ALEJANDRO FERNÁNDEZ, “TANTITA PENA”

10th November, 2001

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The periodic interruptions of Alejandro Fernández into this travelogue have quietly become one of my favorite features of the journey since the late 90s: he is so rarely chasing new trends or crossover success, and his taste in production and songs tends to be so exquisite, that he can come as something of a relief from the more bombastic or kitschy elements that regularly wander into #1.

"Tantita Pena" (so little pity) revives another classic sound: but where Fernández had largely explored the intersection of ranchera and slow-moving, moody bolero before, at least as far as the #1 spot was concerned, he now combines mariachi structure and flamenco rhythms, with a montuno breakdown toward the end, combining Mexican, Andalusian, and Cuban traditions into a thrilling, explosive dance song too rhythmically complex for most gringos to bop to.

The lyrics are as old-fashioned but modernized as the music: the theme is the ancient one of the belle dame sans merci, but Fernández is no blameless, suffering victim: if she abandoned him and left him to die "sin tantita pena" (without a bit of pity), now he hopes to see her weep over the same sorrow, when he too will be sin tantita pena. The video almost lives up to the song: a surreal, Felliniesque celebration of traditional ranchera fashion, telenovela aesthetics, transatlantic Hispanic dance, and Mexican folklore, it's a monument to Fernández' ability to synthesize past and present, tradition and novelty, his intelligent singing, and his glamorous beauty.

Enrique Iglesias will continue to get the glory, but Alejandro Fernández will remain the thinking pop fan's second-generation Hispanophone star.

GLORIA ESTEFAN, “NO PRETENDO”

2nd August, 1997

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Probably the most telling indication of my taste-slash-white-boy-assumptions-about-"real"-Latin-music is the reaction I'm having to this run of songs compared to the run that immediately preceded it. Enrique Iglesias and Marco Antonio Solís, much as I've liked individual songs of theirs, are wearying in romántico ballad after romántico ballad slicked up with mid-90s adult-contemporary pop production. The ranchero classicism of Juan Gabriel/Rocío Dúrcal and the countryfied corridos of Los Tigres del Norte, leaning as they did on traditional Mexican sounds, the Latin American version of "roots" music like the blues, country and gospel, were much more agreeable to my classicist's ears. Which may be indication of an "authenticity"-driven double standard applied to Latin music — after all, in Anglophone music of the period, I like the Cardigans way more than, say, Keb' Mo' — or maybe it's just a numbers game. If it were one or two Enriques to every six or seven Tigres, I might be feeling the exact opposite.

I bring all this up because this is the third Latin-traditionalist song in a row that I'm really loving; though the traditionalism here isn't Mexican but Cuban, even Spanish (the flowing flamenco-like guitar lines), and I think I even hear Peruvian huayño (cf. "El Condor Pasa") in the shuffling rhythm. But I'm no expert, as the musicologists falling over themselves laughing at my disorderly tags can attest. And faithful traditionalism would surely be pointless without Estefan's effortless melodicism and Kike Santander's classic songwriting.

"No Pretendo" can be translated several different ways, from the obvious "I don't pretend" to "I'm not trying" to "I don't mean" — either way, the phrase ends most frequently with "ser tu dueña" (be your lady, in the aristocratic as well as the lover sense) and "hacerte mío" (make you mine), and the repeated disclaimers have the effect of enforcing humility: after saying at great length what she doesn't mean to be, when she says what she does want to be it's "el mano que se llene de quebranto, ser un poco el remanso donde muere el desengaño" (the hand filled with broken dreams, a bit of an oasis where disappointments die).

This is practically Victorian — the "ministering angel thou" version of womanhood, rejecting any stronger moral or emotional hold on her man — but the complexity and the sheer poetry of the full lyric make it go down easier, as does Estefan's eternally warm voice, pitched at just the right level of desperation to make the sentiment believable. And listen to the guitars: they're letting us know it's tragic, all right.

GLORIA ESTEFAN, “MI BUEN AMOR”

12th March, 1994

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The second number one in a row to begin with lush, cinematic strings; but where Ana Gabriel's strings are opulent but generic, evoking the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema without straying from her melodic template, Gloria Estefan is going for something more specific, letting the chords arrange themselves into contrapuntal patterns like something half-classical, and recording them closely, intimately. It's the difference between shared nostalgia, Ana inviting a stadium to get caught up in her voluptuous passion, and personal nostalgia, Gloria dreaming aloud in a café, or rather in a highly polished and superbly set-dressed simulacra of one.

Four years from now, English-speaking audiences will fall in brief but highly lucrative love with traditional Cuban music because Ry Cooder told them to. Mi Tierra barely registered with that audience; but it's not spoiling anything to note that the rootsy, rock-approved Buena Vista Social Club will not be making an appearance in these pages. They were taken up by NPR, Rolling Stone, and the rest of the rockcrit establishment because their music sounded raw, authentic, and effortless; but the Latin Pop audience preferred what pop audiences always have: romantic music, aspirational music, constructed music. Glamour is an essential element of pop, and the photo-negative glamour of gritty poverty is generally only attractive to people who aren't in danger of slipping into it.

"Mi Buen Amor" ("my true love") is about as romantic as it gets: the swoony strings, the careful guitar and bass figures, even the Afro-Cuban percussion striking at a dreamy pace, while Gloria at her most coolly glamorous sings a carefully-constructed son about deathless and unforgettable love. This is her farewell bow from the Mi Tierra album (at least as far as this travelogue is concerned), and it's a lovely tableau, frozen in sepia-toned pre-revolutionary time, by which to remember her.

At least until she returns, in other clothes.

GLORIA ESTEFAN, “MI TIERRA”

7th August, 1993

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Unlikely as it sounds, this is only Gloria Estefan's second appearance in these chronicles. She was far and away the most popular Latin act in the Anglophone market, having racked up a string of hits comparable to Madonna's or Janet Jackson's, at least for consistency if not longevity. I was barely paying attention at the time, and even I remember "Mi Tierra" as a sort of back-to-her-roots move after the campy strut of "Go Away."

But the Latin market was more astringent, demanding songs in Spanish, and Mi Tierra, at long last, complied. Her first all-Spanish-language album, it was less sleek and modern than much of the music she had been making, with or without the Sound Machine. Not that she had ever been particularly cutting-edge or critically acclaimed, rock purists recoiling from her dance-pop diva roots and diva fans skeptical of her sometimes corny sense of humor and often-weak material. Mi Tierra was that particularly rockist move, the back-to-roots record, and let her diva tear into some meaty emotions with mature sensibilities and precise control, and she was rewarded for it in Grammies, sales, and the loving embrace of Latin Pop radio. For the rest of the 90s, Gloria Estefan will be a much more recurrent figure here — just as she begins to fade from sight in English-language pop.

The first single off the album, "Mi Tierra" ("my land") is practically a textbook in Cuban dance styles, beginning with a folk-African drumbeat and shimmying into a guajira, a son, a rumba, and finally, when the horns come in, puro salsa. The lyrics are perhaps the best set of lyrics we've seen to date on this journey, an impressionistic, fragmented, and emotionally charged immigrant's monologue. Estefan herself was born in Cuba but her family escaped to the US when Castro took power; she has not returned. The song is as much an exile's song as an immigrant's, full of longing for the beloved homeland and musical reverie, but as she works her way up to the climax of the song (just before the horns come in), she grows more and more passionate: "sufro eso dolor que hay en su alma, aunque estoy lejos yo lo siento, y ¿un día regreso?" ("I suffer that pain born in [my country's] heart, though I am far away I feel it, and will I return one day?") The question hangs in the air for the briefest of seconds, before the answer is pounded out in three sharp hits: "Yo no sé." ("I don't know.")

Even the music dies away with the anguish of the unresolved, impossible-to-resolve question, before rushing back in harder and fiercer than ever, the horns blare in reckless joy, and even soothing disco strings flutter in. But the flutes still shriek unquietly, and the drums as frantic as ever: the call-and-response returns, as she cries out that she will remember, she will bear witness, her blood runs hot, she carries her tierra within her, and the voices ring back in response "mi tierra ... mi tierra ... mi tierra" in nasal unison after the fashion of traditional Latin American backing singers. The music rises again, the horns implacable, the disquiet overwhelming, and ends on the highest pitch of emotion possible, leaving the listener exhilarated but (if they have understood the words) emotionally drained.

It's a hell of a song, and I hear more in it every time I return to it. It was even a minor hit on various English-language charts, including in the UK and Australia; and I have to wonder why it's not talked about more. Is the Spanish language too daunting? The Cubanismo too specific? Estefan herself too easily dismissed as a pop lightweight? (I've done it myself, based mostly on the fact that everyone I knew who liked her in the 90s were women in their forties.) Consider this a call for Gloria Estefan Reappraisal Month. Or at the very least, point me to the places I've missed where people have given her her due.