La Onda Vaselina came on the scene in 1989 with a completely different style than we fell in love within the ’90s and if you were a pop fan, you might have just changed the channel when they came on the television. The group was formed by Julissa (sister of Luis De Llano, creator of groups such as Timbiriche). The original concept as you can see from the album cover was a bunch of kids singing music from the ’50s and ’60s, hence the name… La Onda Vaselina (The Wave of Grease).
Julissa, whose expertise is in musical theater, brought the musical Grease to the stages of Mexico with the pop group, Timbiriche and continued with other versions throughout the years. In 1989, she decided to create a traveling show with kids and the music from the Grease era and was born La Onda Vaselina. Ten kids: Ari Borovoy, Óscar Schwebel, Daniel Vázquez, Anna Borras, Luis García, Érika Zaba, Rodrigo Álvarez, M’balia Marichal, Ariatna Martínez and Mariana Ochoa were chosen to play a part in Julissa’s new era of Grease.
The group found a voice in kid’s music and performed all over Mexico with their own shows as well as within the pop circuit. But what more can you say about the album other than it a bunch of kids between the ages of 6-12 who sing pop oldies? Some songs are okay, others are so bad that they hurt the ears. Kids singing is hardly ever going to go down in history as classic music, because it usually sounds just like a bunch of kids screaming, as you can hear on the track, “Dias Del Escuela.”
Normally, I probably would have skipped this era of Onda Vaselina, but I want to be as much as a completist as possible. I own the album but it rarely will be placed in daily rotation. I won’t embrace Onda Vaselina until 1995 when they become teenagers. But they had to start somewhere, and here it is…
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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