Yesterday I wrote in the "Things to Know about Epinions" section that I got the Muze people to add a few previously-omitted Tatiana albums to their database so that I could review them on Epinions. This isn't actually one of them. It was there all along, but I'm just now getting around to reviewing it. (The new additions aren't supposed to show up until this coming Wednesday anyway.)
Superfantástico (I try to get all those accent marks correct, though they're hard to type!) is Tatiana's fourth or fifth children's album, depending on whether you count her Christmas album Navidad con Tatiana in the main list or in a separate "holiday albums" list. (She has since released another Christmas album, Navidad Magica, later re-released as Feliz Navidad.) In her career as a whole (counting teen and adult releases), it's anywhere from her twelfth to her sixteenth depending on what you count in the way of soundtracks and compilations. So she's had a very active career, but her latest phase as a children's entertainer in Mexico and Latin America took a while to be noticed by the major record labels. Her earlier children's music releases were on a small independent Mexican label, with U.S. distribution handled by another small outfit. Superfantástico, however, was released by Polygram, a major worldwide label. Since then, she's switched to Universal, another large global label.
This album (released in 1998, and still in print and widely available through retailers and online music sites) continues in Tatiana's style of performing children's music in Spanish with a modernized pop-music style. However, while her earlier children's albums consisted mostly of public-domain songs of unknown authorship (e.g., "Oh Susana"), this one has songs of recent enough vintage so that all of them have songwriter credits listed. I'm not familiar enough with Mexican children's music to know where the songs originated, and whether any of them are original compositions for this album. Her Sigue la Magia album had lots of tunes I recognized, but this one didn't.
There are actually two versions of this album; the original version didn't have the song "Gotita de Amor", the theme song to a TV program of that title, but it was added shortly afterward, and most copies seem to be of the later version. The later version is the one I'm reviewing here. Two songs, "El planeta hay que salvar" and "Las gotitas de agua", were removed in the new version; I don't know why they had to take off two tracks to make room for one (fairly short) addition.
Here are the tracks:
1) Superfantástico: The title track is a catchy dance-pop song where she sings about how happy and excited she is to be here (wherever "here" might happen to be).
2) La Fiesta: A marching-band-style song; she always wants to include one of those on each of her children's albums.
3) Un Pato: (A Duck) As the old saying goes, "If it quacks like a duck..." You can hear some quacking in this song, as well as some other animal noises.
4) Susanita Tiena un Ratón: Another animal song. "Ratón" actually means "mouse", though it's commonly mis-rendered by English speakers as "rat" (which is "rata" in Spanish). The city of Boca Raton, where I live, is sometimes sneeringly referred to as "Rat's Mouth" by residents of other southern Florida towns who think of this place as being populated by pretentious but ignorant rich folks and the sleazy con artists who prey on them. (Whatever rodent it is, it's a rather strange thing to name a town after, anyway.) Anyway, the song describing little girl Susanita and her pet mouse is performed in a "country" style, complete with a "Yee-haw!"
5) Es de Chocolate: A tribute to chocolate. Ironically, Tatiana has said in a magazine interview that she doesn't eat sweets because she's on a strict diet; getting fat wouldn't be good for her image, she thinks.
6) Gotita de Amor: (Not in the original version of this album) The theme song to a Puerto Rican telenovela (a popular type of TV show in Latin America that's somewhat similar to soap operas, except that rather than being open-ended like U.S. soaps, they have a predetermined number of episodes and wrap up all plots and subplots by the grand finale). The star of this show was Andrea Lagunes, a child actress who is a former cast member of Tatiana's own TV show (El Espacio de Tatiana).
7) Hoy Tengo Que Decirte Papá: (I have to speak to you today, Papa) On this album, Tatiana gets in salutes to the mamas and the papas -- not the '60s singing group, but to mothers and fathers. This one is the "father" song; the "mother" song comes later in the album. They come in handy for Tatiana's TV show when Father's Day and Mother's Day come around. Mexico seems to celebrate those on the same date as the U.S., but they also have a Children's Day (Dia de los Niños). In the U.S. it seems to be an old cliché that a kid will ask his parents "If there's a Mother's Day and a Father's Day, why isn't there a Children's Day?" and get the response that "Every day is Children's Day," since parents' lives have to center around their kids so much from birth until college graduation. But the Latin Americans still salute kids with a special day anyway.
8) Baila Conmigo (El Juego de Simón): (Dance With Me: The Game of Simon) Another dance-pop tune, even catchier than the title track. It seems to be one Tatiana sang before at an earlier stage of her career, as she released an album of this title (though I don't actually have it). It's probably an old song, and its subtitle suggests a connection with the "Simon Says" game.
9) Viva La Gente (Up with People): From this subtitle, I suspect this song originated with that "Up with People" group that performs at Super Bowl halftimes and the like. They can be pretty annoying, but this is still a pleasant enough song.
10) Pajaritos a Volar (El Baile de Los Pajaritos): (Little Birds to Fly: The Dance of The Little Birds) Another "animal song" with some chirping sounds.
11) En Un Bosque de la China: (In a forest in China) A dance song with a bouncy melody, and a rap portion in the middle.
12) Mamá: Now it's the mothers' turn to be saluted. Lately, Tatiana likes to end her albums with a pleasant, if somewhat sappy and sacchariney, ballad, and this is the one for this album.
Like her other children's albums, Superfantástico has a good selection of music aimed at children but pleasant for adults as well.
See my fan site about Tatiana at http://www.dantobias.com/tatiana/.
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