I just got back from a cruise that I took out of Florida that went to Puerto Rico. I was quite excited to go to Puerto Rico, the home of Menudo. As many of you know, I am still a huge Menudo fan as that will never change. When going to any Latin American country, I was trying to hit up the local areas and found music stores. Many music stores that are family-run are filled with many good treasures. Most new music stores like Mix-Up in Mexico will only have new CDs because of turn-over. We found a store online called Viera Music, which apparently is very well known on the island; even our taxi driver heard of it and recommended us going there. After $30 in taxi fare, we made our way to Viera Music which was a corner store that had all types of music on both vinyl and CD.
Before scoping out the CDs, we checked out the vinyl. I will always hunt vinyl before CD. We only found 2 LPs worth buying on at this store: Menudo’s “Los Ultimos Heroes” (Puerto Rico Edition) and Pandora’s “999 Razones”. It’s not the first time owning this album, but it was one of the albums that were cleaned out years ago to make room for digital. Now with the resurgence of vinyl, I had to grab it. Honestly, if it was any Pandora album I would have taken it. The price tag for the album was $24.95 but was only charge about $4 for it. If I would have to know the vinyl was not as priced, I would have grabbed Pablo Ruiz’s vinyl too but I couldn’t see paying almost $30 on an album that wasn’t all that great. But, Pandora’s 999 Razones as I remembered was pretty good.
Once the vinyl was all clean and pretty, I gave it a listen this morning and it was everything I remembered it to be. Actually, more because I had forgotten about the ballad “Ni Tu Ni Yo”, which is honestly an excellent song. When my wife first heard to first track, “Un Mal Amor”, she asked me: “And why don’t you like Pandora again? This is right up your alley.”
“Pandora is like Flans for the adult contemporary world…”
With more ballads than pop hits, Pandora’s “999 Razones” is like Flans but for the adult contemporary world. I am all for a good ballad like “Ni Tu Ni Yo”, but I need more upbeat pop hits like “Un Mal Amor” and “Por Qué Seguir”, which was written by Aleks Syntek. I think that the public feels the same way, which is why Flans and Pandora have always had different audiences. Pandora caters to the romantics and older fans, which is good because I really can’t see Isabel and Mayte jumping up and down on the stage singing and dancing; though new member Liliana did add a bit of spark to the group bringing them some younger fans.
Thinking back to previous albums, I think “999 Razones” brings the group alive and is one of the better albums of the group’s to date.
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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