Search - Juan Gabriel :: Mexico Que Se Nos Fue

2nd review

Juan Olvera | Orlando, Florida United States | 11/16/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I come back to re-review this cd. this cd is an excellent. It is very mexican and the lyrics still make sense today. "La herencia" is a kick butt sarcastic song!!!!!! "El Mexico que se nos fue" says : En vez de mirarse a ellos mismos mejor ven la television! "Cancion 187" rings true still today about immigration. All in all is Juan Gabriel at his best. 5 stars plus!!!"

For Sheltered Non-Hispanics - An good introduction to Mexico

sane54 | Kansas | 05/12/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This was one of the first Mexican CDs I heard. My girlfriend from Michoacan had loaned it to me shortly after we had both watched ceremonies for the Virgin of Guadelupe on Univision. That broadcast contained some of the most intense and committed performances I had ever witnessed. At the shows peak, when an attractive young lady wrapped up in a marichi uniform and gargantuan hat, stepped up to sing what seemed to me to be a kind of angular "modern" mariachi, it was as if pre-1940 art music idioms had found popular currency and validity again. I was hungry for more of this experience and Juan Gabriel's CD was the closest thing on hand.If, like me, you don't understand Spanish and you don't have a clue about Mexican culture except through highbrow novels and movies, you will probably tend to react to the purely musical aspects of the disc. In this aspect, El Mexico Que Se Nos Fue contains some terrific moments, of which the first track affords the most memorable. Not a standard Mariachi, it employs the cello as well as the expected violins and trumpets. The (very real sounding) strings dart and trill around Juan Gabriel's voice, which has a rawness to it not found in the majority of semi-operatic mariachi voices. The form of the piece is completely unexpected, containing a brief instrumental interlude that concludes with a drawn-out suspension that you would expect to find in a Mahler symphony. The other mariachi-oriented tracks (2,6,8) offer similar delights. The rest of the album is in a more "folkish" setting with unsettling combinations of wind instruments providing most of the melodic counterpoint while the form is kept mostly to the basics. These songs really require the lyric sheet to be fully appreciated, but as I slowly muddled thru the translation I was rewarded with socially conscious and even sarcastic turns of phrase (although Gabriel's facile sarcasm is not the fine wine that I am used to). The theme throughout the album is a heartfelt appeal to return both physically and spiritually to the Mexico that once was. This is presented both by odes to the beauty of conservative rural life and, to a lesser extent, by anti-western, anti-gringo diatribes.It is important to note that this disc is basically a kind of neo-classical pop based on traditional Mexican styles, not an attempt to duplicate these stlyes. It is also not what to expect from Juan Gabriel, who sings as much pure pop as he does this stuff. It's also really an EP, by US standards- barely a half-hour of music. However, the majority of the songs are intriguing, if not guilelessly beautiful and it will surely whet the appetites of music fans for more of Mexico."

Marvelous

sane54 | 08/23/1998

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The genuis of this CD is not that Juan Gabriel wrote all the songs on the CD, he typically writes all of his songs and music, but that he muscially represented all of the regions in modern Mexico and in "old Mexico." The lyrics, whether sarcastic or romantic, are sung from the heart. This CD was up for a Grammy but did not win; it should have for it is a hundred times more artistic, more authentic than the one that won . . . and we all know who that was."