Hoooly shit, Sternal Journalists!
I almost forgot about you. If you missed last week's Journal, I successfully did a contactless airbnb road trip across the country, and I'm currently quarantining in rural New England to be close to loved ones and family and loved ones' family. Sop it's hard to remember what day it is, and half an hour ago, I lept up in the air and said, "OHHH SHIT, STERNAL JOURNAL!"
So here I am! I believe we have our first new SterJournalist to have become a subscriber after their parent, but hopefully not the last! Welcome to you, you know who you are.
Alrighty, time to pick up from last week when I assigned you the (optional) homework of listening to Selena's landmark album, Amor Prohibido. This was something I listened to for the first time on day one of the road trip.
I suggested we do have themed syllabi for each day, and day one was "Selena+Chef." So we listened to:
-a Selena Gomez album (Rare)
-a podcast where Selena Gomez breaks down a song she wrote (Song Exploder)
-a Selena (Quintanilla) podcast (not great, but it was a nice primer to understand the context of who she was)
-Amor Prohibido, one of her most lauded albums
-a This American Life about food so as to fulfill the chef part (from what I can tell, it was the genesis of the mainstreaming of the rumor that pig boo-holes are used as calamari substitute. Look it up if you want).
It was a great day, and a great system. I recommend trying it if you need to do a COVID long haul drive.
But what I will zero in on is Selena's album Amor Prohibido, and what I will zero even further in on is the song...
EL
CHICO
DEL
APARTAMENTO
CINCO DOCE
In my opinion? One of the greatest songs of all time. Do not get me wrong. Amor Prohibido is a stellar album top to bottom, left to right, inside out and backwards. I don't speak Spanish. However, I've seen really good--stay with me here--I've seen really good stand up comedy in Japanese, which I also do not speak.
And, when I saw that stand up in Japanese, I enjoyed it like nearly as much as I would enjoy stand up in English. The range of emotions was there, the rhythm was there, the set ups were there, and just when you weren't expecting them, so were the punchlines.
I say that to say that, even though I pretty much only know the Spanish words that are close to English and Spanish, I could tell what a great lyricist and songwriter Selena was. I would argue that there's actually a freer enjoyment of the words--the words themselves: the letters coming together to form sounds--when you don't have all of the baggage of the meaning attached.
Sure, I'm losing literal meaning. I don't know what the words actually are defined as. But I think, as a non speaker, you have a purer enjoyment of how syllables sound when combined.
Which is all to say: no, I do not speak Spanish. Yes, I will still stand by my assessment of Amor Prohibido as a triumph in totality (including lyrics).
BUT El Chico Del Apartamento Cinco Doce is a revelation. I couldn't, I can't, I won't get it out of my head. It's fun. It's timeless. It's just got something else going on. We listened to it every day of the trip.
On day 4 of the trip, I took this voice memo in my phone (go with me here):
"Just outside of Weatherford, Oklahoma, birthplace of astronaut Thomas T. Stafford, we listened to El Chico Del Apartamento Cinco Doce for the third time and it occurs to me that the Baha Men owe much to Selena, and I think about how that's not the fair: [Editor's Note: What I'm saying here is that I feel like the Baha Men have a stronger cultural foothold than Selena does. Maybe that's just my age] And then we play The Baha Men's Who Let the Dogs Out and it occurs to me that they owe a lot to 2 Live Crew also, and that kinda sucks because they just watered down 2 Live Crew, and then! Pitbull comes on and I realize that it's Pitbull and it turns out it's the Rugrats movie."
If any of this doesn't make sense, but you'd like it to, go listen to a Selena song, a 2 Live Crew song, and Who Let the Dogs Out, but only the version that includes Pitbull, which is ONLY THE VERSION FOR THE RUGRATS MOVIE.
Is that not wild? The version of Who Let the Dogs Out which at least I am familiar with includes Pitbull only because of THE RUGRATS?!?!?!?!?!??!?
Anyway, What's Poppin' rapper Jack Harlow just released an album, That's What They All Say. I enjoyed it. I enjoy his social presence also. In the past, he has admitted to having had a crush on the girl reindeer from the Rudolph claymation movie, and just now, he alluded to the fact that his flow for the song Route 66 (the road which runs adjacent to I-40 across much of the country) was heavily influenced by My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas.
Everything is influenced by everything.
Nothing is good and nothing is bad.
It's either reverent or derivative.
Go listen to some Jack Harlow. Or 2 Live Crew. Or Pitbull.
But definitely Selena.
Love,
Julian
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