There might exist, somewhere in the fractal infinity of timelines, a universe in which Gisselle had Jennifer Lopez's career and vice versa. (They are exact contemporaries, and were both New York-born Puerto Rican dancers who branched out into acting and music.) But in this universe, Gisselle has always been an also-ran, with a moderately successful merengue pop career from the mid-90s that never leveled up the way so many of her generation did around the turn of the century: this is her sole appearance on this travelogue, and her recording career will peter out in the next half-decade. As a singer, as a sex symbol, and as a celebrity newsmaking machine, she was always overshadowed.
"Júrame" is a perfectly adequate tropical ballad, with puffs of trumpets nostalgic for the 60s and 70s easy-listening Latin Pop past. It was written by Kike Santander, the longtime Estefan associate, and has the whiff of a minor Gloria album track, although apparently he borrowed enough of María Méndez Grever's classic bolero of the same title that she got a credit; I can't hear any similarity. The song did well enough during the late summer of 2000, in the midst of Son By Four's intermittent but implacable reign, that it hit #1 for a week; and then Gisselle returned to the oblivion to which non-#1 hits are consigned by this blog.
It's a shame the her 1997 stomper "Quiero Estar Contigo", for example, didn't make it four spots higher; but the charts, and especially the top of the charts, don't memorialize the best of their era, or even the most representative: only what sold, or what got played, the most in a given week. So congratulations to Gisselle, and onwards.
"Júrame" is a perfectly adequate tropical ballad, with puffs of trumpets nostalgic for the 60s and 70s easy-listening Latin Pop past. It was written by Kike Santander, the longtime Estefan associate, and has the whiff of a minor Gloria album track, although apparently he borrowed enough of María Méndez Grever's classic bolero of the same title that she got a credit; I can't hear any similarity. The song did well enough during the late summer of 2000, in the midst of Son By Four's intermittent but implacable reign, that it hit #1 for a week; and then Gisselle returned to the oblivion to which non-#1 hits are consigned by this blog.
It's a shame the her 1997 stomper "Quiero Estar Contigo", for example, didn't make it four spots higher; but the charts, and especially the top of the charts, don't memorialize the best of their era, or even the most representative: only what sold, or what got played, the most in a given week. So congratulations to Gisselle, and onwards.
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