"The Widow", kitsch example of late 19th century popular lithograph of a humorous painting by Frederick Dielman.

Kitsch (/ˈkɪtʃ/; loanword from German) is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons^[1] while making cheap mass-produced objects that are unoriginal. Kitsch also refers to the types of art that are aesthetically deficient (whether or not being sentimental, glamorous, theatrical, or creative) and that make creative gestures which merely imitate the superficial appearances of art through repeated conventions and formulae. Excessive sentimentality often is associated with the term.

The contemporary definition of kitsch is considered derogatory, denoting works executed to pander to popular demand alone and purely for commercial purposes rather than works created as self-expression by an artist.^[2] The term is generally reserved for unsubstantial and gaudy works that are calculated to have popular appeal and are considered pretentious and shallow rather than genuine artistic efforts.^[3]

The concept of kitsch is applied to artwork that was a response to the 19th century art with aesthetics that convey exaggerated sentimentality and melodrama, hence, kitsch art is closely associated with sentimental art.

Etymology[link]

As a descriptive term, kitsch originated in the art markets of Munich in the 1860s and the 1870s, describing cheap, popular, and marketable pictures and sketches.^[4] In Das Buch vom Kitsch (The Book of Kitsch), Hans Reimann defines it as a professional expression “born in a painter's studio”. Writer Edward Koelwel rejects the suggestion that kitsch derives from the English word sketch, noting how the sketch was not then in vogue, and saying that kitsch art pictures were well-executed, finished paintings rather than sketches.^{[citation needed]}

History[link]

This "History" section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2010)

Early uses of the term[link]

Kitsch appealed to the crass tastes of the newly moneyed Munich bourgeoisie, who allegedly thought they could achieve the status they envied in the traditional class of cultural elites by aping, however clumsily, the most apparent features of their cultural habits.

Kitsch became defined as an aesthetically impoverished object of shoddy production, meant more to identify the consumer with a newly acquired class status than to invoke a genuine aesthetic response. In this sense, the word eventually came to mean "a slapping together" (of a work of art).

Kitsch was considered morally dubious and to have sacrificed aesthetic life to a pantomime of aesthetic life, usually, but not always, in the interest of signaling one's class status.

Relationship to aesthetics debated[link]

Immanuel Kant contributed greatly to the philosophical definition of fine art, setting values that could be used to identify kitsch

There is a philosophical background to kitsch criticism, however, which is largely ignored. A notable exception to the lack of such debate is Gabrielle Thuller, who points to how kitsch criticism is based on Immanuel Kant's philosophy of aesthetics.

Kant describes the direct appeal to the senses as "barbaric". Thuller's point is supported by Mark A. Cheetham, who points out that kitsch "is his Clement Greenberg's barbarism". A source book on texts critical of kitsch underlines this by including excerpts from the writings of Kant and Schiller.

One, thus, has to keep in mind two things: a) Kant's enormous influence on the concept of "fine art" (the focus of Cheetham's book), as it came into being in the mid to late 18th century, and b) how "sentimentality" or "pathos", which are the defining traits of kitsch, do not find room within Kant's "aesthetical indifference".

Kant also identified genius with originality. One could say he implicitly was rejecting kitsch, the presence of sentimentality and the lack of originality being the main accusations against it.

When originality alone is used to determine artistic genius, using it as a single focus may become problematic when the art of some periods is examined. In the Baroque period, for example, a painter was hailed for his ability to imitate other masters, one such imitator being Luca Giordano.

Another influential philosopher writing on fine art was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who emphasized the idea of the artist belonging to the spirit of his time, or zeitgeist.

As an effect of these aesthetics, working with emotional and "unmodern" or "archetypical" motifs was referred to as kitsch from the second half of the 19th century on. Kitsch is thus seen as "false".

As Thomas Kulka writes, "the term kitsch was originally applied exclusively to paintings", but it soon spread to other disciplines, such as music. The term has been applied to painters, such as Ilya Repin,^[5] and composers, such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, whom Hermann Broch refers to as "genialischer kitsch", or "kitsch of genius".^[6][7]

Roda Roda claimed in a 1906 newspaper article to be the only person who knew the true origin of "kitsch," which - according to him - derived from "ver" and "kitt", or putting, pasting, etc. something together wrong.

Art and kitsch defined as opposites[link]

The word, kitsch, was popularized in the 1930s by the art theorists Theodor Adorno, Hermann Broch, and Clement Greenberg, who each sought to define avant-garde and kitsch as opposites. The art world of the time perceived the immense popularity of kitsch as a threat to culture. The arguments of all three theorists relied on an implicit definition of kitsch as a type of false consciousness, a Marxist term meaning a mindset present within the structures of capitalism that is misguided as to its own desires and wants. Marxists believe there to be a disjunction between the real state of affairs and the way that they phenomenally appear.

Puppy, a gigantic kitsch sculpture by Jeff Koons displayed at Bilbao Museum has appeal described by Adorno and Broch

Adorno perceived this in terms of what he called the "culture industry", where the art is controlled and formulated by the needs of the market and given to a passive population which accepts it—what is marketed is art that is non-challenging and formally incoherent, but which serves its purpose of giving the audience leisure and something to watch or observe. It helps serve the oppression of the population of capitalism by distracting them from their social alienation. Contrarily for Adorno, art is supposed to be subjective, challenging, and oriented against the oppressiveness of the power structure. He claimed that kitsch is parody of catharsis and a parody of aesthetic experience.

Broch called kitsch "the evil within the value-system of art"—that is, if true art is "good", kitsch is "evil". While art was creative, Broch held that kitsch depended solely on plundering creative art by adopting formulas that seek to imitate it, limiting itself to conventions and demanding a totalitarianism of those recognizable conventions. Broch accuses kitsch of not participating in the development of art, having its focus directed at the past, as Greenberg speaks of its concern with previous cultures. To Broch, kitsch was not the same as bad art; it formed a system of its own. He argued that kitsch involved trying to achieve "beauty" instead of "truth" and that any attempt to make something beautiful would lead to kitsch. Consequently, he opposed the Renaissance to Protestantism.

Greenberg held similar views to Broch concerning the beauty and truth dichotomy, believing that the avant-garde style arose in order to defend aesthetic standards from the decline of taste involved in consumer society and that kitsch and art were opposites, which he outlined in his essay "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" which appeared in the Partisan Review in 1939.

Relationship to totalitarianism[link]

Other theorists over time also have linked kitsch to totalitarianism and its propaganda. The Czech writer Milan Kundera, in his book The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), defined it as "the absolute denial of shit". He wrote that kitsch functions by excluding from view everything that humans find difficult with which to come to terms, offering instead a sanitized view of the world, in which "all answers are given in advance and preclude any questions".

In its desire to paper over the complexities and contradictions of real life, kitsch, Kundera suggested, is intimately linked with totalitarianism. In a healthy democracy, diverse interest groups compete and negotiate with one another to produce a generally acceptable consensus; by contrast, "everything that infringes on kitsch," including individualism, doubt, and irony, "must be banished for life" in order for kitsch to survive. Therefore, Kundera wrote, "Whenever a single political movement corners power we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch."

For Kundera, "Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch."

Relationship to academic art[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

One of Greenberg's more controversial claims was that kitsch was equivalent to academic art: "All kitsch is academic, and conversely, all that is academic is kitsch." He argued this based on the fact that academic art, such as that in the nineteenth century, was heavily centered in rules and formulations that were taught and tried to make art into something that could be taught and easily expressible. He later came to withdraw from his position of equating the two, as it became heavily criticized.

Often nineteenth century academic art still is seen as kitsch, although this view is coming under attack from modern art critics. Broch argued that the genesis of kitsch was in Romanticism, which wasn't kitsch itself, but which opened the door for kitsch taste by emphasizing the need for expressive and evocative art work. Academic art, which continued this tradition of Romanticism, has a twofold reason for its association with kitsch.

This antique kitsch writing set allows the user to rest writing utensils in the buck's antlers

It is not that academic art was found to be accessible. In fact, it was under its reign that the difference between high art and low art first was defined by intellectuals. Academic art strove toward remaining in a tradition rooted in the aesthetic and intellectual experience. Intellectual and aesthetic qualities of the work were certainly there—good examples of academic art even were admired by the avant-garde artists who would rebel against it. There was some critique, however, that in being "too beautiful" and democratic it made art look easy, non-involving, and superficial. According to Tomas Kulka, any academic painting made after the time of academism, is kitsch by nature.

Many academic artists tried to use subjects from low art and ennoble them as high art by subjecting them to interest in the inherent qualities of form and beauty, trying to democratize the art world. In England, certain academics even advocated that the artist should work for the marketplace. In some sense the goals of democratization succeeded and the society was flooded with academic art, with the public lining up to see art exhibitions as they do to see movies today.

This kitsch postcard of Lohengrin was circulated around 1900

Literacy in art became widespread, as did the practice of art making, and there was a blurring of the division between high and low culture. This often led to poorly made or conceived artwork being accepted as high art. Often, art which was found to be kitsch showed technical talent, such as in creating accurate representations, but lacked good taste.

Furthermore, although original in their first expression, the subjects and images presented in academic art were disseminated to the public in the form of prints and postcards, which often actively was encouraged by the artists. These images were copied endlessly in kitschified form until they became well-known clichés.

The avant-garde reacted to these developments by separating itself from aspects of art that were appreciated by the public, such as pictorial representation and harmony, in order to make a stand for the importance of the aesthetic. Many modern critics try not to pigeonhole academic art into the kitsch side of the art-or-kitsch dichotomy, recognizing its historical role in the genesis of both the avant-garde and kitsch.

Postmodernist interpretations[link]

With the emergence of postmodernism in the 1980s, the borders between kitsch and high art again became blurred. One development was the approval of what is called "camp taste" - which may be related to, but is not the same as camp when used as a "gay sensibility".^[8] Camp, in some circles, refers to an ironic appreciation of that which might otherwise be considered corny, such as singer and dancer Carmen Miranda with her tutti-frutti hats, or otherwise kitsch, such as popular culture events that are particularly dated or inappropriately serious, such as the low-budget science fiction movies of the 1950s and 1960s.

A hypothetical example from the world of painting would be a kitsch image of a deer by a lake. In order to make this camp, one could paint a sign beside it, saying "No Swimming". The majestic or romantic impression of a stately animal would be punctured by humor; the notion of an animal receiving a punishment for the breach of the rule is patently ludicrous. The original, serious sentimentality of the motif is neutralized, and thus, it becomes camp.

Some create their own, simple kitsch decorations, such as this angel sculpture

"Camp" is derived from the French slang term camper, which means "to pose in an exaggerated fashion". Susan Sontag argued in her 1964 Notes on "Camp" that camp was an attraction to the human qualities which expressed themselves in "failed attempts at seriousness", the qualities of having a particular and unique style, and of reflecting the sensibilities of the era. It involved an aesthetic of artifice rather than of nature. Indeed, hard-line supporters of camp culture have long insisted that "camp is a lie that dares to tell the truth".

Much of pop art attempted to incorporate images from popular culture and kitsch. These artists strove to maintain legitimacy by saying they were "quoting" imagery to make conceptual points, usually with the appropriation being ironic.

In Italy, a movement arose called the Nuovi-nuovi ("new new"), which took a different route: instead of "quoting" kitsch in an ironic stance, it founded itself in a primitivism which embraced ugliness and garishness, emulating kitsch as a sort of anti-aesthetic.

A different approach is taken by the Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum, who, in 1998, began to argue for kitsch as a positive term used as a superstructure for figurative, non-ironic, and narrative painting. In 2000, together with several other authors, he composed a book entitled On Kitsch, where he advocated the concept of "kitsch" as a more correct name than "art" for this type of painting. As a result of this redefinition proposed by Nerdrum, an increasing number of figurative painters are referring to themselves as "kitsch painters" and members of The Kitsch Movement^[9][10]

Conceptual art and deconstruction posed as interesting challenges, because, as with kitsch, they downplayed the formal structure of the artwork in favor of elements that enter it by relating to other spheres of life.

Despite this, many in the art world continue to adhere to some sense of the dichotomy between art and kitsch, excluding all sentimental and realistic art from being considered seriously. This has come under attack by critics, who argue for a renewed appreciation of academic art and traditional figurative painting, without the concern for it appearing innovative or new.

In any case, whatever difficulty there is in defining boundaries between kitsch and fine art since the beginning of postmodernism, the word "kitsch" still remains in common use to label anything seen as being in poor taste.

See also[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Adorno, Theodor (2001). The Culture Industry. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-25380-2
• Braungart, Wolfgang (2002). ”Kitsch. Faszination und Herausforderung des Banalen und Trivialen”. Max Niemeyer Verlag. ISBN 3-484-32112-1/0083-4564.
• Broch, Hermann (2003). Geist and Zeitgeist: The Spirit in an Unspiritual Age. Counterpoint Press. ISBN 1-58243-168-X
• Cheetham, Mark A (2001). ”Kant, Art and Art History: moments of discipline”. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-80018-8.
• Dorfles, Gillo (1969, translated from the 1968 Italian version, Il Kitsch). Kitsch: The World of Bad Taste, Universe Books. LCCN 78-93950
• Elias, Norbert. (1998[1935]) “The Kitsch Style and the Age of Kitsch,” in J. Goudsblom and S. Mennell (eds) The Norbert Elias Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Gelfert, Hans-Dieter (2000). ”Was ist Kitsch?”. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Göttingen. ISBN 3-525-34024-9.
• Giesz, Ludwig (1971). Phänomenologie des Kitsches. 2. vermehrte und verbesserte Auflage München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. [Partially translated into English in Dorfles (1969)]. Reprint (1994): Ungekürzte Ausgabe. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag. ISBN 3-596-12034-9 / ISBN 978-3-596-12034-5.
• Greenberg, Clement (1978). Art and Culture. Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-6681-8
• Karpfen, Fritz (1925). ”Kitsch. Eine Studie über die Entartung der Kunst”. Weltbund-Verlag, Hamburg.
• Kristeller, Paul Oskar (1990). ”The Modern System of the Arts” (In ”Renaissance Thought and the Arts”). Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-02010-1. (pbk.) / 0-691-07253-1.
• Kulka, Tomas (1996). Kitsch and Art. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01594-2
• Kundera, Milan (1999). The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-093213-9
• Moles, Abraham (nouvelle édition 1977). Psychologie du Kitsch: L’art du Bonheur, Denoël-Gonthier
• Nerdrum, Odd (Editor) (2001). On Kitsch. Distributed Art Publishers. ISBN 82-489-0123-8
• Olalquiaga, Celeste (2002). The Artificial Kingdom: On the Kitsch Experience. University of Minnesota ISBN 0-8166-4117-X
• Reimann, Hans (1936). ”Das Buch vom Kitsch”. Piper Verlag, München.
• Richter, Gerd, (1972). Kitsch-Lexicon, Bertelsmann. ISBN 3-570-03148-9
• Shiner, Larry (2001). ”The Invention of Art”. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-75342-5.
• Thuller, Gabrielle (2006 and 2007). "Kunst und Kitsch. Wie erkenne ich?", ISBN 3-7630-2463-8. "Kitsch. Balsam für Herz und Seele", ISBN 978-3-7630-2493-3. (Both on Belser-Verlag, Stuttgart.)
• Ward, Peter (1994). Kitsch in Sync: A Consumer’s Guide to Bad Taste, Plexus Publishing. ISBN 0-85965-152-5
• "Kitsch. Texte und Theorien", (2007). Reclam. ISBN 978-3-15-018476-9. (Includes classic texts of kitsch criticism from authors like Theodor Adorno, Ferdinand Avenarius, Edward Koelwel, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Hermann Broch, Richard Egenter, etc.).

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Kitsch

• "Kitsch". In John Walker's Glossary of art, architecture & design since 1945.
• Avant-Garde and Kitsch—essay by Clement Greenberg
• Kitsch and the Modern Predicament—essay by Roger Scruton
• world wide kitsch—kitsch painters and writers
• Why Dictators Love Kitsch by Eric Gibson, The Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2009

A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. Please discuss further on the talk page. (October 2011)

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (January 2011)

Allee Willis (born November 10, 1947) is an American, Grammy Award-winning songwriter, artist, set designer, multimedia artist, writer, collector and director.

Overview[link]

In 1995 Willis was nominated for an Emmy for her #1 hit, "I'll Be There for You", the theme from Friends, one of the best selling television themes of all time. In 1985 she won a Grammy for Best Soundtrack for Beverly Hills Cop. Her songs have sold over 50,000,000 records, including "September" and "Boogie Wonderland" by Earth, Wind & Fire, "Neutron Dance" by the Pointer Sisters, "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" by Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield, and "Lead Me On" by Maxine Nightingale. Willis has collaborated with hundreds of leading artists and composers from all fields of music, including Bob Dylan, James Brown, Herbie Hancock, Deniece Williams and Motown legend Lamont Dozier. She co-authored the Broadway musical version of The Color Purple, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Alice Walker and film by Steven Spielberg, which opened on Broadway at the Broadway Theater on December 1, 2005, and continues on national tour.

In September, 2009, Willis opened The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch,  a virtual museum and social network at AWMoK.com built around Willis' world renowned collection as well as user submissions that Willis curates. 

Willis is also an accomplished artist and designer, selling thousands of paintings, sculptures, ceramics and furniture designs, many with her alter-ego, Bubbles the artist. From 1986-1990 she participated in the set and furniture design of Pee-wee's Playhouse. In 1999, Bubbles and Willis collaborated with Lily Tomlin to build lilytomlin.com, a non-linear exploration of Tomlin's Tony-winning show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Willis and Bubbles video, "It's a Woman Thang" was named an Official Honoree in the viral category of the 2008 Webby Awards. As early as 1992, Willis was one of the first pop artists to have a presence in cyberspace, developing willisville, a prototype for a visual collaborative social network and story-driven online world that linked to all traditional pop media and mobile devices. Willis also consulted for various technology and entertainment companies throughout the 1990s including America Online, Microsoft, Silicon Graphics, Fox, Warner Bros., Disney and Intel, who also funded the partial development of willisville. In 1997, she addressed the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property regarding artist rights in cyberspace.

History[link]

Willis grew up in Detroit, Michigan and graduated from Mumford High School; she would later earn a degree in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Willis then made her way to New York and became a copywriter for Columbia and Epic Records; writing liner notes, print ads and radio commercials for the label's female and black acts — many of whom she went on to write songs for. She recorded an album of the first ten songs she ever wrote, “Childstar”, on Epic Records and was discovered by Bonnie Raitt and Patti LaBelle when they started recording her songs in the late 1970s.

From 1986 to 1988 Willis had her own column in Details Magazine. It was in that magazine that she introduced her proudest musical find, the Del Rubio Triplets, 70-plus year old 'singing' sisters in mini skirts and go boots who went on to appear in over 20 network shows and tour around the world.

From 1987 to 1991 Willis directed many music videos including ones for Debbie Harry, The Cars and Heart. She also designed and built the sets for MTV's first music clip show, "Just Say Julie".

Willis has collected Atomic 50's, Soul and Kitsch artifacts since the late 1960s and has one of the oldest and most documented collections in the world. Her Kitsch O' The Day blog, started in March, 2009, features one item from the collection per day.

Songs written by Allee Willis[link]

• "Does She Love Me?" — Stallionaires
• The Color Purple (musical) — Original Broadway Cast Recording
• "September" — Earth, Wind & Fire
• "God Knows" — Deniece Williams
• "Neutron Dance" — The Pointer Sisters
• "Boogie Wonderland" — Earth Wind & Fire with The Emotions
• "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" — Pet Shop Boys with Dusty Springfield
• "I'll Be There for You" — Theme from Friends
• "Lead Me On" — Maxine Nightingale
• "Stir It Up" — Patti LaBelle
• "In The Stone" — Earth Wind & Fire
• "I Am Love" — Jennifer Holliday
• "Shaker Song" — The Manhattan Transfer
• "Who Let in the Rain" — Cyndi Lauper
• "Come What May" — Patti LaBelle
• "Sunday Morning" — Earth Wind & Fire
• "Live My Life" — Boy George
• "The Blue Side" — Crystal Gayle
• "I Shoulda Loved Ya" — Narada Michael Walden
• "Little Girls" — Patti LaBelle
• "It's a Woman Thang" — Bubbles & Cheesecake
• "Jungle Animal" — Pomplamoose

Soundtrack filmography[link]

Willis songs often appear in films, occasionally re-recorded by a member of the cast.

Partial listing:

• "Boogie Wonderland"

Written by: Allee Willis

Appears in: Happy Feet (2006)

Lyrics Performed by: Brittany Murphy

Published by: Atlantic/WEA

• "Boogie Wonderland"

Written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Earth, Wind & Fire

Appears in: The Intouchables (2012) Distributed by The Weinstein Company (US)

Appears in: Madagascar (2005)

• "September"

Written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Earth, Wind & Fire

Appears in: The Intouchables (2012) Distributed by The Weinstein Company (US)

Appears in: Babel (2006)

Appears in: Night at the Museum (2006)

Appears in: The Ringer (2005)

Appears in: Get Over It! (2001)

• "In the Stone"

Written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Earth, Wind & Fire

Appears in: Drumline (2002)

• "Where Did You Get Those Pants"

Written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Fishbone

Appears in: High Fidelity (2000)

• "Planet Love"

Written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Taylor Dayne

Appears in: Flawless (1999)

• "You're The Best"

Lyrics: Allee Willis

Appears in: Futurama TV Series (1999)

• "You're The Best"

Written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Joe Esposito

Appears in: The Karate Kid (1984)

• "Transparent"

Written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Nona Hendryx

Appears in: Coming to America (1988)

• "Live My Life"

Written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Boy George

Appears in: Hiding Out aka Adult Education (US) (1987)

• "Neutron Dance"

Written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Pointer Sisters

Appears in: Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

• "Stir It Up"

Written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Patti LaBelle

Appears in: Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Appears in: Chicken Little (2005)

• "No Jinx"

Music and lyrics written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Bette Midler

Appears in: Jinxed! (1983)

• "Any Fool Could See"

Music and lyrics written by: Allee Willis

Performed by: Julie Budd

Appears in: The Devil and Max Devlin 1981)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Allee Willis Music is the official Allee Willis website with pictures, some history behind the songs as well as sound bites and articles.
• The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch
• Allee Willis Blog and Kitsch O The Day
• Bubbles the Artist — is the official Bubbles the Artist website, featuring collectible art.
• Allee Willis at the Internet Movie Database
• Pop Music and the New Musical - Working in the Theatre Seminar video at American Theatre Wing.org, September 2005
• Audio interview with Allee Willis on the Sodajerker on Songwriting podcast

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. It includes attribution to IMDb, which may not be a reliable source for biographical information. Please help by adding additional, reliable sources for verification. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2007)

Ricardo Montaner
Background information
Birth name	Hector Eduardo Reglero Montaner
Born	(1957-09-08) September 8, 1957 (age 54), Buenos Aires, Argentina
Origin	Maracaibo, Venezuela
Genres	Latin Pop
Years active	1983–present
Labels	Rodven Records, WEA, EMI

Ricardo Montaner (born as Hector Eduardo Reglero Montaner on September 8, 1957) is a Venezuelan-Argentine singer and songwriter. Starting his career in the early 80s, he has already released more than 15 albums with numerous successful singles and has sold over 22 million record worldwide.

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Montaner was born as Héctor Eduardo Reglero Montaner, in Valentín Alsina, Buenos Aires, Argentina. However, he moved to Venezuela when he was 6 years old. During his youth he performed in the church chorus in the city of Maracaibo. In 1983, he released his first album titled Cada Día. Although the album was not a great success, it was a start for Montaner's career. He describes this album:"as his own version of death metal"

It wasn't until 1987 when Montaner became widely popular in Venezuela with the singles "Yo Que Te Amé" and "Vamos a Dejarlo" belonging to his self-titled album.

Success[link]

The following year he came out with Ricardo Montaner 2 which featured hit songs like "Tan Enamorados" and "A Donde Va El Amor". At the same time, he acted in the popular soap opera Niña Bonita. This also became a tool to make his songs known to the rest of Latin America. He won 4 platinum albums in Argentina alone. His next two albums, Un Toque de Misterio and En el Último Lugar del Mundo, became classics of the popular music in Mexico, Central and South America with hits such as "La Cima del Cielo", "Me Va a Extrañar", "Déjame Llorar" and "Será".

By 1992 Ricardo decided to hit the Spanish Caribbean with Los Hijos del Sol, an album that contained songs like "Castillo Azul", "Honda" and "Piel Adentro". That year, he also recorded a duet with Michelle, which was the Latinamerican version for the Aladdin song "A Whole New World" titled "Un Mundo Ideal". In the same year (1992), he performed in his concert on the Madison Square Garden, with more than 16,000 people who attended the concert. Additionally he released singles such as La pequeña Venecia in which he demonstrates his immense love and appreciation towards his adoptive nation Venezuela, in which he refers to Venezuela as his country.

Although Montaner has written most of his songs he has worked closely with other great song writers in Latin America such as Pablo Manavello, Ilan Chester and Oscar Gómez. But in 1994, Ricardo Montaner wrote and produced all the songs in his album Una Mañana y un Camino, which became popular only years after his release due to the lack of promotion by his new record label EMI Latin, with which Ricardo would also release Viene del Alma in 1995, an Italian pop flavored album. Also in 1995 he teamed up with Yolandita Monge to establish a Guinness World Record for performing 3 concerts in different cities on the same day in Puerto Rico. This was only possible by air transportation via helicopter from stage to stage.

Changes in Style[link]

By 1997, Montaner was already a well established artist in the Spanish speaking music world and could give himself the luxury of experimenting with other styles of music, without forgetting the roots that had made him so popular a decade earlier. Working one more time with Pablo Manavello and with a new record company, Warner Music proved to be the promoter Ricardo was expecting for. Es Así brought Ricardo much popularity in the United States Spanish speaking areas and allowed Montaner to tour more than 17 countries in Latin America making him even more popular in Spain. Songs like "La Mujer de Mi Vida", "Para Llorar" and "Es Así" became very popular all around.

In 1999, Montaner recorded his best album ever with his past hits decorated with the strings of the London Metropolitan Orchestra. This proved to be very successful and sold over 1 million copies. Ricardo made another attempt in 2001 with Sueño Repetido that included the bolero style song "Bésame" arranged by Bebu Silvetti which became a hit all over the world. Future works with Juan Carlos Calderón, Kike Santander and Silvetti would be the key for Ricardo to move his songs and popularity to another level in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

2002's Suma (Bolero style songs) and 2003's Prohibido Olvidar (balada pop) had fair results in terms of sales and acceptance. "Si Tuviera Que Elegir" in Suma was written for his daughter. In 2003 he broke the record for the most concerts on a same tour in the theater of Bellas Artes in Puerto Rico. He sold out 18 concerts breaking his past record of 12, which also held it Yolandita Monge and Ricardo Arjona. In 2004, he made another album with the London Metropolitan Orchestra named Con La London Metropolitan Orchestra Vol. 2 featuring his latest hits songs and two exclusive songs such as "Desesperado" and "Esta Escrito". In 2005, Montaner launched Todo y Nada which featured the songs "Cuando a mi Lado Estas" and "Nada".

For this album he's already nominated in the Latin Grammys with album and song of the year for "Cuando a mi Lado Estas". "Amarte es mi Pecado" and Heridas de Amor are non-album songs that have been chosen to be the theme songs on two very popular Mexican soap operas and that much popular have become these songs.

Recent Years[link]

In 2007, Ricardo released Las Mejores Canciones Del Mundo produced by Adrian Posse with the songs "Hoy Tengo Ganas De Ti", "Nostalgias (Argen Version)", "Échame A Mí La Culpa (Artista Invitado: Juanes)".

In 2008, he released Las Mejores Canciones Del Mundo II - Y Algunas Mías...! with the songs "Cuando Un Amigo Se Va", "Ansiedad", "Bésame (Featuring Pasión Vega)". He is currently recording his new album: "Viajero Frecuente" (Frequent Traveler) in Italy.

Ricardo Montaner has sold over 22 million albums, and keeps breaking records in arenas and theaters all over the world. The last one was in another concert that he did in Mar del Plata, Argentina; there were 220,000 people that attended the concert that night.

Personal life[link]

Ricardo is married to Marlene Rodriguez Miranda and has three children with her and two sons from a previous marriage. His sons Héctor and Alejandro Montaner are also singers. He lives with his family in Miami Beach, Florida.

Discography[link]

• Cada Día (1983)
• Ricardo Montaner (1987)
• Ricardo Montaner, Vol.2 (1988)
• Un Toque de Misterio (1990)
• En el Ultimo Lugar de Mundo (1991)
• Los Hijos del Sol (1992)
• Una Mañana y un Camino (1994)
• Viene del Alma (1995)
• Es Asi (1997)
• Con la London Metropolitan Orchestra (1999)
• Sueño Repetido (2001)
• Suma (2002)
• Prohibido Olvidar (2003)
• Con la London Metropolitan Orchesta (2004)
• Todo y Nada (2005)
• Las Mejores Canciones del Mundo (2007)
• Las Mejores Canciones, Vol. 2 (2007)
• Las Cosas Son Como Son (2009)
• Soy Feliz (2010)