casi un bolero (almost a love song) is my favorite song off of Vuelve. It is a gorgeous song in Spanish. I was very eager to hear the english translation and was stunned at how faithful the translation is. It is just as haunting and beautiful in English. By this cd for this one song alone. It should have been included on his English album, and its a crime that it is on a B-side to Shake Your Bon-Bon.

Ricky Martins current single is pretty good. The one track that stands out the most is the Hex Hector club remix of "She's All I Ever Had." Once again Hex manages to pump up this ballad to an awsome club track. The remixes of "Shake Your Bon-Bon" are not all that bad either. Theres the Eddie Arroyo club mix and the Fernando Garibay club mix. I highly recommend this single to any one who likes dance/club music. The Hex Hector remix of "She's All I Ever Had" is reason enough to buy it.

The third single from his eponymous English album, Shake Your Bon-bon is sort of an enigma. While lyrically, it's rather weak and downright silly, that's what makes it so irresistable. Take this for example: 'Up in the Himalayas, I wanna lay ya...' Hmmm....He sure is trying very hard to beef up his sex symbol image isn't he? :-) But put it to an irresistable samba-pop beat and voila! Pure pop delight. It's a pity the song didn't go very high on Billboard Hot 100. Bad marketing and a Ricky media backlash has made it the worst performing Ricky Martin single to date. But don't let that stop you from getting this remixes collection.

An added bonus in the form of the Hex Hector remix of 'She's All I Ever Had' should get you shaking your bon-bons if the first three tracks don't. And when you've had all the fun sweating it off, unwind to 'Almost A Love Song' a gem of a track in which Ricky sings of a lost love with so much emotion you'd think he was talking about his own heartbreak over Rebecca De Alba. Or maybe he was......

Ricky has long been revered as some sort of closet god, and with this release, its obvious why. 'Shake your bon bon' with its' nonsensical lyrics, yet amusingly catcy chorus, has since become standard fare on the dance floor and in gay clubs throughout the country. However, to put this song on a Maxi-Cd in hopes that people would want to rush out and grab it, is illogical.

Martin's song is fun, yes, and more fun if you watch it along with the video, but as a pop single its just far too noisy and messed up to merit repeat listening. I felt the same with 'Vida Loca', which, all said and done, was a better song. Martin fans should have learnt that buying the Ricky album is quite enough. Wasting your money on his single releases is not at all worth it, especially if the song is as tacky and cheesy as this one. Miss this.

One could go broke trying to buy all of Ricky Martin's cd-singles and import singles, but it is always worth the purchase. Sometimes, the extended house remix of Ricky's songs will get you out your sit faster than the original, and that is the case with the "Shake Your Bon-Bon" maxi-single. The club mix by Fernando Garibay pulsates with hot Latin beats and funky house bass. This version, track 3 on the disc, sexually charges the the otherwise hokey chorus and will have the steadiest bon-bons grooving.

The price of admission has to be the heart-wrenching "Almost A Love Song," which is the English version of the ballad "Casi Un Bolero" (found on Martin's Grammy-winning CD "Vuelve"). This hauntingly beautiful love song (rather lack of love) shames all critics who said that Martin could not emote on an English-language ballad. Nothing was lost in translation in this remake.