Maná - Drama y Luz

Drama y Luz, Maná
Warner Music Latina, Mexico
Rating: 15
By Carlos Reyes

“My brother and my sister don’t speak to me,” sings James Blake in a broken, weeping voice in his 2011 anthem “I Never Learnt To Share.” With the exception of my twin, my brothers and my sisters (all in their 30s) don’t read Club Fonograma (and I honestly couldn’t care less). Before taking this review intro into a juicy Family Feud discussion, let me emphasize the fact that I see my siblings as my immediate references for people with questionable music taste. About a year ago, during a family reunion, I heard people singing in the kitchen. It was them, singing along to “De Musica Ligera.” Afterwards, they discussed how excited they were for their upcoming Phoenix concert. I scratched my head for a second, and there it was: that horrific moment when I confirmed what I already knew, that my dear siblings were the victims of music’s vile stream flow, of the family DJ entrepreneur, and of the local LatinPop FM playlist. Yes, my siblings were holding tickets for Latin pop culture’s most notorious social artifact, The Mana Syndrome.

Working under the same lazy (and still undeveloped) song composition that have made them “rock” superstars for decades, the band, led by Fher Olvera and Alex Gonzalez, brings yet another abominable record stuffed with misfires and unabashed Maná-isms. Drama y Luz, the band’s eighth studio album, sold over 47k copies in its first week, grabbing a Top 5 spot on the Billboard 200 chart and, in the process, becoming the stabbing and shameful blueprint of the Latin Rock arena band. Maná released their debut album in 1987, the year I was born, and have virtually made the same exact album over and over again without any signs of intellectual, structural, or technological progression. First single “Lluvia al Corazón” is “as if God was speaking to me,” says a top comment on YouTube. I’ll overlook the religious inquisition of such comment, and bash on the half-baked inspirational premise that’s ultimately cheap and catastrophic to its own agency. I couldn’t come up with any descriptive words to describe “Latinoamerica,” but that’s the song you’ll hear along with the review, and it’s clearly, the worst song of the year.

Unrelenting melodies without heads or tails, fatiguing adult contemporary hooks, and fudged idealisms of 2011 relevance is what you’ll find through Drama y Luz. Upcoming single “No Te Rindas” is a compromise between the band and its fans on not giving up. Needless to say, I gave up a long time ago. Maná surveys some music texture in “Vuela Libre Paloma” and pushes the right buttons in “El Verdadero Amor,” but they still only sound as good as The Stooges in that horrendous The Weirdness comeback album. For a seemingly social-politically conscious band, it seems they’re pretty indifferent to the creative world around them. In the end, the most interesting idea I could find among this motionless album comes from my own music allusion (and new social media-geekness). As pointed out by almost any mindful publication that has ever published anything on Maná, they’re so resourceful and nature-oriented that they’ve been recycling words in the absence of inspiration. I actually took notes in an attempt to sum up their career vocabulary into a 140-character tweet, but couldn’t. (Maná sucks the creative out of you).

There’s also some puzzling rationale at work if Maná thinks its listeners are on the verge of suicide. That’s a very scary thought considering my brothers and my sisters are fans. But are they really fans? My gut says no, they’re sufferers (not surfers) of the bigger picture and subjects of the mainstream cave. During that family reunion I decided to keep the “It’s SODA STEREO!” comment to myself, maybe as a way to punish them as they anticipated that song to show up during the concert (nothing more cruel than that). Their daughters and sons, however, do read this blog (please keep the secret). And stay away from your parents’ bad habits; you already know Mana isn’t the answer. Perhaps that recent news of Coldplay’s Chris Martin advising Maná not to ever sing in English was actually his scrupulous way to keep the band within our niche’s margins. But it’s too late. The Mana Syndrome is a world phenomenon, an overgrown pimple of our collective consciousness.

Video: Esteman - La Cosita Tropical (Acústico)

As we took not on our Panamerika show, Esteman is one of the names that could define 2010 for us. Perhaps the sound itself isn’t that appealing in terms of how we picture this year to sound like, but in mood and spirit Esteman is quite the glory (and the escapism). While Teleradio Donoso and their year’s anthem “Bailar y Llorar” helped us get through the recession last year, Esteban Meneses’ glamorous pop is one step from claiming its emancipation from the subliminal world we’re surrounded by. “No Te Metas A Mi Facebook” is a hit, but Esteman is no one-hit wonder. If only for “La Cosita Tropical” which is pure genius, the guy really knows how to carry his humor and crosses genres, culture, and identities in this hot upcoming single. This is an awesome cut from an acoustic session he recorded with his Esteband last December in Bogota. We’re in urgent need of legitimate popstars, he could be up for such title.

Jennifer Lopez - "Louboutins"

Jennifer Lopez is one tricky artist to analyze, her limited abilities are no secret but she’s got some very good people molding her music. Her albums never add up to much, but there’s always a single or two that make her look like a legitimate pop star. Her first albums go from vile to lame, but as opposed to her film career, her music has gotten so much better, except for her laughable Spanish-language effort Como Ama Una Mujer. Her last album Brave had not one but two awesome singles, “Hold It Don't Drop It” and “Do It Well”, we weren’t around that time but any of the songs would’ve shown up on our Best of the Year list easily.

Her new album titled Love? is set for a 2010 release with a very bland first single “Fresh Out The Oven” featuring Pitbull. But her performance of another song at the American Music Awards had at least half of our club chatting about it. Shakira was there too, but JLO was clearly determined to grab the attention, and she did. “Louboutins” is hot! It’s so bouncy and flashes on and off as a woman with high heels would walk to victory. By the way, this was produced by The Dream whose Love vs. Money is fantastic. “Boy, watch me walk it out, walk it out.”

She Wolf, Shakira

SHE WOLF, SHAKIRA
Sony, Colombia
Rating: 55
by Andrew Casillas

I guess I should start by saying that I’m one of Shakira’s most ardent supporters in the music-crit community. Her faux-poetry is capable of reaching grand, vivid expressions of romantic imagery. Her voice, while understandably grating for some, is one of the most distinctive and well-utilized tools in modern pop music. Her music is as eclectic as any Latin pop star this side of Café Tacuba’s Re. To me, she’s essentially Morrissey with a Prince fetish.

But that’s just in reference to her Spanish-language records, which are all varying levels of excellent. Since Shakira became the great lasting Latin pop star hope in 2001’s Laundry Service, there’s been a seemingly never-ending debate about to what degree her music has “suffered” since the transition to English. Some people love her awkward attempts at sarcastic quips (“I hope you don’t confuse my breasts for mountains,” etc.), some people think her music has suffered from “Anglo-ization,” others just don’t care as long as her music videos maintain the same level of, um, excellence.

But we’re not here to debate this (that’s what the comments section is for, folks). We’re here to discuss her new “crossover” album, She Wolf. Specifically, what a disappointment it is. It’s with a heavy heart that I report that this is Shakira’s least-inspired English-language album to date. The problems, you could say, start from the top, with the title track. I’m not usually the type of person to dismiss a song for its lyrical content, I’ve gotta say that the lyrics of this track completely derail any attempts at taking the song seriously (although “I'm starting to feel just a little abused/like a coffee machine in an office” is admittedly somewhat awesome). While it’s Spanish-language counterpart “Loba” (included here as a bonus track) is a whirlwind of sound coupled angry sexual politics, exemplified by the double-meaning of the title in her native tongue, the lyrics of “She Wolf” are merely clunky and gawky, like at 7th grader’s first attempt at poetry. I guess some of the credit/blame could be passed off to the song’s respective songwriters, Jorge Drexler for “Loba” and the guy from the Bravery for “She Wolf,” but Shakira’s too smart to let someone else take too much control of her music.

In fact, it’s her approach to collaborations that seems to submarine her attempts at improving her sound. While previously, she let Emilio Estefan, Gustavo Cerati, and Rick Rubin stay in the background as quality control men of sort, this time she allows John Hill, the Neptunes, and Wyclef Jean run rampant all over the record. What results is the loss of the “Shakira-ness” that makes her music distinctive. Listen to the Neptunes “Why Wait,” which has the Middle Eastern elements that Shakira has always deftly infused into many of her better songs, but are made bland by generic synthesizers. Or how “Good Stuff” tries too hard to sound like Crystal Castles with a club beat, when it could easily be a slice of Javiera Mena-like casual electro pop. And that’s not even mentioning the quickly forgettable and rudimentary “Men in this Town” or “Gypsy.” Oh, and as for the Wyclef-assisted “Spy,” I recommend just deleting that song from your iTunes as soon as you upload this record.

Luckily, Shakira always provides one nugget of hope on every one of her English albums. This time, it’s “Mon Amour,” a delicious little rocker that closes the English part of the album. Like previous standouts “Objection (Tango)” and “Timor,” this track is full of bite and vigor as Shakira portrays the “betrayed and pissed-off lover” persona to perfection. Lily Allen would kill for a song like this.

Overall, this isn’t a completely gawd-awful record; just a huge disappointment. Regardless of your personal feelings about her music, Shakira is an important figure in Latin pop’s evolution towards general acceptance, and we hope that she makes a record as essential and powerful as any of her Spanish records so the population-at-large can appreciate the treasure that we’ve all known for years. And while this sadly won’t be that elusive great English recording, it’s great to think that we have musicians like her in the first place, and that she even has this opportunity to begin with.

Gran City Pop, Paulina Rubio

GRAN CITY POP, PAULINA RUBIO
Universal Music Group, México
Rating: 40
By Carlos Reyes

Paulina is everything Thalia isn’t, a pop star. And I know this description will upset many of you, and I’m no closet fan at all but there are things that I find amazing about her, like the way she carries herself around, like a hippy in the fancy pop city she aims to create, a challenge and obstacle for many of us that have been caving channels for alternative music to spread out, but we’re reaching a state of mind that thinks pop is a lesser form of entertainment when it continues to be the backbone of it. Gran City Pop is not a good album, but I want to make sure people understand that we’re not escaping from the artists Univision, Televisa and Los 40 Principales bombard us with. Also, to let you know that Paulina’s latest is better than the new material from Volovan, Love of Lesbian or Fangoria, and a lot of other mediocrities that are supposedly edgy and therefore better, Paulina at least is self-aware and realizes her conventions within a classicist pop where she has no problem letting her producers, songwriters and engineers manufacture the sound she will help visualize. She has an ounce of an author, and yet manages to build an empire of glamour, and that’s admirable (unless you’re a purist that considers superstars as murderers of ‘good music’, which I don’t, I blame Don Francisco).

This is of course, not as alluring as the good pop of Belanova, Shakira, Naty Botero or Miranda! And miles away from pop’s advancers Natalia Lafourcade, Quiero Club and Javiera Mena, what I’m trying to get to without much success is that if something like “Umbrella” by Rihanna would’ve been made in Latin America, chances are it would’ve been beaten by most music critics from this region, when it’s a perfect song, I’m afraid one of these days one of Paulina’s laborers will make a perfect song and it will be neglected. It surely is a passionate debate, I once argued “Empezar Desde Cero” by RBD was a good song and got myself a mailbox full of hate messaging, but I believe critics, DJs, radio hosts etc should exercise what people call suspension of disbelief, you’ll get surprised. Back to Paulina, search through my iPod and you’ll find “Y yo sigo aqui” in there, along with “Sera Entre Tu y Yo” which is grandeur if you asked me. As you can see, this is not exactly a review but an excuse to let some words out of my system, Paulina even provokes discussion.

I wish I could defend my arguments with a better, perhaps good album, but ‘la chica dorada’ is some kind of emblem, that image of a popstar that attracts all kinds of people, like Carlos Reygadas who is Latin America's best filmmaker and wished Paulina was the protagonist of the highly explicit and acclaimed Batalla en el Cielo, she accepted, but not her label. Don’t expect anything as good as Paulina, this is even more cold and unexciting as Paulatina, but production-wise is glossy as usual. It either abuses violins (“Melodia de tu Alma”) or sounds too cabaret to scratch any surface (“La Danza del Escorpion”), this last song has a cool title doesn’t it? Wish it was something in the likes of Rayito Colombiano and their animalistic cumbias. “Causa y Efecto” is an appropriate, passable single, written by today’s hot songwriter Mario Domm, she also recruits Estefano, Aleks Syntec, Coti, Los Rabanes and Jeremias. Not a very enchanting city, but it’s got mayor with plenty of personality to win the popular vote.