A record featuring the singer’s digitally altered voice is expected to be released by next month, her father said.
Nearly three decades after the singer Selena was killed, a new album featuring recordings by the Grammy Award-winning Tejano music star is expected to be released, her family has announced.
In a video interview with Latin Groove News last week, Abraham Quintanilla Jr., the singer’s father, described the forthcoming album, expected to be available by next month, as a family effort. It will feature 13 songs, with new arrangements by her brother A.B., and artwork by her sister, Suzette, Mr. Quintanilla said.
Three songs are new versions of previously released tracks, and at least one song will feature Selena’s upbeat soprano voice, recorded when she was 13 years old and digitally modified, Mr. Quintanilla said.
“What’s unique about it is, not only is the music completely new arrangements, my son worked on Selena’s voice with computers and if you listen to it she sounds on this recording like she did right before she passed away,” Mr. Quintanilla said. “It sounds incredible.”
In an interview last year with Tino Cochino Radio, A.B. said he remixed all of Selena’s vinyls and “detuned her voice,” rendering it deeper and closer to how she sounded in her 20s.
Further details about the album are unavailable, including how much of it features Selena’s voice. A spokesman for Warner Music Group, which Mr. Quintanilla said is releasing the album, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist and professor at Berklee College of Music, said that digitally aging a voice was a simple process that could potentially require just an isolated recording of the singer and the appropriate digital software.
Born Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in Lake Jackson, Texas, on April 16, 1971, the Mexican-American singer became a leading star of Tejano music — a blend of corrido, mariachi and polka music — with hits including “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” “Como La Flor” and “Amor Prohibido.” During her abbreviated career, she dominated the Billboard Latin music rankings.
Before she was fatally shot on March 31, 1995, at age 23 by the president of her fan club, Selena was aiming for more mainstream success by recording a crossover album.
Since her death, Selena’s popularity has grown. Fans continue to celebrate her music and emulate her signature style of red lipstick and wispy, curled bangs. Jennifer Lopez portrayed her in a 1997 movie, and a Netflix show about Selena’s rise to fame, titled “Selena: The Series,” was released last year.
Her family has cultivated the public’s fascination with the singer, from collaborating on the Netflix show, to releasing an unfinished song of hers in 2015. Mr. Quintanilla told Latin Groove News said that soon after his daughter’s death, he committed to keeping her memory alive with her music.
“I think that we have done that,” he said. “The public still remembers Selena. They haven’t let her go, and so they are waiting for a project like this to come out and I know that it will be well received by the public.”
Source: Music - nytimes.com
