Pros: A well-performed, well-produced, musically artistic album. Sexy cover picture, too!
Cons: The songs aren't as catchy and pleasantly listenable as some of her other works.
The Bottom Line: Showcases Tatiana at the peak of her career as a mature musical artist, before switching to children's entertainment. If you want light, catchy pop, though, you might be disappointed.
There appear to be some very distinct differences between U.S. and Latin American culture when it comes to public perceptions of celebrity image. While both cultures like to obsess on celebrities, and dig up "dirt" on them to titillate readers of sensationalistic tabloids and viewers of TV shows that specialize in celebrity gossip, the English-speaking American community brings a hypocritical judgmentalism to it -- they condemn the morals of entertainers found to be mixed up in something seen as less-than-wholesome, and wish the downfall of their careers, even while eagerly lapping up all the lurid details. The stripping of Vanessa Williams' Miss America title when she was found to have posed nude, and the discrediting of Pee Wee Herman as a children's entertainer when he was found to be patronizing adult theaters in his spare time, are examples of this; and the Clinton sex scandals proved that this tendency could have huge effects on our entire political system.
On the other hand, too much wholesomeness runs into problems in American pop culture too; we're quick to discard each year's trendy teen pop stars once we decide we've outgrown them, and are seldom willing to give them a chance to grow up with us and continue long-term careers as entertainers. Even if they've taken on an interesting new style, we don't want to hear it; we'd rather let each new pop fad experience a meteoric rise and an equally rapid fall, and then ignore them totally as we go on to something new, dragging the old has-beens out occasionally for "Where Are They Now" specials -- unless they turn really bad, get arrested, and become fodder for late-night TV jokes.
Latin America seems, in contrast, to be less judgmental and more willing to let a celebrity change over the years -- from wholesome to sexy and maybe back again -- without holding their other images against them in judging their current one. The Mexican singer Tatiana is a case in point. She's had a 17-year career in music starting as a teen star, and has gone through many styles and images. While her popularity in Latin America has had its ups and downs over the years, she didn't suffer the sort of sudden, catastrophic decline that's typical for teen pop stars over here. People were willing to give her new styles a chance. By the time of Un Alma Desnuda (1994), she had matured into a very attractive adult, and decided to highlight this with a very revealing album cover. (Apparently her husband didn't mind -- she's been married since 1990.) On it, she appears without many clothes on, though just enough manages to be tastefully covered to keep it in "PG-13" territory. The songs also take on adult themes of love and sex, though also tastefully (no obscene, raunchy lyrics). There's nothing trashy or offensive here. Still, the sexuality present here marks it as something intended for mature audiences (a phrase that's been tarnished by its association with immature trash, but merely indicating something not aimed at children).
Under typical American cultural rules, a performer who puts out an album like this is positioning herself as an adult seeking an audience of other adults, and hence not somebody one would look to in the future when seeking clean, wholesome entertainment for children. But that's just what she put out the following year (1995), with her debut children's album Brinca!. Since then, her entertainment career has been focused on children, with several very popular children's albums and a weekly show on Mexican TV (carried for a while in the U.S. by Univision, but not aired here now). If she were an English-speaking American entertainer, I think she'd have lots of detractors dragging out her previous revealing album cover as proof that her wholesomeness as a children's entertainer couldn't be trusted. Fundamentalist groups might even try to get her show cancelled out of worries that she must be using it to secretly smuggle libertine values on the children. Parents at least would be worried their kids would find a copy of this album and ask embarrassing questions like, "Mommy, why isn't Tatiana wearing clothes?" But the Latin audience seemed entirely willing to accept the change of direction and see her as a talented entertainer who could create good music either for adults or for children.
At any rate, though it represented a career direction she soon abandoned, Un Alma Desnuda is artistically one of her best albums. A variety of musical styles are represented here, performed and produced very well. While this music doesn't have the immediate catchiness of some of her other music (like her early teen pop and her recent children's music), it wasn't intended to; this is more substantial stuff than "ear candy". Some songs here still have good hooks, nevertheless. The recording and mastering of this album was done in Italy, Spain, and Mexico, bringing in musical talents from around the world. One of the studio people credited, probably in the Italian team, has the last name "Ravioli", which sounds tasty. :)
Here are the tracks:
1) Triste Canción (Sad Song): This song starts with a folksy "LaRaLaRaLa" chorus, then she counts "Un, Dos, Tres", you hear an audience cheering, and the heavy beat starts. The lyrics, "Esta triste canción de amor" (This sad love song) remind me of Toni Braxton's "Another Sad Love Song", but the tone is different; Braxton's song was slow and moody, suiting the lyric, while this one is faster and heavier, and doesn't really sound like a sad love song even when it says it is one (though there is some moodiness to its sound). Maybe she was aiming for an ironic effect here. In her live performances of this (I've seen one on TV) she encourages the audience to sing along. At the end of the song, along with some more crowd noise, you hear a microphone feedback effect, which seems to have been put in intentionally to give the recorded song a live-performance feel.
2) Solo Puedo Darte... Todo (I Can Only Give You... Everything): A sultry romantic song, relatively soft and slow, but with some beat to it so it doesn't take on a "love ballad" style.
3) Las Chicas Al Poder (The Girls to the Power): Sung in a strident, breathless way, this song features some special effects like voices popping up way to the left or right then suddenly moving to the opposite side of the stereo field. When stereo was a recently-invented novelty in the '50s and '60s, and later during the quadraphonic fad of the '70s, such audio effects were used on occasion to show off, but are generally considered old hat in this age of surround-sound home theater systems; they are used to interesting effect occasionally, though.
4) Sin Querer Queriendo (Without Wanting Wanting): This one is slow and moody. The instrumentation stays in the background mostly to (other than a few crescendos) to let the vocals keep center stage, but there's actually a lot of instrumental music in there, with strings and percussion coming from all directions.
5) Tan Triste Como Un Blues (As Sad as A Blues) A hard-rocking song to the tune of "Bad Case of Loving You". The lyrics don't seem to have anything to do with the original English lyrics of this song; this is a common thing in Latin music, where English-language pop and rock songs are adapted by keeping the tune but coming up with entirely new Spanish lyrics to go with it. I don't know why "blues" takes a singular indefinite article in Spanish: "un blues" (a blues) instead of "los blues" (the blues). Anyway, it's the catchiest song on the album, since it's not only a good tune, it's one you're probably already familiar with and can start humming along to right away. The music video for this has a lot of imagery of which I'm not sure what meaning was intended, including a Charlie Chaplin lookalike showing up at one point.
6) Pobres De Los Niños (Poverty Of The Children): This plaintive-toned song seems to be trying to make a social statement against poverty, much as she did with her earlier "Las Cosas Que He Visto". But will getting listeners depressed about all the poor, hungry children in the world actually put food on anybody's table (other than the singers, songwriters, and record company executives who profit if the song becomes a hit)?
7) Rosas En El Mar (Roses In The Sea): Like the first track, this has a folksy style that makes you want to sing along with her chorus. It's got a nicely infectious tune.
8) Bienvenido (Welcome): As with track #4, this is a relatively soft and slow song with the instrumentals kept mostly in the background, though there's an instrumental solo portion later in the song.
9) No Te Olvides De Mi Nombre (Don't Forget My Name): This starts out slow and without much of a noticeable tune, but picks up the pace as it proceeds, and eventually develops a fairly nice hook. Then there's another somewhat monotonous verse before the chorus returns. The chorus portion is pretty catchy, but the stuff in between doesn't have much to maintain interest.
10) Mas Que A Mi Libertad (But That To My Liberty): Well-sung vocals, but not that much of a tune ever develops -- and it drags on for over 4 minutes, though this doesn't make it the longest song on the album, since a number of the other tracks are even longer than that.
11) Porque Te Empeñas En Llamar Amor Al Sexo (Because You Insist On Calling Love Sex): After the unlikely opening of a Gregorian chant, this song takes off with a heavy beat, and vocals in a style that seems to be part lecturing, but part playful. It's criticizing the attitude that love and sex are equivalent or interchangeable. She previously spoke (or sung) out against this attitude in a more teen-romance-oriented way in her hit song "Cuando Estamos Juntos" on the Chicas de Hoy album, a duet with Johnny Lozada that encouraged teens to refrain from sex until they were more mature and ready for the responsibility. However, by the time of Un Alma Desnuda, she was married and involved in both love and sex -- she became pregnant with her first child right about the time this album was recorded. (She's currently pregnant with her second child.) The word "Empeñas" in the title of this song comes from the verb "Empeñar" meaning "to pawn", familiar to anyone who drives around the Miami area and sees signs for pawn shops appealing to Spanish-speaking markets. Colloquially, the word can also mean "to pass off" or "to insist on". Watch out for the ending of this song; just when you think it's faded out, it suddenly hits you with a loud line that begins and ends abruptly, making you think the CD player has developed a skip.
12) Hoy (Today): One of her teen-pop hits was "Chicas de Hoy", and this album includes one track (#3) with "Chicas" in its title; now, here's one called "Hoy". It's another soft, slow track, but one that doesn't quite seem to get anywhere. Its ending word is "Adios" (goodbye), which is an appropriate way to end the album.
Overall, it's a very well-done album. However, the relative lack of catchy hooks led to its failure to produce big hit songs, and I don't think the album sold as well as her earlier efforts. This probably contributed to her decision to switch to children's music the following year, a move which was very successful.
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