Published on Jul 17, 1997
The death of this popular Tejano singer left many questions, but
the one I’m most interested is: could she have done it? Could she
have cut up the non-Latin charts without the wide-spread publicity
of her death? It’s easy to say
Dreaming Of You was a fluke just as it’s easy to say it was
inevitable.
There are some obvious signs of superstardom; an original song
written by Diane Warren (not one of Warren’s more lyrical ones,
however), the inevitable showcase ballads and of course the most
obvious one: Trey Lorenz in the background of the first track. “I
Could Fall In Love” is pop with a refreshing Tejano lacing, proving
Amy Tan’s words that “it’s hip to be ethnic.”
All of the English tracks are ballads either classic or
midtempo, which again promotes monotony. A surprising and painful
flaw at the end of “Captive Heart” shows that she is making a
mistake many popular singers today are making; exerting too much
throat is a one-way ticket to voice destruction. The flaw is never
heard again, but an uncertainty lingers in the listener’s mind.
Once you get over the English tracks, the Spanish tracks begin.
Half of the songs have her singing in Spanish and many of them were
written-produced by her father/manager which kills a lot of
diversity and makes the sound wear out quicker, but not without
making some statements first.
“Amor Prohibido” is a seamless track and reading the lyrics,
makes me wonder about her father; they go something like “who cares
what your mom and dad will say / here the only thing that matters
is our love”. It shows that Mr. Quintanilla is a professional,
albeit over-influential.
The most impressive track on the entire album is “El Toro
Relajo”, which switches conventional man-woman roles and has Selena
singing as a toreador (wait; isn’t that a type of vampire? Just in
case, I mean “toreador” as in bull-tamer). “Look out, here comes a
crazy bull / he is crazy / hide behind the fence, my love / he is
coming fast”. The track is short, amusing, and dedicated.
Due to a shameful lack of knowledge of Tejano terminology, I
shall call the more upbeat tracks “dance tracks.” A track that
utilizes the rythmic nature of Spanish, namely “Techno Cumbia” is a
little underproduced in a bad way but Selena compensates the lack
of background beautifully. The other dance tracks share this
underproduced quality but even Selena’s fill-in technique could
only be used once.
Despite the bilingual material,
Dreaming Of You has a problem with coherence (too much of
it) and although Selena does her best with the material she has,
she needed to hook up with a producer who can bring her ambiguity
to full potential. Such producers are rare, true, but such
producers are a prerequisite for divadom and it has been done
before. The sad thing, however, is that the point is null; and one
can only wonder.