Most of the Latin artists that have gotten the opportunity of performing a MTV Unplugged have been really successful. Take Shakira as an example. She took a very limited repertory of songs and arranged them so nicely that they all sounded really different (and much better). She turned some of her mediocre pop throwaways into great rhythmic tunes using very varied elements taken from World Music, putting together an impeccable, uniform CD that will please most pop rock fans (and make most Shakira detractors shut up :).

After my little ramble on how great an Unplugged performance can be, lets pass to the real topic of this review, which is La Ley’s MTV Unplugged. First off let me tell you that it is not as good as Shakira’s, Mana’s or Aterciopelados’. Yeah, its more pretentious, more dramatic, and surely much more expensive... but it suffers from mind-numbing shallowness. Beto Cuevas (head of La Ley) surely thought “hey, our songs are already full of unnecessary fluff... so lets add even more corny arrangements so we can pass of as musical geniuses!”. (...)

Tsk tsk, even thought it was a huge success and most critics rated it slightly above average, my opinionated little self felt the need to write why this CD is not as good as it seems.

The artist

La Ley are a Chilean pop rock band that started out in 1993 with a silly grunge/pop album called Doble Opuesto but didn’t got their regional fame in all of Latin America until the release of Invisible in 1995. Their career went in an ascending pattern with Vértigo and Uno, so one can say that the MTV Unplugged came in the cenit of their career.

La Ley right now is comprised of Beto Cuevas (lead vocalist, egomaniac), Mauricio Claveria (drummer, terrible singer), and Pedro Frugone (guitarist, most talented member of the band). Two members (Luciano Rojas and Andrés Bobe) left the band in 1999 after some disputes with the (guess who?) Beto Cuevas.

As I told you before, La Ley is a band that is very prone to pretentiousness. Their songs, their videos, most of their stuff is so rehearsed and overblown that its not enjoyable... at least for me.

The album

With 16 tracks, this is definitely one of the longest Unpluggeds I’ve ever listened to. La Ley managed to include most of their greatest (and not so greatest) hits, all of them with acceptable length (4-5 minutes).

They invited some good musicians, like guitarist Toshi Yanagi who made a great contribution to some of the later tracks, and Ely Guerra, an awesome Mexican rock singer whose voice made one of this Unplugged tracks really, really AWESOME.

I’m not planning to comment on every single song, but I’ll try to cover at least the ones that are more remarkable (for good of for bad).

The songs

This CD kicks off with the band’s first hits: Animal and Dia Cero. These two songs actually sound very good at first... until you follow on with the album and realize you forgot everything about them! They sound like every other La Ley song, and don’t bring nothing new to this Unplugged... yup, the CD starts with FILLER.


Mentira is properly the first really remarkable song in the CD. The first single that came out from this Unplugged, its a soft and flowing ballad that Cuevas was smart enough to crank into the show. The lyrics are really cheesy: ”Mi corazón late por ti, dentro de mi” (literal translation: “My heart, beats for you, inside me”), but they rhyme very well, and this is all part of the “flow” I told you before.

We’re back to the early La Ley with Prisionero de la Piel, a non-stop folk rock piece that gives a breath of fresh air to the already asphyxiating arrangement saturation of the Unplugged. It goes too fast, giving way to the next song, which is...

Hombre. Yeah, very reminiscent of the legendary Argentinean band Soda Stereo, but (unlike Soda) really dull. Skip it.

Krazyworld is a perfect example of what I hate about La Ley. Its a song singed in a very shoddy French by Cuevas. In fact, in the intro you can hear him mutter something that sounds more like cackles and snorts (Cuevas: if you can’t speak French properly, you shouldn’t sing in it). Skip it.

Fortunately we’re about to hit the two best songs from the whole concert. The first one is track #7, Intenta Amar. Is a mellow ballad about “trying hard to love”, and despite the corny message the lyrics try to express, the song sounds sincere and emotive. Cuevas sings very well in here, without exaggerating or overacting, and I must admit that the sudden change of pace at the end is very uplifting.

The next track, El Duelo is even better. Its a completely different remake of their 1995 hit, and its the song in which Ely Guerra collaborates with her guitar and her great voice. The lyrics are passionate and strong (they talk about the necessary pain you have to go through to feel accomplished), as is Ely’s voice and the harmonies it creates with Cuevas’. Three quarters of the song are of a dark, slow, gloomy mood, but there’s a sudden change of pace at the end, that really, really rocks. I really don’t know if the song would have been so good without Ely, but believe me, this is what made me recommend the album.
I don’t understand why they put The Corridor, which is the worst song of all the album, after El Duelo. The audience didn’t like it, and it shows (they were cheering loudly after El Duelo, and then sepulchral silence at the end of The Corridor). Its boring, its pretentious, and its the perfect proof that Beto Cuevas should limit himself to sing in Spanish if he wants to be taken seriously as a good vocalist. Skip this one.

Aquí was one of the few songs from La Ley I liked... and I don’t like it anymore after listening to the horrible butchering they did trying to turn it into a folk act. It simply tanks, and ends up sounding silly. Skip.

Delirando is the last of the songs that its worth the disc space it got. Its one of those fast, psychedelic tunes that can appeal both to a pop or a rock fan. The lyrics are nonsense, but hell, no other word could’ve fit the music better than ”De-li-ran-do” (“Allucinating”).

The remaining 5 tracks can be reviewed very quickly:

Cielo Market - uninspired rip-off of Presuntos Implicados’ jazzy songs.
La Luna - PRETENTIOUS AND BORING!
Fuera de Mi - Identical to the already boring and overly bombastic studio version.
Paraiso - Bland.
Al Final - Bland.

...well, at least I managed to mention all 16 tracks.

Just Adding

After slamming almost every song from this album, I still recommend it. Why? Because it has its moments, and this moments are really good. El Duelo and Intenta Amar are great, Delirando is good, and Mentira is decent. What I forgot to say... is that these 4 songs are the singles. :)

(If you like Ely Guerra’s singing, download any song from her last album Lotofire. You’ll se why she’s a great artist waiting for an opportunity to hit it big.)


Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Getting ready to go out