Bunbury

Enrique Ortiz de Landazuri Izarduy (Zaragoza, 11 August 1967), more commonly known artistically as Enrique Bunbury or simply Bunbury, is a Spanish singer, rock musician, composer and writer, recognised for having been the singer of the legendary band Héroes del Silencio, described by the press as the band's leader, and for his successful solo career, which has made him one of the greatest legends of Spanish-language rock.

He began his musical activity in the early years of the 1980s as a bassist, playing with Apocalipsis, Rebel Waltz, Proceso Entrópico, Zumo de Vidrio and Niños del Brasil, although his breakthrough came as the vocalist of Héroes del Silencio, a hugely successful group considered by many to be one of the best bands in Spanish rock. After the group split in 1996, he launched his solo career the following year, establishing himself as a major figure in the Spanish and Spanish-American music scene.

The singer's solo career, unlike that of Héroes del Silencio, has been very different in terms of sound, maintaining the essence of rock while experimenting with various rhythms, such as electronic music and, in his early days, Arabic music, moving through cabaret music, rancheras, blues, flamenco and tangos, and even referencing genres such as salsa, milongas, boleros and cumbias on one of his most recent works, in which he pays tribute to Latin America.

In the list of "The 250 Best Ibero-American Rock Albums" published by the American magazine Al Borde, his album Flamingos ranks 81st, Pequeño 154th and Radical sonora 228th, in addition to his four studio albums with Héroes del Silencio: Senderos de traición (No. 5), Avalancha (No. 35), El espíritu del vino (No. 117) and El mar no cesa (No. 119).

Enrique Bunbury also appeared at No. 119 on the list published by Rolling Stone magazine in September 2009, as the only singer with two albums among the top ten most influential records of the last 50 years in Spain. The two standout discs were Senderos de traición (1990), in second position, and Flamingos (2002), in ninth position.

In 2004 he was named one of the most influential Spaniards by the newspaper El Mundo.

The artistic surname Bunbury derives from a character in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, as he himself has confirmed in various interviews and in his biography Lo demás es silencio, written by Pep Blay.

Bunbury has collaborated on several documentaries, most notably 72 horas... Y Valencia fue la ciudad, which depicts how a phenomenon that placed the city of Valencia at the social and musical forefront of those decades degenerated into the ruta del bakalao. The film, directed by Oscar Montón and produced by Juan Carlos García, includes unseen footage recorded in these nightclubs to "pay tribute to the Valencian night" and put an end to the cliché of "marginality" attributed to it. He has also explained, in several works, his past with Héroes del Silencio and his relationship with the other members of the band.