Review #479: Amor Prohibido, Selena
#479: Amor Prohibido, Selena
I took Spanish all through school, and therefore watched J. Lo play Selena in the seventh grade. For some reason, I most vividly remember the part where her father gets mad at her for wearing a bustier. Which apparently was fairly accurate!
Selena had a short, fascinating life. She was born in Texas, and here’s a wild fact: the doctor who delivered her was politician Ron Paul. Crazy! She was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness and was singing with her family band in her father’s restaurant as early as nine years old. And her father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr., a former musician himself, went on to manage Selena’s career. She became a Tejano (or Tex-Mex) musician — an uphill battle for a woman in a male-dominated genre. But of course, she quickly became a star.
Selena’s band included her brother, A.B. Quintanilla III, who also wrote many of her songs. And in 1989, Chris Pérez joined as a guitarist. Pérez and Selena quickly fell in love, much to her father’s chagrin, who was so irate over the relationship that he went as far as to fire Pérez. But they ended up marrying in 1992, hoping that her father would be forced to accept the union. And ultimately the bid worked — Pérez was rehired. Selena said that the title song was written about her grandparents’, who fell in love across social class. But it’s hard not to read “Amor Prohibido” as anything but a song about her own complicated love story. I loved learning that she ad-libbed the Oh baby.
Such a pop music instinct, despite the fact that this is one of the bestselling Latin albums of all time. But Selena has such range, she takes a traditional genre and elevates it to a completely new level. Sure, she sounds sweet and playful and charming on the story-driven “El Chico Del Apartamento 512” and the breathless “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” a song that mimics the beat of an excitable heart. Elsewhere, she proves that she can sing over traditional Mexican beats (see the slow mariachi “No Me Queda Más” and the polka “Tus Desprecios”) and add some modern flair as well — see “Si Una Vez,” where Selena sings with a punk rock rasp that would put Joey Ramone to shame.
Pérez was a metalhead, and you can feel his influence on this record. “Cobarde,” Spanish for coward, is punchy; and on “Techno Cumbia,” she practically sounds like a heavy metal singer, with a nasty edge to her voice that’s practically wearing a leather jacket. And on “Ya No,” Pérez unleashes a kickass guitar solo for the ages.
But a year after this record was released, Selena was murdered. Yolanda Saldívar, president of Selena’s fan club and also the manager of one of her boutiques, was fired after she was found embezzling Selena’s money. When the two attempted to work it out, Saldívar shot her. She was only 23. Who knows what kind of music she’d be making today?
Wild Card: What the hell is a Pretenders cover doing on this record? I love “Back On the Chain Gang,” but I just might love the Spanish language “Fotos y Recuerdos” even more.
