User:Razr Nation/sandbox/Arjona2

Criticism and controversy

Arjona was the subject of criticism throughout his career, mainly for his songwriting skills and as a singer, and was once labeled a "frustrated poet". Jaime Andrés Monsalve, music journalist from Argentinian magazine Cromos, commented that Arjona may be called a songwriter, but said that he could be "placed" in what is called the "author's music." He claimed that Arjona employed "a prefabricated scheme" that evokes the "situations affecting human beings' souls," and by what he called the "most prosaic materialism." Music producer Iván Benavides criticized the singer, stating, "Arjona fills stadiums for the same reason that self-help books are more successful that good literature." Moreover, he said that some of Arjona's verses "could be part of an anthology of the worst of the Latin American song of all time," and affirmed that his music is "poor but pretentious."

Controversy arised bewteen Arjona and Fito Páez (left) for a series of concerts on Buenos Aries, and with Juanes (right) for the benefit concert in Havana, Cuba.

Argentinian musician and multi-instrumentalist Fito Páez slammed Arjona during an interview with newspaper Clarín, commenting that "If the city [Buenos Aires gives 35 Luna Parks [concerts] to Ricardo Arjona and only two to Charly García, then you have to think what does mean the politics, the newspapers, in that city, in which exist some values that have been annihilated." Arjona responded with a letter to the newspaper, stating, "On a suspicious way he signs the beginning of this issue, in his country, almost at the same time with the obvious fall of his artistic capacity", also stating that "it is from an epic beauty the panic that represents to him to send a new musical production to his own people." The singer finally called Páez a "false and reckless intellectual" and a "disrespectful dictator" that "believes he is the owner of popular decisions."

Mexican singer Alejandro Filio commented that there "exist some technical requirements to make music. Artists who write music without having a notion of the rhythmic and the metric would not achieve well-structured verses, and, as a result, neither well-built songs. That's the case of Arjona." He also stated that he is "against who wants to apparent what it isn't." Colombian singer Juanes created a controversy when Arjona cancelled a concert in Cuba, where Juanes had scheduled a benefit concert, "to avoid generating a circus around this". Juanes, on an interview, commented that he wasn't aware that to go to the island, he "needed permission from Arjona." At the 2010 Viña del Mar International Song Festival, Arjona offered a controversial response to a comment by Tito El Bambino, who was asking for awards. Arjona said that "trophies aren't asked but deserved."

Juan Carlos Garay, music critic from Semana, stated that Arjona is, as an artist, "more simple than what people believes. He is a guy that in every song repeats the same thing but in a thousand different ways, [he] doesn't develop thematics, but indeed a tone that easily gets confused with poetry. When the common people notes they can get easily close to this type of songs, they feel like members of an 'exclusive club'." He also said, "the conflict point is on the definition. Himself, or the people around him, had tried to classify him as a social singer-songwriter to the likes of Joan Manuel Serrat or Joaquín Sabina, but the truth is other: he is a baladeer", also stating that Arjona is "missclassified" and named him the successor of José Luis Perales.