As 1991 winds into its final innings — one of the shorter Latin Pop years so far, thanks to the massive "Todo, Todo, Todo" and two Ana Gabriel songs — Rudy La Scala returns for a second at-bat in as many years. I'm not sure if I've changed or he has, but I find this much outing much more enticing than the last; his overemotional quaver and androgynous voice read less like baffling stylization and more like a function of the overdramatized passions of what turn out, on inspection, to be standard Latin Pop lyrics about "amores prohibidos" (forbidden loves; remember that phrase) and generalized longing.
The title translates as "why must it be," and La Scala's litany of foreordained dooms and inevitable anguishes visited upon those unlucky enough to fall into amores prohibidos is nearly as hyperbolic as his overwrought vocal style. I'll no doubt expand on the theme in later entries, but for now remember that "forbidden love" didn't (and doesn't?) necessarily have the "love that dare not speak its name" connotations of LGBT convention for a Latin audience; for an overwhelmingly conservative Catholic culture, any non-marital amor is prohibido. Which might be why it's so much sung about.
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