It's more than mere looks

Chart-topping Latin pop singer Enrique Iglesias exudes boyish charm, and a strong Spanish accent augments the warmth. He may have lived in Miami since childhood, and made a crossover into the mainstream English market before the turn of the millennium, but it is Spanish not American blood that flows through his veins.

On a balmy night on the eve of the Isle of MTV summer music festival, chilling on a sofa overlooking Golden Bay, the best-selling Spanish language artist of the last decade admitted to The Times that he was "eager" about the show, Malta being a new audience.

"It's cool to visit a place you've never been to and you don't know what to expect from the crowd. A lot of people think you care more if it's London or New York, and not if it's a small island like Malta. It has nothing to do with that! It all comes down to the enthusiasm of the people..."

Expressing fascination at the fact that Malta is smaller than Ibiza, with a population of 400,000 people, he asks: "How the hell do 400,000 people... How's the traffic here?" He's curious about the dynamics of the island: the Italian and British influence; the concerts staged; the venue for his; and even the weather in winter. Later, in the lift, he continues to ask about its unique language. Hey, who's conducting the interview here?

Enrique Iglesias takes his time to show up, but jokingly justifies keeping a woman waiting by saying he thought the interviewer was going to be a guy. Excused!

I'm old enough to be familiar with the music of his legendary father Julio. "You must be very old then," he quips. "You just saved yourself there," he laughs, when I explain it was my parents who used to listen to it...

But the point is whether having Iglesias as a surname has been a blessing or a curse.

"I know perfectly well that there will always be comparisons; it's in the genes. I mean, he's my father... Of course, we're two different generations, so as the new journalists come in, the questions change. I've noticed this over the last 12 years that I've been doing interviews.

"In the beginning, maybe I did make it a point to try to get away as much as possible and I was always very independent - I left home at 19. But I didn't think about it that much, so it didn't drive me that crazy...

"He (Julio) never had to give me advice; I saw everything up close since I was a kid. I learnt so much just from going on tour with him and being around. By the time I left home, I was still a kid in the learning process, but I definitely had an advantage over anyone who was just stepping into the music scene out of nowhere."

But the biggest advantage of wearing the Iglesias label is having learnt to judge people in showbiz a little bit better, and he thinks that is crucial. "You develop a sixth sense for knowing the right people you should surround yourself with."

As for the disadvantages: "It takes away cred. For example, when I see a kid of someone famous who wants to be a singer, I immediately judge him even though I come from the same background. So, it takes time... You get more attention from the media, but you get less cred. You almost start at a negative.

"But at the end of the day, what I do know is that it comes down to the people. You can't fool them. If they like the song, they'll go out and buy it; it's as simple as that!"

But does it bother him that the "people" buying his music are mainly of the opposite sex and their age ends in teen, and that he does not necessarily appeal to a wider audience?

"I have a big gay audience too," he chips in. "If it were a problem, it would be a good problem to have! The big problem would be if I had 80-year-old men at my concerts!

"First of all, girls are the ones who move the music world; if a girl likes a song, a guy's going to end up liking it because he's going to have to listen to it, no matter what! Guys buy music for girls a lot of the time... Girls move everything at the end of the day. They're the ones who turn on the radio; the ones who call up the radio; the ones who watch most MTV; and take the time to support the artist ..."

And they seem to have given Enrique Iglesias a lot of that. His album sales total over 40 million - although he has yet to overtake his father - but he also has his fair share of criticism. "A lot," he immediately qualifies, adding that it comes with the territory.

Apparently, he's also handsome, or so they say... So, how important are his looks in the success story and what's going to happen when and if they diminish?

He has a good point, but he's wary while making it. You can sense he is struggling to be sure he words this in such a way that he does not come across as cocky, or big-headed, which he could probably afford to be. The gist of it is that it takes more than just looks, but he spells it out...

"What I'm saying... I truly don't mean as... but obviously, if you ask someone whether they'd rather be good-looking, or bad-looking, what the hell are they going to say? Having said that, there are lots of beautiful people around the world. Go to LA and you'll see beautiful waiters and waitresses; and a lot of them want to be singers and actors..." The point, presumably, is that they don't all make it.

"So, I truly believe that, at the end of the day, it comes down to the art form. Of course, everything enhances and everything helps. Take Springsteen, for example - it's undeniable that he is a great artist, but women have also gone crazy for him and even he has sold sex in some way or another. And I don't think there's anything wrong in that.

"I do think there's a difference between being beautiful and being charismatic, however." As to his own charisma/beauty ratio: "Hopefully, I have more charisma than beauty."

Enrique Iglesias's sentences are punctuated by the words "hopefully" and a "little bit". Nothing seems to be taken for granted, or exaggerated.

Now and again, he steals my pen to scribble something on his forearm. They are just reminders, little notes and ideas, he explains. "Would you like a piece of paper from my notebook? You never know - you may decide to wash yourself."

"No, I don't shower," he carries on in the same vein... The truth is he knows he'd lose the paper.

I'm not sure I buy the explanation - the fact that he's writing notes - although he shows me the word "lights" on his hand. Maybe, he's just buying time before he responds.

Speaking of which, we never get to talk about his love interest, tennis player Anna Kournikova...

With regard to evolving his style of music as the years go by and breaking out of his set formula, he says: "If you listen to my latest album (Insomnia, released last month, and the first single being Do You Know?), it kind of breaks a little bit. That's why it took me three years - not because I wanted to change so much musically though.

"Hopefully, while I'm writing new songs, their sound is also evolving a little bit... I don't care about the critics saying I'm sounding the same, sonically; what I'm concerned about is not boring myself when I go on tour."

Having said that, the singer of Be With You and Hero never tires of repeating the same song because the place and audience change. And that brings us right back to where we started... on the importance of the crowd and the effect of its feedback on his performance.

"Really, I care about writing the best songs I can, whether they are simple, sound sonically the same, or are going back in time. Of course, I don't want to go back too much and bore myself," he is quick to counteract.

But nor is he really thinking of going forward forever. In fact, the Grammy Award-winning singer does not see himself crooning into old age.

"No, no, hopefully not!" He plans to retire by the age of hmmm... 44. That gives him - and his fans - another 14 years of his music (although by Wikipedia's calculations, it would be 12).

"It's not such a long time," he maintains, as he sets off from the Radisson SAS Golden Sands Resort to make hay while the sun shines.