DAVID BISBAL, “¿QUIÉN ME IBA A DECIR?”

28th October, 2006

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We interrupt your regular Latinoamericano programming for a three-week interpolation of furrowed-brow idol pop from Spain. David Bisbal first gained attention on the peninsula as the runner-up of the first season of Operación Triunfo (the Spanish edition of Star Academy) in 2002. He kicked around for a while, failing to win the opportunity to represent his country at Eurovision, before embarking on the kind of pop career that everyone in those early days of reality singing competitions was allowed. Smartly, he hooked up with producer and songwriter Kike Santander, who had helped shepherd the solo Gloria Estefan and Alejandro Fernández to glory, and used that production savvy and his own imitation-soul singing to become Spain's biggest pop star, for a time.

We've not been troubled by him here, but not for lack of effort: his second single went to #3 on the Hot Latin chart in 2002. It would take his third album, Premonición, and its debut single, an ungainly and outdated mix of rock muscle, flamenco noodling, Bisbal's impassioned yowl, and electronic scratching, before he landed at #1 stateside.

The single's cover art makes all too obvious what early-2000s careers he's trying to emulate: Justin Timberlake's Justified fedora, Ricky Martin's Almas de Silencio tight t-shirt and Pietà pose. Unfortunately he doesn't have either man's charisma or lightness of touch, and the result is a self-aggrandizing plod that slides off the memory almost as soon as it touches it. The lyrics are a bombastic, hyperbolic description of doomed love, exactly in line with Hispanist tradition and with nothing whatever new to say.

Not to worry, we'll hear from Bisbal again: the Latin market loves nothing more than a handsome, self-consciously brooding man. Maybe the second time's the charm.

JENNIFER PEÑA, “EL DOLOR DE TU PRESENCIA”

24th August, 2002

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The hunger, as much spiritual as commercial, for a replacement for Selena had been an undercurrent of the Latin music industry since her death. One of the likeliest candidates was Jennifer Peña, whose first large-stage performance had been at a Selena tribute concert at the Astrodome in 1995, when she sang "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" at eleven years old. She was already being managed by Selena's father; her debut album as a singer fronting Jennifer y los Jetz,  would be released the following year.

But like Selena herself, her career was less one of meteoric success than of constant work, slow movement forward, and gradual leveling-up. Libre, released in 2002 when she was eighteen, was her fifth album, but the first attributed entirely to her name and also the first after jumping from EMI, where the Quintanillas had signed her, to Univision, which had also broken Selena widely in 1993. She retained the cumbia sound which was her signature, but with production from Rudy Pérez and Kike Santander, aimed more squarely at the broader Latin Pop market.

It worked, clearly. "El Dolor de Tu Presencia" (the pain of your presence) is both a lush r&b ballad and a skanking cumbia jam, with pure pop harmonies and a bassline that won't stop. Although it was written by Rudy Pérez, it's very much a teenager's song, moaning about how the boy she's in love with is in love with her best friend, tearing their friendship apart and causing her pain. Still, it's smartly produced and sung with a warmth older than her years.

A power-ballad pop version, all swelling strings and crashing drums, was also released, which no doubt had a lot to do with bringing it to #1 (cumbia remained popular on the border, but not necessarily in the larger US Latin Pop market), but the cumbia rendition made the video, which cuts shots of her mooning over the love triangle with shots of her dancing in front of her cumbia band, acknowledging that after all, everything's a performance.

CRISTIAN CASTRO, “AZUL”

30th June, 2001

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It's been four years since Sr. Castro last troubled the top spot of the chart, and glancing forward, he won't do so again for another four. He's been an intermittent presence since 1993, never distinguishing himself with a great song or embarrassing himself with a terrible one: his middle-of-the-road instincts mean that even when the arrangement is modern or inventive his performance is never more than agreeable.

"Azul" starts off sounding as though it might be a breath of fresh air: an honest-to-gosh rock song! maybe a little thin-sounding, but... no, it settles immediately into a mid-tempo chug, and it turns out the rock guitars and drums are just an arrangement, a way of distinguishing a generic love song by sound, not by genre. It could just as easily have been backed by electronic music, or orchestral pomp.

The song, like its parent album, was co-written and produced by long-time Estefan associate Kike Santander, but while I've generally appreciated his touch on the work of Alejandro Fernández, "Azul" just ends up sounding stodgy and out-of-date, the guitar heroics just imitating an older decade's classic rock imitators. In some of the more ballad-heavy doldrums of the 90s, I might have embraced this as a breath of fresh air; but the millennial era has raised my expectations.

"Azul" means blue, but the connotation of sadness which the color has in English is nowhere in this lyric: it's an uncomplicated love song, the blue that of a cloudless sky and calm sea. But "Azul" is also a woman's name: which makes any search for thematic coherence in color symbology fruitless. There's no deeper meaning: the song's pleasures are all on the surface.

GISSELLE, “JÚRAME”

12th August, 2000

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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.

ALEJANDRO FERNÁNDEZ, “YO NACÍ PARA AMARTE”

18th July, 1998

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Three singles from the same album, three number-one hits — this is Enrique Iglesias levels of success, and it's worth taking a moment to step back a bit from the churn of the chart and survey the landscape. The Hot Latin #1 spot has had its dominant artists, of course — Luis Miguel is not yet thirty in 1998, and hardly to be counted out — but the totalizing effect that the new generation (Iglesias, Fernández, and soon enough Marc Anthony, Ricky Martin, and one still unheard voice) is having is unprecedented. From the perspective of 2012, it looks very much like a bubble, like so much else in the late 90s, from Bill Clinton's Pax Americana to the first dotcom rush to unprecedented profits from sales of recorded music. But in 1998, 9/11, Web 2.0, and the cratering of the music industry are still far in the future. So is the splintering of the Latin market, which will make the coming decade fascinating in its novelty, diversity, and unpredictability; but here at the tail end of the twentieth century, the illusion of consensus reigns supreme.

"Yo Nací Para Amarte" does nothing to break the illusion. Alejandro Fernández, with the support of the Estefan machine, has been established as a major young heartthrob, and this third single — written, once more, by Kike Santander — is another swooning ballad in a classicist mode. A bolero, with sensitive finger-picked guitar leads and gently swaying percussion, it leans deliciously florid and is only kept in check by the extraordinary sensitivity of Fernández' vocal performance; listen to the infinitesimal pauses and controlled quaver on the final chorus, and you can hear why Luis Miguel, the reining king of vocal technique, may have cause to worry.

The floridity, then, is all in the lyrics — and they're extremely florid, as you might guess from the title ("I was born to love you"). A declaration of self-immolating desire as hyperbolic and quasi-religious as anything found in medieval courtly-love poetry, it's hard to take seriously as a statement made from one adult to another. From a literary teenager to what he imagines the girl he has a crush on to be, however — but that way lies unprofitable autobiography. Thank God for Fernández' coolly controlled interpretation; the slight irony and distance he provides is the only thing keeping the song upright.

ALEJANDRO FERNÁNDEZ, “NO SÉ OLVIDAR”

14th March, 1998

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Bolero, which originated (as a romantic music, anyway; the rhythm is originally Cuban) in the low-life cantina scene of Mexico City in the 20s and 30s, grew into a lot of different permutations as it became the standard pop language of Latin America from the 40s through the 60s; bolero costero (coastal bolero), bolero habanero (Havana bolero, fused with son, rumba, or U.S. rhythm and blues), bolero ranchero. Ranchero stars like Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete — icons of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema in the 40s 50s — sang boleros too, but with a ranchero, or pop-country, flavor.

All of that (limited understanding of) history is what comes to mind on the third single from Alejandro Fernández' Me Estoy Enamorado. The rhythm is definitely a bolero, but the horns erupt into the mariachi cadenzas typical of ranchero, and the sweeping strings belong to both traditions. As a committed fan of even the most banal musical cross-breeding, I was going to like this anyway; but Fernández' performance is exceptional. Big-voiced (naturally), but with uncommon sensitivity around the edges of the floridly sustained notes on the chorus. He's not quite at Luis Miguel's level, but (at least for the moment) he's not a bad replacement.

The song itself lets him down a little. Sure, it's got the appropriate sweep and holds together well melodically (you wouldn't expect anything else from Kike Santander), but the lyrics aren't top-shelf. "No sé olvidar como  lo hiciste tú" (I don't know how to forget the way you did it) isn't eternal love — or rather heartbreak — poetry, though the following image ("tú has quedado clavado en mi pecho como si fuera ayer," you are still stuck in my chest as if it were yesterday) is at least memorable. It hardly matters, of course, with that swaying rhythm and those swirling strings and the plaintive guitar lines and those pealing horns and above all Fernández' masterful voice ... but third singles are third singles for a reason.

ALEJANDRO FERNÁNDEZ & GLORIA ESTEFAN, “EN EL JARDÍN”

27th December, 1997

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Our last duet was between aging superstars Juan Gabriel and Rocío Dúrcal, who were reviving the great 19th-century tradition of the son ranchero. Alejandro Fernández is quite literally of the next generation (his father was Dúrcal's exact contemporary), and Gloria Estefan, though more than ten years his senior, still plays young in the right light; the throwback tradition preserved here is the bolero of the 40s and 50s -- and Cuban bolero rather than the more noir-y Mexican version. Fernández had relied on the Estefan machine to get hits, and they came as a package; songwriter Kike Santander, producer Emilio Estefan, and La Gloria, now on her eighth appearance in these pages. (This, incidentally, now makes her the female Latin artist with the most number ones as of 1997, beating Ana Gabriel's record of seven.)

"En El Jardín" (in the garden) is a sweet song, with lovely string-ensemble decoration, and tasteful accordion and trumpet solos punctuating the proceedings. It's a love song, of course, and for once an uncomplicated one without recriminations or self-aggrandizement: things were bad, nothing gave me lasting pleasure, everything was a disappointment... and then there was You.

The transformative power of love is a perfectly ordinary subject for song, and Santander's lyrics are only notable for keeping a pretty tight leash on the central metaphor of the "jardín de mis amores" (the garden of my love), which had withered, but flourishes now under the new regime. Fernández and Estefan sell it well, particularly Fernández, whose fine voice and an excellent command of phrasing would be a pleasure in any context, but it does drag a bit, particularly when they restate the second verse and full chorus after the trumpet solo; a smart program director would no doubt have long since faded it out.

Where Gabriel and Dúrcal were presenting (even if unwittingly) something of a swan song, Fernández is just declaring his arrival, and Estefan establishing herself as the dominant female voice in the field. They respect the conventions -- but with this song, 1997 is over, and things are going to start to change rapidly.

ALEJANDRO FERNÁNDEZ, “SI TÚ SUPIERAS”

18th October, 1997

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As if to prove that Enrique Iglesias isn't the only son of a famous Latin singer of the 70s and 80s who can command attention, respect, and screaming devotion, here's another extremely recognizable last name. Although we did, if briefly, meet Julio Iglesias early on in this chart voyage, we never directly encountered Vicente Fernández. This is more or less an effect of when the chart began; if it had been running in the 70s and early 80s, he would have waged serious siege to Iglesias' domination. Fernández pére was (and still is) the greatest ranchera singer of his generation and arguably of all time, comparable perhaps to George Jones' position in country music, and if his music didn't always have the transnational appeal of Julio Iglesias pére's, the devotion of his Mexican and Mexican-American fanbase was, and remains, a force to be reckoned with.

Fernández fils began his career following in his father's footsteps, with ranchera and mariachi albums in the early 90s, and had moderate-to-high levels of success. But in 1997 -- and I can't imagine he didn't have one shrewd eye on the stunning success of baby-faced Iglesias fils -- he joined up with Emilio Estefan and Kike Santander, the twin forces behind the throne de la Gloria, and recorded an album of modern bolero, not unlike what Luis Miguel has been doing, but more dynamically arranged. If he was attempting to challenge Enrique for top-of-the-chart supremacy, it worked: "Si Tú Supieras" ("if you knew") was the biggest Latin hit of the second half of 1997, with Fernández' strongest advantage over Iglesias -- his polished, resonant voice -- front and center.

The song itself is only so-so; a languid bolero with flamenco touches on the guitar, it's a ballad of romantic longing, as the title suggests. The most remarkable thing about it is the chorus, in which he expresses a desire "para sembrar mil rosas nuevas en tu vientre" ("to plant a thousand new roses in your womb"), an arresting image that (though I believe it's a spin on an existing Spanish idiom) has become something of a touchstone for online Hispanophone flirtation. It's a strong production, as you would expect from the Estefan machine, and if Fernández still sounds a little formal, a country Mexican singer feeling stiff in these city Miami duds, he'll doubtless grow into them.

GLORIA ESTEFAN, “ABRIENDO PUERTAS”

21st October, 1995

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This song begins what, scanning the horizon, looks like becoming a semi-annual tradition: another Gloria Estefan album, another Gloria Estefan number-one single. After having thoroughly ingratiated herself to the Latin Pop audience with Mi Tierra (the album that produced three chart-topping songs), she'll never again go without that audience's appreciation for her work — at least as of press time. And she repays that appreciation with some of the most joyful and glorious music we've yet encountered in this travelogue.

"Abriendo Puertas," as even a Sesame Street-level Spanish education should tell you, means "opening doors," and the light, scattered-tempo vallenato rhythm of the song reiterates the dance-yrself-free message of the lyrics, which on the chorus run something like "And we're opening doors, and we're closing wounds/Because in the new year we're going to live life/And we're opening doors, and we're closing wounds/Step by step down the path we're going to find our way." It's the sort of pleasingly universalist message that could, frankly, be a hit at any time, but in the fall of 1995 it perhaps inevitably recalled the great grief of that year (at least as far as US Latin Pop fans were concerned), and its call to get up and dance anyway, to tear down barriers and dismiss failure as a lie, sounds both thrilling and, well, healing.

That vallenato rhythm is worth remarking on: it's a close cousin of the cumbia rhythm that Selena exposed us to, with similar origins in the mixed-race cauldron of coastal Colombia, and the guitar/accordion combination (unrelated to the similar combination in Mexican norteño) is one of the genre's trademarks. Perhaps unusually for the highly-vertically-integrated Estefans, the song was written and arranged by Colombian songwriter/producer Kike Santander, who will be a name to remember in the years to come, as the late 90s fade into the 00s.

Still, Gloria and producer husband Emilio, ever the ambassadorial multiculturalists, make a point of letting the opening guitar sound not only tropical but African — a hint, perhaps, of Congolese rumba echoing back to her own native Cuban rhythms? — and mix the rest with salsa horn charts, funky urban bass, Afro-Cuban percussion, and a call-and-response chorus that could have grown out of any of the above, but which in this travelogue is a Gloria Estefan hallmark. They don't call themselves the Miami Sound Machine anymore — they're bigger than Miami, and far more eclectic than any Sound Machine — but she's had the same band her whole career, and they've kept up with her every swerve and wild goose chases. If she sounds now content — like she could just make variations on this record for the rest of her career and not miss a thing — she has perhaps earned it. How many other openers to fifteenth albums sound so irrepressibly joyful?