DANIELA ROMO, “DE MÍ ENAMÓRATE”

20th December, 1986

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This is an epochal moment in Hot Latin history: the first time that a song associated with a telenovela has topped the chart. The telenovela in question, El Camino Secreto, starred Daniela Romo in her breakout role as — well, the details hardly matter. I haven't seen it and neither have you (unless you have, in which case feel free to enlighten us all), but word on the Internet is that El Camino Secreto (lit. "the secret road") was extraordinarily popular as 1986 came to a close, and made Romo a star.

She had been a jobbing Mexican pop singer since the late 70s (her biggest influence was apparently Rocío Dúrcal, to bring our abbreviated version of 1986 full circle), and had had the occasional hit, but it was this song, this telenovela, and this album, "Mujer De Todos, Mujer De Nadie" ("everybody's woman, nobody's woman"), which, coming all together at once and reinforcing each other with a consistent vision of a woman in love aching for the object of her love to turn to her, created a potent pop symbolism around Romo, which she parlayed into long-term balladic success in the decade to come.

Her own biography reads a bit like the plot of a telenovela: the poor-but-beautiful daughter of unmarried parents, raised by her grandmother on the mean streets of Mexico City, idolizing a famous Spanish singer/actress, and slowly, agonizingly, achieving her dream of being a famous singer/actress herself. "De Mí Enamórate" ("fall in love with me") represents the happy finale of the story, in which the biggest pop star in the Latin universe, Juan Gabriel, presents her with a suitably dramatic song to sing over the credits of her very own telenovela.

Of the six songs which topped the Billboard Latin charts in 1986, half were written by Juan Gabriel; and this might be the best of them. Romo's ability to switch from the delicate sigh of the verses to the all-out foghorn of the chorus, then chirp the dancy post-chorus breakdown ties the frankly schizophrenic arrangement together. Structurally, it's not very different from "Yo No Sé Qué Me Pasó" — two verses, a superlong chorus, then repeat the second verse and the chorus, and fade, but Gabriel's instinct for flamboyant dramatics comes alive in the stunning three-octave climb which opens the chorus. In pop terms, it's a "defining moment," like the pause in Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" before she comes crashing in again with "AND IIIIIEEIIII, etc." Much as producers salivate over such moments, they're vanishingly rare in practice — so it's no surprise that Romo's performance set a standard for the Hot Latin charts which is still difficult to match; she was the first performer to spend fourteen weeks on top, and this song is still tied for sixth place in the length of its stay at number one.

Lyrically, it retains Gabriel's (and, let's be frank, Mexican pop's) tendency towards flamboyant all-or-nothing statements. The repeated verse translates: "Since I saw you/I've lost my identity/In my head lives/Only you and no one else/And it hurts me to think/That you will never be mine/Fall in love with me." The enormous shift of the chorus, though, functions as a counterweight: the lyrics move into the future tense, and she dreams of the epic perfection that mutual love will be. The majestic, soundtracky sweep of the chorus works for lines like "The day you love me I will be happy/And with pure love I will protect you/It will be an honor to dedicate myself to you/As God desires." The post-chorus breakdown, with its funky synth drops, only repeats the sentiment in an easy glide: "When you fall in love/With my love/I will at last/See the light for once."

It's that funky, cheery breakdown that sticks in the head, rather than the bombastic swell of the chorus. Perfect for a credits sequence easing us into the action. Y aquí viene Gabriela y su amor David; ¿cómo se harán este semana? . . .

JOSÉ JOSÉ, “¿Y QUIÉN PUEDE SER?”

15th November, 1986

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One thing that tends to throw a lot of people off about Latin Pop is that we Anglophones don’t necessarily always get the flow of the stuff’s history. We usually know the US/UK history by heart (jazz to swing to rock & roll to soul to rock to disco to hip-hop to electronic to now) but the generational signifiers of Spanish-language pop, not to mention the immense variety of source musics (which tend to be blurred together by modern pop production) can be opaque to us.

All of this to say, that while in this José José may seem indistinguishable, production-wise, from Juan Gabriel or Emmanuel, his presence here is a bit like Tony Bennett showing up in the pop charts alongside Madonna and New Kids On The Block. A classically-trained vocalist, José Sosa (he added the other José in tribute to his father, a failed opera singer) began in the 1960s as a jazz and bossa nova singer who dreamed of following in the footsteps of Sinatra and Mathis, and you can hear a bit of that precise, carefully-controlled technique deployed here over the Casio presets and drum pads and cooing backup choir.

It’s a slight song, nevertheless, and would be in any arrangement: a standard lament about a woman making eyes at another guy. The catchy if irritatingly repetitive chorus translates as “And who can it be, it sure isn’t me/The one who has erased me from her heart?/And who can it be, it sure isn’t me/The one who could have given her more love?” It was written by a flamenco guitarist from Spain, Paco Cepero, and I’d like to hear a traditional flamenco arrangement of it; but Cepero apparently produced this record and threw the same tinny 80s production on it that we’ve had on everything else so far, without even Juan Gabriel’s sense of dramatic flair to enliven the proceedings.

José José was forty when this was released, which is one of the things that fascinates me about the Latin chart, especially this early on, that veterans of the 50s and 60s, like he and Rocío Dúrcal, were sitting there cheek by jowl with flashy superstars like Gabriel and pretty boys like Franco and Emmanuel. To anyone whose primary experience of pop has been driven by the American charts over the past twenty years, it’s a far more egalitarian, multigenerational affair — though the standard American pop chart was too, Dionne Warwick and Steve Winwood rubbing shoulders with Madonna and Janet Jackson in 1986. The extreme youthification of all pop is still in the future, and the Latin charts will be no exception. Let’s enjoy José José while we’ve still got him, is what I’m saying.

FRANCO, “TODA LA VIDA” and EMMANUEL, “TODA LA VIDA”

11th October, 1986

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18th October, 1986

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It would feel ridiculous to give each of these gentlemen his own post with the same song — and virtually the same arrangement of the same song — so I've combined them.

The song in question is a Spanish-language rewrite of the 1984 Italian hit "Tutta la vita" by Lucio Dalla. Both Franco and Emmanuel have claimed to be the first to record and release it; the verdict of history has generally been on Emmanuel's side, as he's had the longer and more successful career. But Franco beat him to the number-one spot by a week, and they would spend four more weeks swapping back and forth; my guess is that the people who bought the single or requested it to be played on the air weren't too concerned with which version they got. (If I'm wrong, and there were organized phone-in campaigns and packs of girls whose hair was crisp with product bought as many copies of their favorite as they could find to keep the drama of who would be on top the next week alive, please correct me.)

Franco was a Cuban-born entertainer based in Miami attempting to orchestrate a pop career for himself. Emmanuel had been a Mexican child star in the 70s and made a significant name for himself in the 80s with big, weepy ballads; here, you can hear how his talent for emotionalism helps him to sell the song more passionately — feel the soul-like grit in his voice — than the slicker, more anonymous Franco.

It's a song that demands a certain amount of passion; the repeating musical figure that runs throughout is an echo of the insistence of the singer on getting his own way, on not being tied down, on the usual litany that men sing in songs like this. And this bird you'll never chain, etc. But the tension and release only end in crazed repetition: "TODA LA VIDA" ("all my life"). This song, too, is about a man who protests too much, as the closing lines admit. He has to keep telling himself that he values his freedom "coleccionando mil amores" (collecting a thousand loves) and "descubriendo puertas escondindas" (discovering hidden doors) because "tú [eres] al final la mas querida" (you are after all the one he loves).

It is, in fact, a better song than either Franco or Emmanuel are able to make it; and though I'd give Emmanuel a slight edge, with his Rod-Stewart-fronting-Roxy-Music performance, I can see why there was never a clear winner in the chart; it was al final pretty much the same record.

JUAN GABRIEL, “YO NO SÉ QUÉ ME PASÓ”

13th September, 1986

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Last time I compared Juan Gabriel to Bruce Springsteen; a more accurate summation of his impact on Latin Pop in the 1980s would be to call him an amalgam of Springsteen, Michael Jackson, and George Michael. (It was Gabriel's world from 1980 to the mid-90s; everyone else was just living in it.) Springsteen for the connection to rootsy tradition, Jackson for the unprecedented popularity; and Michael for the flamboyant soulfulness and sure instinct for the grand gestures of renunciation and demand that pop does so well. Let's take some time to break down the lyric:

The title phrase, the first line of the song, translates as "I don't know what happened to me" — followed by "but I don't love you anymore." So far, so standard; we're in the realm of breakup song, a sturdy genre with lots of history and plenty of directions to go from here. But his rhetoric turns in on itself. "It's better to end than to go on like this/It's very sad, I know/But what can I do if today I no longer feel love?" He's starting to protest too much; but the next line seals it: "Very suddenly it's over/It's better to tell the truth and not lie." He can't be with her any more; he's been living a lie.

It's probably best at this point to refer to Wikipedia:

Juan Gabriel, when he was asked about whether he was gay, replied "Lo que se ve no se pregunta, mijo. Yo no tengo por qué decirle cosas que a usted, como a muchas otras personas, no les interesa, yo pienso que soy un artista que he dado mucho con mis canciones". ("What is seen is not asked about, young man. I have no reason to tell you, nor others, things that are none of your concern, dear. I feel I am an artist who has contributed much with my songs").

Not exactly how I'd translate it (there's no justification for inserting that "dear"), but I think you get the idea.

But that's all verse. Now comes the straining chorus: "For a while you will suffer, I know/But someone will come and give you their love sooner or later/You will see the light again/And he will never wound you/Never humiliate you/Never deceive you/Never hurt your love." That's quite the confession; few pop songs this side of Elvis Costello are quite so savage about the singer's ability to hurt.

Then: "So that you are never left alone/You need to give your love sincerely/To put an end to the betrayals/You need to say goodbye first/As I do." He's just masterful here; the soulful cracking in his voice is added to with a sobbing ranchera tone, and again I'm reminded of George Michael's unique combination of generosity and self-absorption.

Then the mariachi horns come in, playing a vaguely calypso melody with a sea-breeze cleansing quality (even if they sound a bit plastic and readymade), and he sings the whole thing again. Sure, the instrumentation is cheap and mid-80s, but with a voice like that, especially when he reaches up for the grainy high notes in the chorus, it hardly matters.

We'll be coming across Juan Gabriel several more times in the course of this adventure before he founders on the shores of the twenty-first century (just as Bruce and Michael and George would do in the English-speaking charts). But this finds him at the peak of his powers, with the world at his feet — the Billboard Latin chart started up too late to capture him in his world-conquering phase — and that his thoughts had turned to endings and betrayals, with the song drawn from an album titled Pensamientos (lit. "thoughts"), shows a reflectiveness that doesn't generally appear in the stereotypes about Latin pop. Of course Latin ballads have always been full of broken hearts and tragedy; but something this self-aware, and this relatively early, remains cherishable.

ROCÍO DÚRCAL, “LA GUIRNALDA”

6th September, 1986

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Y así empieza nuestro viaje. Promisingly, I think, though I’m curious how people deeply invested in the then-current Latin pop scene heard this.

For example, did it sound old-fashioned? Rocío Dúrcal was a Spanish singer who had been a hitmaker since she was a teenager in the 50s; the success of this song (written and produced by the massively popular Mexican singer-songwriter Juan Gabriel) is a bit like Petula Clark having a US number one with the assistance of Bruce Springsteen. In 1986. Which now that I say it, sounds TOTALLY AWESOME, but not exactly what (say) a teenage Madonna fan would have wanted at the time.

The production here is very 80s, even very mid-80s, in that not-exactly-cutting-edge way that Latin pop tends towards, at least to Anglophone ears. The combination of the rather traditional oompah tempo and mariachi melody with the drum-machine-and-plastic-guitars instrumentation makes for a pleasant tension; and the trick of strategically placing waves-and-seagulls sfx for dramatic effect is a very classicist pop move which you don’t much hear anymore.

Speaking of narrative. The lyrics are pretty great, a kind of imagistic story of a woman who’s had her heart broken sitting on the beach, then meeting a totally awesome dude in a boat and going off with him into the sunset. The guirnalda of the title (lit. “garland”) is a wreath of bougainvillea flowers he gives her, and which in the heightened romantic language of the song, makes her his queen and makes her feel divine. It’s total romance-novel guff, even to the man’s green eyes (“clear like seas, like lakes”), but Dúrcal delivers it in the correct spirit, matching the breezy, pastel feel of the instrumentation with a mostly-light tone. You can hear more in her voice than she’s giving it, but this isn’t the place to pull out the full tragic-diva stops, and so she doesn’t.

So how is this as a beginning point? I like that it gestures towards the past, or anyway towards traditional Mexican music, with the stiff-backed rhythm and the flowing length of the melodic lines. It gives a bit of solidity to where we’ll be going from here: a rooted baseline for the multiple branches and weird dead ends that are the best feature of any chart voyage. But it’s also missing almost everything that excites me about current Latin pop — it’s not particularly danceable, there’s no real fusion of global musics aside from the synthesized production, and there’s no youth-oriented attitude whatever. It’s mom music, basically, which isn’t a bad thing, but also isn’t generally what we think of as pop. Which means, of course, that there’s nowhere to go from here but the future.