Juguemos a Cantar

I remember being in a department store in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico with my parents and falling in love with an LP with a yellow jacket. On the front it had a stick figure girl wearing the type of dress that stick figure girls wear. She was holding balloons. On the back, tiny pictures of kids, each with a song title attributed to them. It was the first record that meant anything to me and my first true introduction to bubblegum pop. It was in Spanish.

It meant so much to me, still means so much to me, that I never gave it up. The LP itself is in pretty bad shape, warped and little scratched but it's still on my shelf. About a year ago, in a fit of nostalgia, I downloaded it and bought a CD copies for my own daughter, my best friend and her niece. I still remembered most of the songs enough to sing along with them. One funny thing about all of it, aside from the fact that Juguemos a Cantar feels like the soundtrack to my early childhood, was that the Queen of Mexican Pop, singer and actress Thalia was on that record. I had no idea who she was at the time and had no clue that I already knew her when she sang "Amor A La Mexicana."

I have to admit to not being a tremendous fan of Thalia's. I bought the album with "Amor A La Mexicana" on it because I liked it so much. It's a great song, the kinda song that gets stuck in my head whenever I hear it. I still loosely follow Thalia though. I mean, I know that she's married to Tommy Mottola, influential music executive and ex-husband of Mariah Carey and there were rumors that she had a rib or two removed for cosmetic reasons. But I digress. I don't think I really ever loved her music. But I LOVE some of her songs. Enough to give her another listen, even if just for the Mexican pop fan that I have hidden deep down inside but still definitely influences me, even if I don't often admit it.

Ahhh... memory lane. I just remembered a band called Flans that I used to do choreographed routines to with all the girls at Pio Decimo Center.