Olga Tañon - Llevame Contigo (1997)

After a rash of consecutive hits throughout 1994 and 1995, the reigning Queen of Merengue, Olga Tañón, took a break from tropical music, releasing an album of Marco Antonio Solís songs, Nuevos Senderos. This puzzled hardcore fans, no doubt, even if her off album was a good one, albeit subdued and strongly Mexican in character. So when she returned to tropical music in 1997 with Llévame Contigo, it was with considerable anticipation, to say the least. And return Tañón did, releasing an album that reprised everything wonderful about her best early-'90s music. Llévame Contigo includes songs by all those who had penned her best songs on past albums: Yaidelice Monrrozeau (who had written "Contigo o sin Ti") contributes two songs, "El Frío de Tu Adiós" and "Así Es el Amor"; Rodolfo Barreras ("Es Mentiroso") turns in a pair; Raldy Vázquez ("Una Noche Mas") also turns in a pair; and Gustavo Márquez ("Entre la Noche y el Día") returns, too, with "Porque No Te Encontré." Llévame Contigo easily became Tañón's most successful album yet, topping the Latin Albums chart and spinning off one hit after another, chief among them "El Frío de Tu Adiós." Hardcore fans consistently rank Llévame Contigo alongside Siente el Amor... and Mujer de Fuego as Tañón's best. Song for song, it's not as solid as Siente el Amor..., which was near-perfect from beginning to end. However, Llévame Contigo is definitely more diverse, in terms of songwriting as well as music, and it includes more songs. So if it's not as consistently stellar as Siente el Amor..., it's more broadly appealing. This age-old debate aside, Llévame Contigo is first-rate, any way you look at it, and it's the last beginning-to-end tropical album Tañón would record for years, as she would court pop-crossover success on subsequent albums, to generally mixed results, unfortunately.~Llévame Contigo Review by Jason Birchmeier