Juanes Drops Cover of Fito Páez’s ‘El Amor Después del Amor’

Colombian rock great Juanes has released a new cover of Argentine musician Fito Páez’s 1992 classic, “El Amor Después del Amor.”

The cover finds Juanes dropping the original’s horns and some of its other Nineties-style production hallmarks and presenting “El Amor Después del Amor” as more of a straight-ahead rocker with some clever gospel influences. But Juanes matches Páez’s epic pop-rock heights as he belts around some slick slide guitar work, “Una llave por una llave/Y esa llave es mi amor.”

Juanes also released a music video for his cover of “El Amor Después del Amor,” which finds him and his band performing the track on what looks like a late-Eighties/early-Nineties TV show.

“‘El Amor Después del Amor’ is one of my favorite rock songs of all time,” Juanes said in a statement. “Since the day it came out, what it spoke to, and still does, resonates with me and a whole generation. I have the utmost admiration for Fito — I admire his greatness as a composer and his lasting influence on Latin Rock. In my rendition of the song, it felt very instinctive to add more of a gospel sound in the arrangement of the Hammond [organ] and guitars. I could already sense it in the original, but we went further, especially in how gospel can fuse with the feel of Blues and rock. After we finished production, and I played it for Fito, he shared that he always felt the song held a sense that life, and definitely love, can linger beyond death, and now I feel even more honored to present this version… a very personal interpretation, that I hope further amplifies the uplifting spirit I always found in the song.”

“El Amor Después del Amor” is the first offering from Juanes’ upcoming 10th album, Origen, which is expected to be released this year and will find the musician reimagining songs that shaped his own musical vision and career. Origen will follow Juanes’ 2019 album, Más Futuro Que Pasado.