Paulina is the fifth studio album by Mexican singer Paulina Rubio. It was released on May 23, 2000 internationally by Universal Latino and marks her first record production with American global music corporation. Rubio worked with writers and producers such as Estéfano (mostly), Chris Rodríguez, Armando Manzanero, Juan Gabriel, Christian De Walden, and Richard Daniel Roman. The album explores a more variety sounds much different to the vein of her albums with EMI Music, and has an overall latin pop and dance-pop vibe, with influences from rock, ranchera, bolero, funk and house. Elaborating a "synthesis of the end of the millennium" theme for the album, Rubio reinvented her image.
Paulina was generally acclaimed by most critics and earned Latin Grammy Award nominations. In 2001, Billboard cited it as the best-selling Latin album of 2001 in the U.S. The record was a commercial success, reaching at number one both the Top Latin Albums and Latin Pop Albums charts, and debuted on the Billboard 200, making it her first album to appear on that chart. It received worldwide certifications, including octuple platinum (Latin) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for 800,000 units shipped in the United States. In Mexico, is one of the best-selling albums according to Asociación Mexicana de Productores de Fonogramas y Videogramas (AMPROFON). Paulina is Rubio's most successful album with sales of over 3 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling "Latin" albums.
Seven singles were released from the album. The lead single, "Lo Haré Por Ti" became an international hit. Its second single "El Último Adiós" peaked at number one in Latin America. Its third single "Y Yo Sigo Aquí", which is often recognised as Rubio's signature international song, received a nomination for the Latin Grammy Award for Song of the Year at the 2001 ceremony became a massive commercial success. Follow-up singles "Yo No Soy Esa Mujer" and "Vive El Verano" also performed well on charts internationally. The latest singles "Sexi Dance" and "Tal Vez, Quizá" are often considered classic Rubio songs. To promote the album, she embarked on her concert tour Paulina.
Background
After establishing herself in the Latin music industry as "La Chica Dorada", in summer 1996, Paulina Rubio released her fourth studio album, Planeta Paulina. The album represented a drastic change in the singer's musical direction, incorporating elements of dance and electronic music. The public was unimpressed with her new musical direction, despite the fact that critics were convinced by her new sound. The backlash resulted in Planeta Paulina having little impact on commercial performance.
The executives of EMI Music record company proposed to release an album in English, which would mean her crossover in the United States and Europe, but as the months passed, they canceled the musical project, which motivated Rubio to seek a new record label. However, EMI Music did not yield to her request, due two years earlier she signed a contract that provided for the release of three albums with EMI Music over the course of four years. After embarking on a promotional tour for the rest of 1997, Rubio had one album pending to record with that label, because "I didn't want to record what they proposed to me."
Early 1998, Rubio continued work on new music, and sought to terminate the contract with EMI Music. At the end of that year, Universal Music Latino became interested in Rubio's creative process and her new music, so the record company bought the old contract from EMI Music and signed a new one with the division in Latin America. Rubio left EMI Music in November 1998, ending their six-year relationship.
Development and production
Soon after, Rubio began work on her fifth studio album. On it she collaborated with producers and writers such as Spanish singer-songwriter Nacho Cano, from the Spanish band Mecano, and Armando Manzanero. The album was recorded mostly at Midnight Studios in Miami, Florida. Only "Vive El Verano" and an unreleased song titled "Es El Verano" was recorded in Barcelo, Spain, in the period when Rubio was a television host in the show Vive El Verano aired by Antena 3. Rubio took nearly two years to prepare her fifth studio album. The singer updated her music and got ready for this new challenge with new producers and songwriters such as Estéfano, Armando Manzanero, Alejandro García Abad, Ralf Stemmann, Christian De Walden, Richard Daniel Román, Ignacio Ballesteros and Juan Gabriel.