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El Alma al Aire is the sixth studio album recorded by Spanish singer-songwriter Alejandro Sanz, It was released by WEA Latina on 26 September 2000. It is one of his more suggestive and emotive works. It beat all the records of sale of the Spanish market on having reached the 1,000,000 copies in the first week.

Release
El Alma al Aire was released in Latin America and Spain on 25 September 2000 by WEA Latina. A special edition of album was launched on 11 June 2001 in Spain and Portugal, and features an additional disc with five tracks: A English and bilingual version of "Me Iré" with the Corrs, a Spanish-language version of "One Night" ("Una Noche") also with the Corrs, "Adoro" with Armando Manzanero, and a remix of "Tiene Que Ser Pecado". "The Hardest Day" marks the first song that Sanz recorded in English and the three collaborations with the Corrs were produced by David Foster. "Una Noche" was previously included in the Latin American edition of In Blue (2000) while the duet version of "Adoro" was first recorded for Manzanero's studio album Duetos (2001).

El Alma al Aire was re-released in 2007 and includes demos of "Cuando Nadie Me Ve" and "El Alma al Aire" as well as a DVD with the music videos for "Cuando Nadie Me Ve", "Quisiera Ser", "El Alma al Aire", "Llega, Llegó Soledad", "Una Noche", and "The Hardest Day", and live performances of several of his songs from the album at the concert at the Vicente Calderón Stadium in 2001 during his El Alma al Aire Tour (2001-02). A commemorative 20th anniversary edition of El Alma al Aire was released in 2020.

Critical reception
AllMusic editor Stacia Proefrock gave the record three out of five stars, stating that while it was "not as strong as his best albums like Más, El Alma al Aire does present a solid collection of ballads" and praised its string sections. Rating it three out of fours stars, Daniel Shumski of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote the tracks "fall into two categories: those that sound as if they were borrowed from Mas and those that take cautious baby steps to advance his songwriting abilities". Shumski praised the "clever turns of phrase and cut-above-standard lyrics" as well as Sanz's "velvety vocals and tuneful melodies". The Chicago Tribune critic Achy Obejas stated all the songs in the album are a "Sanz composition: romantic, but realistic, lyrically lush but in fresh and unexpected ways, serious but surprisingly sincere". She commended "Quisiera Ser" as an "addictive hit single".

Ernest Lechner reviewed for the Los Angeles Times and rated the disc two-and-a-half stars and out four, citing the artist's talent to make the "kind of crisp, manipulatively romantic music" but criticized the album's "fussy production values".

Accolades
At the 2001 Premios Amigo in Spain, El Alma al Aire won Best Album while Sanz won Best Male Artist. At the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2001, the record was nominated in the category of Best Latin Pop Album, which was awarded to MTV Unplugged (2000) by Shakira. At the 2nd Annual Latin Grammy Awards in the same year, Sanz was the biggest winner of the night, winning four awards including Album of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Album as well as Record of the Year and Song of the Year for the title track. Sanz also won Latin Album of the Year and Male Latin Artist of the Year for the record at the 2001 Premios Gardel.

Personnel

 * Vicente Amigo – Spanish guitar in "Quisiera Ser" and "El Alma al Aire"
 * Gennady Aronin – Violin
 * Enrique Badulescu – Photography
 * Antonio Baglio – Mastering
 * Tim Barnes – Viola
 * Maurizio Biancani – Mixing
 * Renato Cantele – Engineer, mixing
 * Huifang Chen – Violin
 * Janet Clippard – Bass
 * Gustavo Correa – Violin
 * Montse Cortés – Background vocals in "Quisiera Ser" and "El Alma al Aire"
 * John DiPuccio – Violin
 * Paquito Echevarría – Piano tumbao in "El Alma al Aire"
 * Joan Faigen – Violin
 * Scott Flavin – Violin
 * Chris Glansdorp – Cello
 * Alfredo Golino – Drums
 * Jorge González – Assistant engineer
 * Luca Jurman – Arranger, background vocals
 * Mei Mei Luo – Violin
 * Roberto Maccagno – Engineer, technical coordinator


 * Charo Manzano – Background vocals in "Quisiera Ser" and "El Alma al Aire"
 * Raul Midón – Background vocals
 * José Antonio Molina – Arranger, orchestra director
 * Susan Moyer – Cello
 * Alfredo Oliva – Violin
 * Alfredo Paixao – Bass, background vocals
 * Wendy Pedersen – Background vocals
 * Lulo Pérez – Arranger, trumpet
 * Dave Poler – Assistant engineer
 * Rita Quintero – Background vocals
 * Keith Robinson – Cello
 * Emanuele Ruffinengo – Arranger, concept, record producer
 * Alejandro Sanz – Vocals, background vocals, arranger, concept
 * Rafa Sañudo – Art direction, design
 * Debra Spring – Viola
 * Ramiro Terán – Background vocals
 * Christine Tramontano – Assistant engineer
 * Ludovico Vagnone – Acoustic guitar, electric guitar
 * Bruce Wethey – Violin
 * Bogumila Zgraja – Violin