After a few acting roles, Mexican artist Chantal (Andere), signed a record deal with Melody Records to record an album in 1990. When the album came out, she only used her first name of Chantal for her music career and used Chantal Andere for her acting roles. Chantal collaborated with Rafael Perez Botija for the production of the album, he also wrote the lyrics and arrangements for each of the songs. Botija had much success from his music for artists such as Jose Jose, Lucia Mendez, and Julio Iglesias.
At the turn of the ’90s, the young artists that were releasing albums were going to different directions. They either went in the direction of a rock-pop sound or took the other fork in the road and went to a more adult contemporary pop. Chantal took the latter and produced an album that targeted more of an adult crowd and this is shown by the producer that was chosen for her. Botija’s music tended to be more adult, slower, and relaxed. Chantal’s ballads on her debut album are far superior to her pop hits and that is probably because of Botija’s lack of work in this field.
AÂ strong and dramatic vocal range makes Chantal Andere’s ballads superior to her pop songs
Chantal tackled a lot of emotion in her ballads where she spoke about a kidnapping of a young girl in the song, “Virginia” which made a mark on the pop charts that year; though her most popular song from the album was one of the pop songs, “Regresa”. What made “Regresa” a hit and an all-around fun song is that the whole time Chantal is singing about someone returning to her it is almost like she is begging this person to come back. It is a desperate break-up song until the last sentence of the song when she says: “Nor will I ever find another dog equal to you.” and that is when you find out she is singing about a lost dog.
While the album switches from ballad to pop song with every other song; I never considered Chantal as a true pop artist because I think that the ballads just stand out so much with her strong and dramatic vocal range. She fits so well in with the adult contemporary artists such as Lucero, Cristian Castro, and Luis Miguel at the time.
I’ve owned this record every since it was released and when Chantal visited Los Angeles on the promotion for this album, I had it autographed. The album comes with an insert with a large photo and lyrics to the songs. This was standard back then to have the lyrics. I wish a lot of the album that comes out now would have this. Overall, Chantal’s album is pretty good and I recommend it if you like the easy listening to pop en Español.
Chantal does not seem to be interested too much in music at the moment; her acting career is far more successful. You can follow Chantal at @Chantalandere on Twitter.
Since that day, I have been study Latin pop and rock music and have become a Latin pop music historian through the publishing of articles, fanzine, and websites. My goal is to teach people about Latin pop music and the history behind it with my website, Siempre En Domingo.
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