Amor Prohibido

''Amor Prohibido'' ( en, italic=yes, Forbidden Love) is the fourth studio album by American singer Selena, released on March 13, 1993, by EMI Latin. Having reached a core fan base, the label aimed to broaden her appeal with the next
studio release. Finding it challenging to write a follow-up hit after " Como la Flor" (1992), Selena's brother A. B. Quintanilla enlisted the assistance from band members Ricky Vela and Pete Astudillo with writing the album's songs. The resulting album has a more mature sound featuring experimental production that blends diverse musical styles from ranchera to hip-hop music. ''Amor Prohibido'' is a Tejano cumbia album modernized with a synthesizer-rich delivery using a minimalist style that was quintessential in early 1990s Tejano music.

The album's songs deal with dysfunctional and volatile relationships; its lyrics explore unrequited love, infidelity, and social division. With relatively few love songs, ''Amor Prohibido'' narrates a woman's struggles and triumphs following unsuccessful relationships with men who struggle with commitment. The album continued the singer's streak of number-one singles on the United States ''Billboard'' Hot Latin Songs chart with the title track " Amor Prohibido"— which became the most successful US Latin single of 1993, a feat she repeated the following year with "No Me Queda Más". Along with the latter, " Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" and " Fotos y Recuerdos" also topped the US Latin chart, and together with " Si Una Vez" are regarded as Selena's signature recordings.

When the album tour broke attendance records at the Houston Astrodome and attracted a record-breaking crowd at Miami's Calle Ocho Festival, Selena became recognized as one of the biggest US Latin touring acts at that time. ''Amor Prohibido'' became the first Tejano record to peak at number one on the ''Billboard'' Top Latin Albums chart, remaining in the top five for 98 consecutive weeks. The album holds the record for most weeks at number one on ''Billboard''s Regional Mexican Albums chart at 97 nonconsecutive weeks, as well as crowning the chart in four different calendar years. ''Amor Prohibido'' received critical acclaim, it is considered to be Selena's best work and her band's "crowning achievement". The album's sound received the highest acclaim, it was noted by critics to have retained its innovative spirit well into the 21st century. ''Amor Prohibido'' is credited with catapulting Tejano music into mainstream success resulting in sales to listeners previously unfamiliar with the genre. ''Amor Prohibido'' was nominated for Best Mexican-American Album at the 37th Grammy Awards. The record took Album of the Year honors at the 1995 TMA's and the Lo Nuestro Award for Best Regional Mexican Album.

On March 31, 1995, Selena was murdered by her friend and former manager of her Selena Etc. boutiques, Yolanda Saldívar. The record re-entered the ''Billboard'' 200 chart, peaking at number 29 and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Within three weeks, it was certified platinum and was re-certified by the RIAA as 36× platinum (Latin), denoting 2.14 million album-equivalent units sold. ''Amor Prohibido'' is the second-highest certified Latin album in the United States trailing only her posthumous album '' Dreaming of You'' (1995), the fourth best-selling Latin album in the US, the best-selling Tejano recording of the 1990s, and remains the best-selling Tejano recording of all time. ''Amor Prohibido'' has been ranked among the most essential Latin recordings of the past 50 years by ''Billboard'' magazine, while ''Rolling Stone'' magazine named it one of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. NPR ranked the album number 19 on their list of the 150 greatest albums made by women; it was the highest-ranking album by a female Latin artist and ninth highest-ranking recording by a woman of color.

Production and development

Background

Following the release of Selena's third studio album '' Entre a Mi Mundo'' and the launch of a clothing boutique in 1993, the singer and her band began working on ''Amor Prohibido''. Having achieved the success and fan base that EMI Latin's president Jose Behar was seeking, Behar aimed to capitalize on Selena's broad appeal with the next studio release. The label was keen to use a Grammy Award-winning producer instead of the singer's brother, A.B. Quintanilla. A.B. knew Selena's musical tastes and vocal range, though he found that he needed to outdo himself to remain her principal record producer. He found it challenging to meet expectations after the commercial success of ''Entre a Mi Mundo'' and its career-launching single " Como la Flor". When A.B. met with record executives in New York City and Nashville, they pressured him to come up with another successful song. He felt it was important that the music he produced for Selena remain fresh. He stressed that writing a successful song following "Como la Flor" was infeasible—as he expressed to ''Billboard'', "you don't try to outdo a hit, you just write another hit". As with previous albums, A.B. enlisted Selena y Los Dinos band members, Pete Astudillo and Ricky Vela, to help with the writing process. The result included a mature sound for Selena with experimental recording and production than her previous works. It was the final album featuring production and songwriting by Astudillo, who subsequently parted with Los Dinos to pursue a solo career.

Recording

''Amor Prohibido'' was recorded at Manny Guerra's studio in San Antonio, Texas, and was engineered by Brian "Red" Moore. The production of ''Amor Prohibido'' lasted six months beginning on September 17, 1993. The recording schedule was squeezed in around touring commitments and the opening of Selena's boutiques, as Selena's husband and guitarist Chris Pérez recalled: "I don't even know how we managed to find time to make the next album." According to Vela, progress stalled and the band had to rush to finish production because of an approaching deadline. It then took two weeks to complete post-production. Vela said that it was common for the band to rehearse all of the music in advance of the recording sessions, as the band's production sequence remained unchanged for ''Amor Prohibido''. Selena and the band recorded their parts in the studio after they had first perfected them during pre-production. A.B. would then arrange and mix them, using an AKAI MPC60 II for timing and tempo control before studio mixing instruments were used. It took two weeks for Selena to record the album's ten tracks.

Pérez provided an evocative account of working with Selena during the sessions for ''Amor Prohibido''. Pérez wrote how Selena never complained in the studio, adding that the singer was never recalcitrant towards changes. Selena would often arrive at the studio during the album's production, "hum her part a little", and then proceeded to the mall informing the band not to worry because she would "know what to do when he band isready to record." Nevertheless, Pérez explained that the band never had to approach Selena on changes in the studio as she disciplined herself and tracked her vocals while requesting a second take in order to "add little harmonies she'd create" during recording. A.B. described his own creative process during the sessions in a 1994 interview with KMOL. He would use a tape recorder to hum a melody before creating a title and concept of a song. If he caught himself humming a tune the next day "then it's catchy", and otherwise he "wouldn't use it." A.B. also requested material from Rena Dearman, former keyboardist of the group, who provided several songs. A.B. favored "I'll Be Alright" and wanted Selena to record the song for ''Amor Prohibido''. After it was rejected by EMI Latin because it was incoherent of the album's theme, A.B. suggested that it could be included in Selena's next Tejano recording.

One song–" Bidi Bidi Bom Bom"–was improvised during a rehearsal starting off as a song with few, if any, lyrics. The band's drummer, Selena's sister Suzette Quintanilla, said "we were goofing off" and insisted that after A.B. began playing a groove on his guitar, Selena started singing, coming up with lyrics "as ideas came to her." It started off with lyrics about a cheerful fish swimming freely in the ocean, which Astudillo likened to a nursery rhyme, organized around a wah-wah guitar riff using a crybaby that was improvised by Pérez. The track, then called "Itty Bitty Bubbles", became an extended jam during the band's concerts to prevent promoters from reducing their pay for playing for a shorter time than promised. Selena performed the song at the La Feria concert in Nuevo Leon in September 1993, a day before the singer and Astudillo began " uttingthe lyrics and melody together". A.B. saw potential in the tune and "nipped and tucked what Selena ad already done. He joined as co-writer, writing the guitar solos for Pérez, as well as the arrangements for the song. A.B. called it "kinda a little scary" finding the project the first of its kind. The day before the band was scheduled to record the album, A.B. approached Pérez and asked if he would be interested in working with Vela on "Ya No", a song that A.B. had written. Pérez worked with Vela throughout the night improvising the drum sounds and programming the music for it, adding electric guitar riffs, and complementing it with his own musical style. Pérez was dumbfounded that despite A.B.'s assistance he had been given creative control over the track.

The idea for the album's title track was Selena's own, although Astudillo had at one time aspired to write a telenovela-esque song entitled " Amor Prohibido". Together with A.B. and Astudillo, Selena began writing and recording a track based on a story about her great-grandparents. The singer was inspired by love letters written by her great-grandmother who wrote about her experiences as a maid to the Calderon family, a wealthy family who lived in Nueva Rosita, Mexico who immigrated from Spain, and her infatuation with their son. Her great-grandmother was forbidden to form a relationship with him because of her social class and described it as "forbidden love". Astudillo feared that Selena's father would reject the song because of the lyrical content of disobeying one's parents to pursue true love, as Selena herself had done when eloping with Pérez in 1992. Abraham heard "Amor Prohibido" after Selena recorded the track and enjoyed it, he found the lyrics to be relatable something "many families have gone through". While recording the song, Selena had ad-libbed "oh whoa, baby". Her brother believed that the recording would not have been the same had she not added the "oh whoa, baby" part. "Amor Prohibido" sampled the '' cencerro'', which was intended by A.B., to attract people of different ethnicities to Selena's music. The media attention following Selena's death led the Calderon family to Selena and the song "Amor Prohibido", they visited the family for the first time and traveled to Corpus Christi. After falling in love with Suzette, and finding out about her marriage in September 1993, Vela wrote down how he felt; which he had kept private from her. The resulting song was titled "No Me Queda Más" and it was given to Selena to record for the album. According to Abraham, Selena provided an emotional delivery while recording the track and was seen sobbing in the recording studio because "she knew how elafelt" about Suzette.

During recording sessions for " Techno Cumbia", A.B. encouraged Selena to rap with a New York accent similar to Rosie Perez. During a New York trip, A.B. heard the Pretenders' 1983 single " Back on the Chain Gang" on the radio. Concerned about the lack of material the band had to record for the album, and captivated by the idea of reworking "Back on the Chain Gang" into a Spanish-language cumbia song, A.B. asked Vela to write a translation of the lyrics. After discovering that Selena had sampled her song, Pretenders' vocalist Chrissie Hynde prevented the band from releasing ''Amor Prohibido'' and demanded a translation from Vela before she approved a rights agreement. At the time of Hynde's refusal, the band had $475,000 (1994 USD) of pre-sale copies in a warehouse that included " Fotos y Recuerdos". Noticing it was the shortest track on ''Amor Prohibido'', musicologist James Perone felt that "Fotos y Recuerdos" had "stripped some of the edge off of Hynde's text but retained the basic premise of Back on the Chain Gang". Perone complemented A.B.'s arrangement as "an example of isuniversal Latin approach."

Composition

''Amor Prohibido'' contains a more diverse collection of musical styles than Selena's previous work, ranging from ranchera to hip-hop music. Music critics believe it is an album of various genres accessible to both traditional and contemporary Latin music fans. Jeff Young, then-EMI Latin's sales director, labeled ''Amor Prohibido'' as "Pop International", which Mark Schone of ''Newsday'' believed was a ploy by the company to broaden Selena's appeal. Musicologist Matt Doeden found the album as having "a new sound" whose aim was to appeal to a broad audience. Perone found the mixture of compositions on the album to be rock and dance music, and according to Frank Hoffman in the '' Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound'', the album exhibited the band's broad range of styles. ''Newsweek'' found the music in ''Amor Prohibido'' to have combined house music, cumbia, rock, dancehall, and new wave that was modernized in a kaleidoscopic form that embodied postmodern maelstrom of the mid-'90s. ''Amor Prohibido'' diverged from Selena's "stock-in-trade contemporary Tex-Mex sound." Mario Tarradell of ''The Dallas Morning News'', however, believed the title track and "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" contained Selena's cheerful and enthusiastic personality that were prevalent in previous recordings. The album's musical influences include salsa, funk, R&B, bubblegum pop, teen pop, pop ballads, techno, a fusion of reggae and dancehall, rock, polka, conjunto, flamenco, mariachi, corridos, and Tejano cumbia. Tejano cumbia is used heavily throughout ''Amor Prohibido''. Author Ed Morales noticed its representation of the "cumbia sound" already established by Tejano band La Mafia, though Donald Clarke found Selena's delivery to be more of a modernized synthesizer-rich sound. While ''Amor Prohibido'' is a cross-cultural musical fusion, it remains an authentic Tejano recording, which uses a minimalist style that was quintessential in early 1990s Tejano music.

Selena called the recordings on ''Amor Prohibido'' as "love songs r songs aboutgetting your heartbroken". Lyrically, the title track "Amor Prohibido" encapsulates the social divide between a poverty-stricken woman and the man of unreachable rank with whom she has fallen in love. The lyrics have been analyzed by authors, musicologists, and critics, who found them relevant to issues facing the LGBT community. They are ambiguous, and have been interpreted to portray prohibited romance between same-sex couples, modern society's views of romantic relationships, and to '' Romeo & Juliet''. A review in ''The Monitor'' felt that the lyrics portrayed the forbidden love that Selena and Pérez hid from her overbearing father. Musically, the titular song is "an emotional uptempo ballad" which showcases the singer's "passionate side". In "Cobarde", the protagonist calls her partner a "coward" upon learning on his inability to face her after feeling reticent about his affair. Two other tracks, "Ya No" and "Si Una Vez", delve into heartaches of failed relationships with the protagonist in the former song angrily refusing to take back a cheating partner. Selena's vocals were called "strong ndraspy" in "Si Una Vez". Suzette particularly liked because Selena gave "that attitude" in the song.

"Tus Desprecios" has a storyline typical of mariachi recordings, concerning dysfunctional and volatile relationships. The track uses the traditional Tejano conjunto (small band) style and includes a trilling accordion motif. On the day Selena recorded the song, she was suffering from a bronchitis episode. Perone wrote that the song showed Selena's ease with pop, Latin, and Tejano styles. Writing for ''The Miami Herald. Another track, "No Me Queda Más", uses the identical style of ranchera songs, with the female singer agonizing over the end of a relationship. The lyrics explore an unrequited love in which a woman wishes the best for her former lover despite her own agony. Jose Feliciano express his take on the song, noting a sense of sorrowfulness in the lyrics, while finding cognitive parallels to Selena's life, and noticed a comparison of compositions that are typically recorded by Pedro Infante. Selena's voice was admired for being powerful and emotive, while her vocals were found to have been subdued and solemn and were sung in a desperate and emotional way. ''Hispanic'' magazine praised Selena's vocal interpretations in "No Me Queda Más", citing the singer's ability to tackle such a song reserved for established musicians twice her age.

Joe Nick Patoski of ''The New York Times'', recognized the melody of "Fotos y Recuerdos" from the Pretenders' new wave sound, that played on a ''rock en español'' groove surrounded with organs and percussions which "transcend dtraditional Tejano sounds." He also noticed that Pérez's lead guitar emulated the style of the Pretenders' James Honeyman-Scott. ''Newsweek'' praised Pérez' guitar solos and the lyrics on "Fotos y Recuerdos" which explored forbidden romance, with the singer "cherishing memories of a relationship". John LaFollette of ''The Monitor'' called Selena's simultaneous appeals to multiculturalism and commerce in the song "as American as apple pie." The track supplements rock and house rhythms with synth-driven strings and layers of percussion, including steel drums under a cumbia beat. Perone located suggestions of Jamaica, Cuba, and Trinidad and Tobago. "Techno Cumbia" featured Selena rapping under a cumbia beat supplemented with congas, hi-hats, techno samples, and EBM. Patoski acclaimed the band's new take on the cumbia rhythm, updated vocal samples, drums inspired from New Orleans