Born in Colombia, Juanes (Juan Esteban Aristizabal) has achieved the high profile of a pop idol coupled with the esteem tendered to a cultural hero due to his thoughtful and courageous stance against violence and injustice. His sales have been stratospheric, his presence on Billboard and other charts prolonged; the multiple Grammy winner has also racked up a growing presence in the Anglo press and media. Juanes learned to play guitar from his late father and grew up surrounded by traditional forms like cumbia, bolero, and guasca, which he would later update and make his own. After youthful experiments with heavy metal (which live on in his affection for roiling electric guitar breaks), he moved to Los Angeles, where he reinvented himself as a singer-songwriter. His solo debut, Fijate Bien (Listen Closely), appeared in 2000, and each subsequent release was similarly fuelled by an ardent musical imagination, a gift for poetic, barbed but nonetheless conciliatory lyrics, and a tenor voice that sometimes recalls the heyday of Nuevo Cancion or a Latin John Lennon. On Vida...Es un Ratico (Life...Is a Moment), his fourth studio album, Juanes is once again revealed as a rare combination of guts and glamour, ardor and activism, beauty and brains. From the anthem-like title tune, to the tender, lushly orchestrated balladry of "Dificil," the accordion-fronted vallenato friskiness of "Tres," and the Santana-like conflagration of "Bailala," the momentum never flags. Fans of trad-based pop should snap one this up, especially as the limited edition package includes a DVD containing interviews and performance footage that can be viewed in either Spanish or English. --Christina Roden