Hotel dulce hotel

After the successful tour and live album released one year before, in this fifth studio album, Sabina counted for the first time with the executive production of Pancho Varona, who had previously collaborated with him two years before in Juez y parte as a support musician. This personal and creative friendship also led to the creation of a society called Ripio S.A. in which many of their future productions would be registered. The album was recorded in the Eurosonic Studios of Madrid.[1]

In this album, the singer started exploring other type of emotions such as love or affection, a type of songs that was not present in Sabina's repertoire before. The result was a more intimate and sentimental work than the previous ones.[2]

The first maxi single of this album was "Así estoy yo sin ti" (That's how I am without you) a song that talks about the end of a relationship and the feelings of loneliness that this fact creates.[3] Unexpectedly, this song turned into a great hit, to the point that it was recorded a promotional video for it with the participation of some popular actresses such as Emma Suarez and Kiti Manver.[4]

The second single was the hard rock hit entitled "Pacto entre caballeros" (Deal between gentlemen),[5] which tells a weird, but real story in which Sabina was assaulted by three burglars, who after recognising his face, invite him to drink some beers in a bar. After having an unexpectedly good time, the incident ended with the performer promising them to write a song about them.[6] The following single entitled "Que se llama soledad" (Whose name is loneliness) is also another well known track of this album that also explores the same kind of feelings of loneliness and sorrow.[7] One verse of this track compares the loneliness with an "unexpected lover" who arrives at home when she's not wanted. In this song, Sabina experiments with other rhythms and styles such as Jazz and Blues that were not present in his previous work.

Unlike all his previous works which had ten tracks, this one only has nine songs, which makes this album, the shortest one of Joaquín Sabina's trajectory.

Hotel, dulce hotel turned, till then, into Sabina's most successful album selling more than 400.000 copies only in Spain. Thanks to this release Joaquín Sabina turned into a superstar and into one of the most renowned singer-songwriters in Spain. Thanks to the success of this record, his popularity also started rising in Latin America, where he started giving his first performances.[8]

• Hotel dulce hotel in Joaquín Sabina's official website.