Colombian pop star Juanes received 12 platinum albums for the record-breaking sales of his live “MTV Unplugged” performance.
The “MTV Unplugged” DVD was released May 28 and already has smashed Colombian records as the bestselling DVD in the country’s history. The accompanying album has sold the fastest.
In Bogota Monday to promote record sales, Juanes told El Espectador newspaper that his February performance in Miami Beach, Florida was the culmination of an artistic transition. The Medellin native said he took an “artistic risk” to experiment with new music genres like jazz and traditional Caribbean.
The invitation to perform with MTV Unplugged came in the midst of a difficult creative period, he said.
Some of that difficulty came from the pressures of commercial success, he added–which is why genre-blurring became such an important part of “MTV Unplugged”. “I don’t want to have established ways of making music,” he said. “Right now, I do what my heart says, not what they say.”
