Juanes photo by Fred Montana Retna Ltd.

Juanes might be a Latin artist, but he’s an international superstar. With 2004’s Mi Sangre topping the charts in 41 countries, his new single, “Me Enamora,” was fittingly released in 77 countries across Asia, Europe and the Americas. “Me Enamora” is the first taste of Juanes’ long-awaited fourth album, La Vida Es Un Ratico, which recently debuted in record store racks.

Juanes has said that he wanted the album to have a Colombian sound and feel. Accordingly, he recorded the guitars, vocals and some keyboard parts at his mountain retreat studio near Medellín, Colombia’s second largest city. He then traveled to Los Angeles to finish the album with longtime co-producer Gustavo Santaolalla, a multiple Oscar and Grammy winner (Brokeback Mountain, Babel) who discovered the singer while he was shopping his original demos in L.A. The pair did the final album mixes at the famed Hit Factory in Miami.

Like his previous albums, Juanes did not record any English-language tracks. Shakira, Ricky Martin, Paulina Rubio and others have enjoyed huge crossover success with English singles, yet Juanes remains committed to singing in his native tongue. Nonetheless, the singer born Juan Esteban continues to win over non-Spanish speakers, with the L.A. Times recently proclaiming him “the single most important figure of the past decade in Latin pop music.”