dtobias's Full Review: Baila y Canta Conmigo by Tatiana
While Tatiana's early albums were very popular in Latin America, they were never released on CD. This is logical enough, since at the time (the mid '80s), CDs were still considered a high-end audiophile format, so they were mostly used for "serious" music like classical and jazz, not "teen pop." This changed by the end of the decade, and by the mid '90s CDs were the dominant format. Some of the record companies' catalog albums were re-released later as CDs, but not all of them. As far as I know, Tatiana's first three albums, Tatiana, Chicas de Hoy, and Baila Conmigo, never got CD releases. Starting with the release of Un Lobo en La Noche in 1988, all her albums did get CD releases (both in Mexico and the United States). The only way to get CD versions of the songs from the earlier albums is through the various compilation collections that were released later. This unfortunately means that her early songs that weren't included in CD compilations are not very accessible, as most people don't have stereo systems capable of playing vinyl records any more, and the cassette versions of her early albums were cheaply manufactured and have poor sound quality.
Baila y Canta Conmigo, released in 1989, was the first of these compilations, with a title that resembles the earlier Baila Conmigo. There were other later collections of early Tatiana songs: 21 Black Jack had 21 tracks, Edicion Limitada topped that with 30 tracks on 2 CDs, and two more collections came out later: Lo Mejor de Los Mejores and Baila Conmigo (the latter confusingly named identically to one of her early albums, though its content was a collection of songs from several albums). That last collection came out in 1997 after her new career as a children's entertainer was in full swing, and was apparently an attempt by her former record label to cash in on her new popularity by re-releasing old material they still had the rights to. Unfortunately, all of these collections can be hard to find, especially in the United States.
The only one of those which is in Epinons' database is Baila y Canta Conmigo, so that's the one I'll have to review. It's got a decent selection of her early music, though some of the other collections have some pretty good songs that were left out of this one, like "No Soy Muñeca de Piedra" from the Chicas de Hoy album (a very catchy tune). Anyway, here are the songs on this CD; I've also managed to see the music videos for some of them (shown on various TV shows in the '80s; I got a videotape of them from somebody who taped them back then), so I'll comment on them as well.
1) Peligro en El Elevador (Danger in The Elevator): This is from the El Lobo en La Noche album, which is more hard-rocking than her earlier ones. I reviewed the song and its video already in my earlier review of that album.
2) El Amor No Se Calla (The Love is Not Silent): This is a song from her self-titled debut album. It showed she had a very good singing voice even at this early age (about 14), though she got better yet as an adult.
3) Chicas de Hoy (Girls of Today): One of her biggest hits, and the title track to her second album. She released a new version of this song in January, 2000 on her Vamos a Jugar album. I've mentioned both versions on my reviews of those albums. It's a pleasant song, though the 2000 version seems more energetic and the older one slower and more restrained. The video seems to have been filmed at a water park, showing her on waterslides, diving into pools, and otherwise getting wet, with various odd camera angles giving close-ups of her mouth and other body parts.
4) Un Lobo en La Noche (A Wolf in The Night): The title track of her fourth album; I reviewed it in that album's review.
5) Me Voy a Enamorar (I am Going to Fall in Love): From her Chicas de Hoy album, which featured light, pleasant, "bouncy" pop.
6) Cuando Estamos Juntos (When We Are Together): One of her two duets with former Menudo member Johnny Lozada. These songs were actually done as part of a campaign to encourage abstinence from teen sex. ABC's 20/20 newsmagazine did a story on it, interviewing Tatiana and Johnny. The message was apparently too controversial for most Latin singers to tackle at the time, but Tatiana didn't shy away from it, and it became a big hit, though I don't know if it actually had any effect on the high birth rate of Latin countries. The lyrics explain why she is telling her boyfriend they need to wait until they're more mature, when they'll have more time to explore their love. The video features each of them dancing with a life-size manikin resembling the other, until the very end when they put down the dolls and embrace one another (and the cast-aside dolls seem to be starting a romance of their own at the very end). It's a catchy tune, so its pop success might not have anything to do with the message it was trying to push. You can still find some political sites on the Web that denounce the whole campaign, including Tatiana's part in it, for trying to "undermine Latin culture" by reducing their birthrate, though the song doesn't actually say anything that's against any political or religious position, and was approved at the time by groups ranging from Planned Parenthood to the Catholic Church.
7) Bandolero (Bandit): From her third album, Baila Conmigo, when she was still doing bouncy pop, though sometimes a little edgier-sounding than on her preceding album.
8) Mario: Another song from the Chicas de Hoy album, which I've already reviewed.
9) Fuerza Chicos: This title is kind of hard to translate when you're not fluent in Spanish, since both of the words can be of several parts of speech. "Fuerza" means "force", either as a verb (in third-person singular) or a noun (feminine singular). "Chicos" means "boys" as a noun (masculine plural) or "small" as an adjective (also masculine plural). So who's forcing whom? The grammatical gender and number don't seem to match, unless the subject of "Fuerza" is an unstated "Usted" (which takes a third-person singular), so the title means "You force boys". Force them to do what? Well, I'm sure plenty of English phrases give Spanish speakers just as many fits when they try to translate them. May the Force be with you. Anyway, this is another of the songs from the Baila Conmigo album, bridging the gap between the light pop of Chicas de Hoy and the harder stuff of Un Lobo en La Noche.
10) Somos Hermanos (We Are Brothers [Siblings]): A duet with her brother, Juan Ramon Palacios. Its title reveals the linguistic sexism of Spanish, as the masculine "Hermanos" (brothers) is used describing siblings of mixed sex. The video is pretty amusing, showing the two in sibling rivalries, teasing and being annoyed and embarrassed by one another, but showing that they love one another anyway. It's filmed at what seems to be the house they lived in; if it's their real home, it shows they were pretty well-off, as it's a palatial estate with a large swimming pool.
11) Baila Conmigo (El Juego de Simon) (Dance With Me: The Game of Simon): Along with "Chicas de Hoy", this is one of the two songs she re-made later during her children's entertainment career. Since it's really a "children's song" (adapted from a "Simon Says" song from the '60s) to begin with, her use of it in her earlier pop career is sort of "foreshadowing" of her later direction. This early version (the title track of her third album) features what sounds like a Caribbean steel drum, which fits in pretty nicely with the tune. The later remake (from her Superfantástico album) has a richer, more sophisticated musical sound, but no steel drum.
12) No Tengo Novio (I Don't Have a Boyfriend): Another song from Un Lobo en La Noche, which I've already reviewed.
13) Querido Amigo (Dear Friend): Another song from her debut album. Her vocals are fairly light, but the music has a bit of an ominous sound to it.
14) Reportaje (News Report): Also from her debut album, where this was the first track. It's actually harder-edged than I expected for her early work; she could actually get pretty "rocking" even that early, though most of her early stuff was lighter.
15) Detente: The other duet with Johnny Lozada made as part of the anti-teen-sex campaign I mentioned earlier. "Detentar" means "to detain", with "Detente" being the third-person imperative; I think she's telling him to stop and wait instead of going too far. It's not related to the diplomatic word "détente", which is from French, not Spanish, and refers to a reduction of tension. The Spanish word doesn't have an accent mark, and I have to keep fighting MS Word which tries to put it in.
OK, that's probably about all the Tatiana reviews I'll be able to do here unless Epinions finally adds a few missing albums (mostly from her later adult phase) that have supposedly already been added to the Muze database, but due to an Epinions bug, haven't shown up here yet.
Tatiana News: Her latest album, Acapulco Rock, has just been released in Mexico, but won't be out in the U.S. until early next year. She's redesigned the set and costumes of her TV show to a '50s-'60s rock-'n'-roll theme to match the style of the new album, but Americans won't get to see it unless Univision comes to their senses and puts her back on their schedule. And she's pregnant with her second child, due around June. See the latest Tatiana updates in the fan site I maintain at www.chicadehoy.org.
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