Critic's Review
Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
Julieta Venegas made a remarkable debut in 1998 with Aquí, an album of enormous breadth and boldness. At the time, it was a striking alternative to the pop, dance, and ballad styles generally employed by pretty young Latinas like herself (i.e., Thalía, Paulina Rubio, Olga Tañon). Without the stereotype shattering of Venegas (along with Andrea Echeverri and Shakira, of course), it's difficult to imagine the confrontational likes of Ely Guerra and Bebe arising in the years to follow. Produced by the iconic Gustavo Santaolalla, Aquí immediately earned Venegas a place among concurrent rock en español revolutionaries like Café Tacuba and Aterciopelados, even if it wasn't exactly "rock" per se. Her follow-up, Bueninvento, is a continuation of the more dramatic aspects of that debut, upping the intensity significantly by thickening the stew with additional instrumentation and clearly emphasizing the rock en español aspects of the music. If Aquí had been a true solo album, evidenced especially during its second half with its suite of spare piano dirges -- just Julieta and her piano, with occasional orchestral backing -- Bueninvento is a genuine collaborative effort, with a small army of sidemen aboard to supply everything from guitar, bass, and drums to organ, flute, mandolin, viola, and other esoteric sounds, including plenty of programming. The resulting wall of sound can become cacophonous at times -- precisely the point. Like Aquí, this album ebbs and flows, from calm passages of panting to explosive arcs of amplitude; unlike Aquí, however, the flux of Bueninvento occurs over the course of each individual song, not over the course of the entire album. This shift away from a steady, song-by-song progression and toward sharp twists and turns, movement by movement, creates a continuous sense of Sturm und Drang that can feel exhausting. It's cathartic music, make no mistake, and the lyrics and the performance of them by Venegas reflect this just as much as the slashing guitars and crashing drums do. To mention again the lyrics, they're graced with significant import here, because of the stormy context. This enhances the singer/songwriter element, elevating Venegas to the degree of performance art almost. There was a bit of this on Aquí, particularly toward the album's roller coaster conclusion (the a cappella "Sabiéndose de los Descalzos" above all). But this touch of theater, as with practically everything else comparative about Aquí and Bueninvento, is truly heightened here. It's overall astonishing, in a way, since this is only the second album by Venegas. And that's something to always keep in mind: Bueninvento plays like the masterwork of a veteran, not a young solo artist still finding her way musically. Of course, Venegas would go on to greater popularity and commercial success (and one feels, greater happiness) with her next album, Sí. That doesn't discount her achievement here, however. In a way, that she would leave behind what she accomplished on her two albums with Santaolalla for the greener pastures of pop invites the plausible reasoning that she took this music to its artistic limit here on Bueninvento, leaving her nowhere to go creatively but elsewhere; hence the reinvention that followed.
