De Mi Puño y Letra,
Carlos Baute's seventh studio album, is most notable for spawning the biggest hit of his career, "Colgando en Tus Manos." Released as the lead single of
De Mi Puño y Letra in August 2008, the album version of the song is sung solo by
Baute; however, a new non-album version was released a few months later. The new version of the song, featuring Spanish superstar
Marta Sánchez on duet vocals, was the one that became an international smash hit. Not only was "Colgando en Tus Manos" a hit in
Baute's native Venezuela and in some neighboring Latin American countries, it was also a hit overseas in Spain, where it spent 27 weeks at number one on the singles chart (knocked off the top spot only twice throughout this amazing run, one week by
Macaco's "Moving" and another, in the immediate aftermath of
Michael Jackson's sudden death, by "Thriller"). While there's no denying the appeal of "Colgando en Tus Manos," it's difficult to get over the song's similarity to
Maná's "Bendita Tu Luz," a similarly styled bachata featuring
Juan Luis Guerra on duet vocals that two years earlier was likewise an international hit. Not only are both songs performed in a bachata style with duet vocals on the chorus, they even begin more or less exactly the same on acoustic guitar! It's impossible to say whether the similarity between "Bendita Tu Luz" and "Colgando en Tus Manos" had anything to do with the latter's success, but if you're a
Maná fan, the two songs are too close for comfort. All the same, "Colgando en Tus Manos" is far and away the highlight of
De Mi Puño y Letra. As aforementioned, the duet version featuring
Sánchez isn't found on the original 11-track edition of
De Mi Puño y Letra. A 16-track edición coleccionista was released as soon as the duet version of "Colgando en Tus Manos" became a hit, and this edition includes not only the
Sánchez version in the place of the original but also alternate versions of secondary highlights "Nada Se Compara a Ti" and "Tú No Sabes Qué Tanto" as bonus tracks along with a couple cut-rate club remixes. ~ Jason Birchmeier