At 68 years old, El Rey de la Música Ranchera instantly became the oldest person to ever top the Hot Latin chart (and one of the oldest people to top a pop chart of any kind). My immediate suspicion was that this was a result of digital downloads being factored into the chart, but Billboard says that the Hot Latin chart was still airplay audience impressions-only at this point. As someone who was occasionally listening to Latin pop stations in Arizona who doesn't remember ever hearing it at the time, I have to wonder if that means that regional-format stations were just playing it around the clock, or if maybe it was a crossover in bigger markets (say in California and Texas). In any case, one of the legends of Mexican music appearing on this blog is reason to celebrate regardless of the metrics that got him here.
Twelve years after his son Alejandro first appeared here, only a few months after his music was first covered here, El Rey at last assumes his proper place at the head of the caravan. The song "El Último Beso" was first released on the 1997 album Para Siempre: in its video, Fernández sings astride a show-prancing horse, only occasionally flashing his million-watt smile. But the live album Primera Fila was released in December 2008, and its first single was a slower, more exquisite rendition of "El Último Beso" (the last kiss), and it was the popularity of that rendition on radio that pushed it to #1.
It was consciously designed to be a capstone on his career: Primera Fila was his 80th album (his first was issued in 1968), it was recorded as an intimate concert at the Vicente Fernández Gómez Arena in Guadalajara (which he owns), and it functioned as a greatest-hits compilation, including Mexican and other Latin classics he had never recorded before.
"El Último Beso" fits right in with that sense of classicism. Written by the legendary songwriter Joan Sebastian in a classic ranchera idiom, its opening lines are as brilliant in their evocation of an entire romantic history in a few words as any twentieth century country or r&b song's. "Si me hubieras dicho que era aquel nuestro ultimo beso/Todavía estaría besándote" (if you had told me that was our last kiss/I would still be kissing you). Fernández wrings all the pathos out of the song of regret that he can, and his voice, weathered as it is, is still strong and precise enough to shade it with the delicate lines of emotions he wants to. As the Hot Latin chart has moved away from traditional expressions of regional music into a more electronic, pan-Latin futurism, we've been hearing such stunning vocal technique less and less. (Q.E.P.D. Jośe José.) This one last wave of the charro sombrero before Vicente Fernández disappears over the horizon should be savored.
