ is undoubtedly one of the most powerful and special songs of his career, a hymn to the power of love, described as a mystical whirlwind that can do anything.

In the mid-1990s, it was common to make crossovers, that is, versions of albums in other languages. Alejandro releaded 2 special editions of ‘3’, one in Italian and the other in Portuguese, achieving gold 📀 and platinum 💿 records with these works.

Alejandro Sanz’s music was an undisputed international success, so his economic situation improved a lot, so much so that he bought his father a luxury car and his mother a hairdressing salon, also acquiring a 600 square metre house for them.

The definitive consolidation as a top artist would come in 1997 with the album ‘Más (More)‘.

• His audience went from being mainly young and female to all ages and genres, becoming the biggest Spanish artist of the moment.

Alejandro wrote more than 30 songs for ‘Más‘. Such was his obsession that he would not leave his room, they even left his food at the door. The result was worth it.

In 2001, Sanz would make a double collaboration with the Irish group The Corrs, singing ‘The Hardest Day’ and ‘Una Noche (One night)’.

• That same year he became the first Spanish artist to make an MTV Unplugged.
• The album included a song dedicated to his daughter Manuela, ‘Y sólo se me ocurre amarte (And all I can think of is loving you)’.

Alejandro Sanz began to express his art with other facets such as photography and painting, holding several exhibitions of his own paintings 🖼️

Alejandro would once again release a DVD of his tour, in this case recorded in 2004 at the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas in Madrid. That same year he released a compilation called ‘Grandes Éxitos 91-94 (Greatest hits 91-94)’, with an unreleased track ‘Tú No Tienes Alma (You don’t have soul)‘.

• Alejandro Sanz and Shakira’s first successful collaboration came in 2005 with ‘La Tortura (The torture)‘.
• With this song he became the first Spanish artist to open an MTV Video Music Awards gala.

Alejandro has always been very supportive and has collaborated with different associations such as Médecins Sans Frontières and Infancia sin Fronteras. For the benefit of the latter, he held a photography exhibition in 2005.

• He also visited the Arctic with Greenpeace to fight against climate change.

‘El Tren De Los Momentos (The Moments Train)’, featured many artists such as Juanes, Calle 13, Álex González from Maná, Carlos Baute and above all a new duet with Shakira, ‘Te lo agradezco, pero no (I appreciate it, but I don’t)‘.

Another of the album’s hits was ‘A La Primera Persona (To the first who)’, a song that talks about Alejandro’s state of depression and how he asked for someone to help him get out of it.

• The music video for the track, starring Spanish actress Paz Vega, is followed by the video for ‘Te lo agradezco, pero no‘ and ends with the video for ‘Enséñame Tus Manos‘, all three videos telling a single story.

A live DVD was also released, this time recorded during their 4th world tour at the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires. El Tren De Los Momentos, sold over 3 million copies worldwide.

In 2009, Alejandro Sanz would return to his Pop origins, although with certain touches of Rock in the album ‘Paraíso Express (Express Paradise)‘.

• At the age of 40, he made a declaration of intent with the first song, ‘Peter Punk‘, in which he claims that the passage of time should not affect our illusions and that we should keep our rebelliousness and mischief.
• The biggest hit was ‘Desde cuando (Since when)‘, featuring Eva Longoria in its video. It is a ballad that regrets spending a lifetime looking for a person and when you find it, you are not even able to comunicate with them.
• Another hit was his duet with Alicia Keys on ‘Looking For Paradise‘, whom he met at Rock in Rio and became good friends with. The song invites us to look for our inner paradise.
• Our favourite track on the album is ‘Lola Soledad (Lola Loneliness)‘, which tells the true story of a transsexual, as a tribute to women in capital letters 🏳️‍🌈

Alejandro Sanz spent the whole of 2010 on a world tour with more than 90 performances in Latin America, the United States and Europe. That same year, 2010, the King of Spain awarded him the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts. Alejandro went with his mother because she was looking forward to meeting the king.

In July 2011, Sanz would have his third son, Dylan, the fruit of his relationship with Raquel Perera, whom he married in 2012.

• Alejandro and Raquel would have a second daughter, Alma, in 2014.
• After 7 years of marriage Alejandro and Raquel would separate in 2019.

After a series of conflicts, in 2011 Alejandro broke with the record label WEA Latina, signing with Universal Music Group 📝

Alejandro Sanz’s return to music came in 2012 with the album ‘La música no se toca (Music can’t be touched)‘, with the participation of the Miami Symphonic String Orchestra.

• He presented it with one of my favourite songs of his discography, ‘No me compares (Don’t compare me)‘. The song talks about an internal struggle, an effort not to be compared to that other person who comes after you in a relationship.

Another of the hits from ‘La Música No Se Toca‘ was ‘Mi Marciana (My alien)‘ 👽. A funny way Alejandro found to talk about the person he loves. Not only does it mean that he loves her very much and that she is everything to him, but that she is so hard to get that only in Mars you can find her.

• He carried on singing to love and heartbreak in, ‘Se vende (For sale)‘ and ‘Camino De Rosas (Way of roses)‘, demonstrating an evident artistic maturity.

Two years later, in 2015 he released his tenth studio album, ‘Sirope (Syrup)’, in which he worked with Argentine producer Sebastián Krys, chosen for his quality and patience. The latter is a very important skill when you deal with Alejandro as he can be 16 hours straight in the recording studio and in the 16th hour say that there are only six or seven little things left to polish 🤣

• Alejandro also likes to work and record alone for a long time, to have the freedom to do whatever he wants, with no one to judge him. Of course, at night so that no one interrupts him, especially his young children.

The first single from the album, ‘Un zombie a la intemperie (A zombie in the open)‘ reached number 1 in 14 countries. This magnificent song talks about how human beings think that happiness is much less than freedom. The zombie reflects that disoriented person freezing in the street.

• As in all of Alejandro’s songs, he talks about emotions, looking for plasticity in the lyrics. For him, apart from the content, the way of saying things must have a beauty of its own, it must move you inside.

The second single, another of our favourites, ‘A que no me dejas (I bet you won’t leave me)’, is a mid-tempo song alternating with mariachi, which also features a duet version with Mexican singer Alejandro Fernández. The song, far from being cocky, demonstrates the protagonist’s fear that his partner, on whom he is totally dependent, will leave him.

Meanwhile, the third single, ‘Capitán Tapón (Captain Dwarf)‘ was dedicated to his 3-year-old son Dylan. In Alejandro’s words, the boss of his house. The track ‘No Madura el coco (No Ripe coconut) 🥥’ was a criticism of Nicolás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela and ‘Suena la Pelota (The ball sounds)‘, featuring Juan Luis Guerra, talks about taking happiness seriously.

Sirope (Syrup) was one of the best-selling albums of 2015 in the world and the best-selling album in Spain, as well as winning the Latin Grammy for Best Album.

In 2016, he was immersed in his “Sirope VIVO” tour. By that time Alejandro had overcome his historical superstition that no one in the tour team wore yellow at the concerts. What he does retain are all his other habits before going on stage:

1. Exercising his voice in a tiled bathroom for reverb.
2. Eating something spicy like a jalapeño to keep his voice from drying out.
3. Hailing 7 complete times in a row and half more for each child.
4. Making a cross with his foot.

Only if you he does all those thing he can get into the right concert mood 🎤

Alejandro would return at the end of 2018 with new material in the form of an album called ‘#ElDisco‘, presenting it with ‘No tengo nada (I have nothing)‘, which addresses our obsession with owning things when in reality we don’t own anything.

• The album included 2 stellar collaborations. The first with Nicky Jam on ‘Back in the city‘, and the popular ‘Mi persona favorita (My favourite person)‘ with Camila Cabello.

After the great commercial acceptance of the album, the Spanish singer would start a new world tour with more than 75 performances.

In 2020 he embarked on a new project in the form of a documentary. Under the title ‘Un mundo fuera (A World Away)‘ he tells stories collected from over 4,500 people during the Covid-19 pandemic, recounting their reality.

Also in 2020 Alejandro was invited to participate in the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, singing John Lennon’s Imagine virtually, because of the COVID ban.

In 2020 the Spanish singer-songwriter got a star on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is the ninth Spanish artist to receive such recognition.

On the occasion of his 30th anniversary in 2021, he released ‘SANZ‘, an album that mixes all the sounds he loves, from black music and Caribbean sounds to pop and his flamenco origins. The album quickly became number one in Spain.

• I present it with an autobiographical song called ‘Bio‘ in which Alejandro tells his life story in a spoken form, singing only the final seconds.