Deciding to step back and analyze the music of Patricia Manterola, I take it back all the way to the beginning of the middle of her career. Before Patricia Manterola became a household name, she was just one of the eight members who made up the pop group, Garibaldi-a group known for their medleys of traditional music with an updated twist. Garibaldi is a group all their own and will take some serious time to review their music. But, Patty (Patricia) even started before Garibaldi when she was a wee-little-one in a band called “Plum-Kiss”, that is a whole other conversation…So, let’s start here!
After Garibaldi, the only female member with a decent voice left the group to become a soloist. The odd part of Patty becoming a soloist was that fans of Garibaldi really didn’t know if she could sing. I mean, if you go back and look at Garibaldi’s history, they sang as a group 98% of the time with just a few lines of a song that might highlight a soloist. In the later years of Garibaldi, they began to separate and try to make their own fame… but I never saw Patty as a spotlight kind of girl. I was a huge fan of Garibaldi and was devastated with she left the group. My heart was broken. Patty was seriously my first celebrity crush and now she was gone. I think I cried for days.
But if I thought I loved this girl in Garibaldi, I loved her, even more, when she showed up Siempre En Domingo for the first time presenting her video “Quiero”, a power ballad that was going to turn my world inside out. This was the perfect song for Patty to say to the world, “Here I am…Notice me.”
Her voice, at that time, was like an angel to me. The song was slow enough for you to listen to someone destined for stardom, but powerful enough for you a feel it in your gut. When the album came out, I listened to it religiously and I knew that I was going to be Patty’s biggest fan ever. LOL. Now, you go back and look at the album twenty-one years later, it is no longer the most perfect album ever. Yeah, it has flaws. But who doesn’t?
Compared to today, Patty’s voice is virginal. You can tell that experience has helped Patty grow into a more superior vocalist than she was then but she was young and not as mature. The album has some really great songs for the ’90s and “Quiero” is still one of the best songs of the album. Some songs come off like they are going to be harder and faster with strong electric guitar intros, but they simmer down to a fun pop song like “Mi Religion Eres Tu” and “Hambre De Amor”.
I have moments of fan-girl mode… but this album was a true fan-girl moment for me when it came out. While I don’t claim to be the biggest Patty fan anymore, mostly because she has some serious rabid fans and I am not up her butt daily telling her how wonderful she is on social media. But, I have met Patty many, many times and she knows me and I have never been shy about telling her how I feel about her music, the good and the bad. I do consider myself a loyal and dedicated follower and still claim to have the largest collection of Patty’s music with over 110 different versions of all her albums, singles, promos, etc…from all over the world.
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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