7.6.10

LOURDES ROBLES, “ABRÁZAME FUERTE”

1st December, 1990


Lourdes Robles is a Puerto Rican singer who stumbled around the Latin Pop market for a while in the 80s and early 90s, managed a few decent-sized hits, and is today so far removed from the spotlight that she doesn't even have an (English) Wikipedia page. (And the Spanish one is three sentences long.) "Abrázame Fuerte" ("hug me hard") looks set to be our only encounter with her, and I could wish it was under better circumstances; at the close of a long string of similar-sounding ballads, her gospelly sway does too little to distinguish itself and seems destined to melt into the mass.

The first listen through, I thought that perhaps I could get some mileage out of claiming that the production is slightly more atmospheric than what we've been seeing lately, but subsequent run-throughs have unconvinced me that that's the case. Her voice maybe plays off the production more, rather than powering through on its own force while the production churns away as strict accompaniment, but that's the kind of claim that's too general and could be made by well-intentioned ears about anyone else too.

So there it is: yet another ballad, this one rising to a sort of dramatic, choral crescendo, but not giving me the kind of urgency or oddness I look for in pop. Perhaps I should have put off writing this until I was in a better mood; but honest reactions in the moment are all I've ever been able to successfully write.

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