RICKY MARTIN, “PERDIDO SIN TÍ”

19th September, 1998

Wiki | Video

It's a good measure of how much more accomplished a pop performer than his immediate peers Ricky Martin was that this song, a slow ballad based in modern R&B forms, is far more beautiful, superbly phrased and emotionally affecting than anything Enrique Iglesias, who was still singing as though he thought vocal constipation equaled passion, could have hoped to achieve at the time. Some of that, of course, is pure genetic fortune: very few people could sing as quietly and gently as Martin does in these verses here and still have it sound so smooth. Technique counts for a lot, but the quality of the instrument is the difference between pleasure and ecstasy.

The song itself is a sigh of unresolved longing. The title translates to "lost without you," and while the loss Martin expresses is romantic, there are suggestions -- not least in the video -- that it's corporeal as well; that the mourning is not just for lost love, but a lost life. The English-language murmurs in the post-chorus ("I love you; I need you") are haunting in how much is held back in them.

The production does some of the work here, a slow rush of smooth bass, lite breakbeats, and glossy chords, as familiar to adult-contemporary listeners of the 90s as an old shoe, but finessed extraordinarily well. But it's the hushed male chorus (I believe it's simply Martin multitracked) that makes the most emotional impact, circling in increasingly tighter chants that smartly mirror the way that we respond to death or other trauma, the way repeated thoughts circle unceasingly, unresolvingly, in our minds. It's one of the most understatedly lovely ballads we've yet seen; and it's also, despite the ache at its center, one of the most comforting.

GLORIA ESTEFAN, “¡OYE!”

5th September, 1998

Wiki | Video

If it's possible to draw conclusions about long-term trends in Latin pop from the very top of the Billboard Latin chart (a very shaky proposition), it might be useful to consider Gloria Estefan a bellweather. On the cusp of the 90s, she pointed to the overwhelming preponderance of adult contemporary that would make up the majority of the decade's number ones; and four years later she predicted the revitalization of traditional roots music that would be the major thrust of the decade's second half. Now, as the 90s wane, she returns with the first #1 to invest in modern club music since José Luis Rodriguez' "Baila Mi Rumba" in 1989. This is rather a large hint as to the direction in which Latin pop (or indeed all pop) is headed; but no spoilers.

But "¡Oye!" (listen!) also positions itself in the newly vital salsa current, as jump-started in this travelogue by Marc Anthony; one of the repeated refrains is "mi cuerpo pide salsa" (my body wants salsa), and the production connects the dots between Nuyorican salsa and Detroit house, never more explicitly than when the electric piano beats out a steady melodic rhythm. As a piece of dance music, it's wonderfully and characteristically inventive, balancing the steady bass 4/4 required for modern dance music with trad mambo (which is to say swing) horn charts, Cuban percussion, and call-and-response gritos (from, I belive, Emilio) that urge a physical response.

The Estefan machine was by now world-conquering, of course — Gloria's only real peer at this point was Madonna — and the slickness and efficiency of the production is a little breathtaking even today. 1998 is, it's worth noting, when the Loudness Wars began to heat up in earnest, which means that from the perspective of 2012, it's when everything begins to sound completely modern, mastered at an ear-popping volume which lets you feel the bass in your gut even through tinny Apple buds.

The final marker of modernity is the fact that the video linked above is a remix. The parent album, Gloria!, was mostly in English, and the original Oye! (the video's here) has English-language verses. This is the Pablo Flores Spanish Mix, which is only slightly different (the clubby synths were Flores' addition — he's been the Estefans' in-house mixer and remixer since the 80s), and as far as I can tell this was the version that got playlisted on Latin radio. (It's the one included on her Spanish-language greatest hits package, for instance.) As this travelogue slowly catches up to the present, and artists continue to record and release multiple versions of their songs in order to maximize revenue streams, I'll have to make more of these judgment calls as to which version to feature on the blog. Which in this case isn't much of a big deal; both versions are fantastic.