Get On Your POLL: Gloria Estefan Greatest Hits

Her fast ones are actually pretty good eighties dance pop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A7CVrBFC7M

"Conga"! I love to sing the chorus (and the horn punches too). The verses are great too. I don't really know anything in the second half of the list, though. Am I missing something worth hearing?

Well, she starts to suck more consistently.

One of my best friends and I agreed a couple of days ago, after remarking that I heard "Can't Stay Away From You" at the supermarket, that her early ballads have the virtue of being straightforward and not employing wasted notes.

I like "Words Get In The Way" a lot. The early songs remind me of Florida, in a good way for once.

Si Voy a Perderte

No Oye?

Betcha say that to all the boys.

Ai, Ai I

No "Live For Loving You"!? :(

Impossible to vote for anything but "Rhythm"

One time I was in the check-out line at the grocery store and "1, 2, 3" was on. The cashier was totally grooving out, dancing, and singing along but making up new numbers for the chorus, like "four, a thousand, twelve, six, come on baby say you love me, twenty, eleven, forty-five!" And then laughing really hard after doing it. He embarrassed the hell out of the lady he was ringing up. It was the best.

love her

i used to rly like "everlasting love"

Voting "Dr. Beat."

Best ballad: "Can't Stay Away From You."

Best charting single not up there: probably "Falling In Love (Uh Oh)", then "Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Single-wise, she never got better than "Dr. Beat". Later albums were better than the debut, but "Dr. Beat" is still a fantastic single.

Yeah, I always forget how singular "Dr. Beat" is.

I'm not going to play the "authentic Latin music card," because I don't really believe in it and don't hate all pop obviously, plus it's a really dumb card to be handling in reference to Gloria Estefan, but my favorite song is her traditionalist "Mi Tierra." None of these hits have ever meant anything to me.

My parents are the experts in "traditional" Cuban music, but these Estefan skeptics all say she does herself and the tradition proud on that album.

Yeah, I don't think she has a great voice for that type of music, but it still manages to be a good album. It doesn't hurt that she was album to pull together a who's who of Cuban musicians to back her on it.

Anyhow, I didn't really know every one of these by title, and I've always kind of liked "1, 2, 3" without knowing it was her (and actually haven't though of this song for a long long while), so that one.

The Wikipedia entry is actually pretty funny:

"1-2-3" (sometimes listed as "1, 2, 3") is the title of a popular song by Gloria Estefan and her former band, Miami Sound Machine. It was written by Estefan and former band member Enrique "Kiki" Garcia and appears on the album, Let It Loose.

Released as the fifth and final single from their multi-platinum album Let It Loose in the summer of 1988, "1-2-3" peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the band's seventh Top 10 hit.[1] In addition, the song became their fourth #1 hit on the Billboard adult contemporary chart.[2] On the Billboard R&B chart, "1-2-3" peaked at 54.[2] The single was essentially the same as the album version of the song, only it was slightly remixed to add more horns to the music.

By the time "1-2-3" was released a single in 1988, the song's co-writer Kiki Garcia had acrimoniously departed Miami Sound Machine. Garcia was quoted describing the situation in the band: "There is no Miami Sound Machine. There is Gloria and Emilio telling a bunch of hired musicians what to do."[2]

The lyrics of "1-2-3" detail the singer's desire to have a shy suitor approach her.

It's mindblowing to remember how popular they were for a long while.

Parts of "1,2,3" kind of make me think of "Lovergirl" by Teena Marie (another case where I never knew who did that song before). I can't remember but I think I may have hated this song at some point, but somewhere along the line I got to like it.

(When I'm actually consuming pop music like a normal person, listening to the radio or picking up on what's around me, I don't actually know what anything is or who it's by.)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"Turn the Beat Around" 3:52 1

waht

I guess I forgot to vote.

Betcha say that to all the girls

Dr Beat could be Sheila E almost.

"Turn the Beat Around" 3:52 1

waht

her version's not bad, it was just kinda what's the point? at the time. 'anything for you' i like as much as a lot of the more uptempo cuts. 80's was a good time for loving the one you were with (or 'stuck' with).

I don't like this, which makes me curious if some of you will (Alfred?):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msrTOkJbCpE

One time I was in the check-out line at the grocery store and "1, 2, 3" was on. The cashier was totally grooving out, dancing, and singing along but making up new numbers for the chorus, like "four, a thousand, twelve, six, come on baby say you love me, twenty, eleven, forty-five!" And then laughing really hard after doing it. He embarrassed the hell out of the lady he was ringing up. It was the best.

― kissogram powers (Abbott), Thursday, 22 April 2010

<3 <3 <3

This one caught me offguard. I hadn't heard it in more than twenty years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epVXWOBUJck

No votes for "Here We Are" ;_;

One time I was in the check-out line at the grocery store and "1, 2, 3" was on. The cashier was totally grooving out, dancing, and singing along but making up new numbers for the chorus, like "four, a thousand, twelve, six, come on baby say you love me, twenty, eleven, forty-five!" And then laughing really hard after doing it. He embarrassed the hell out of the lady he was ringing up. It was the best.

― kissogram powers (Abbott), Thursday, 22 April 2010

<3 <3 <3

― bentelec, Wednesday, November 2, 2011 12:00 AM (9 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3 <3 <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOyGOjM8xbc

So they had EIGHT albums before Eyes of Innocence? 0_O

I had a fun night with this album a few days ago... was not familiar at all with her ballads and they are soooooo horrible. It's hard to imagine three of them hitting #1. The stepped up dance tracks still sound great though.

heard "Can't Stay Away From You" at CVS yesterday.

I like "Words Get in the Way" a lot re: her ballads, both the lyrics and the warm synths underneath

Listening to Let it Loose for the first time since the cassette copy I bought from a Jacksonville Phar-Mor in 1988 was stolen by that gang of inept criminals who broke into our house when I was in seventh grade (c'mon, dudes, you passed right over the cash laying in plain sight in favor of my stack of Batman comics, really?). Gettin' such a rush from this extra-cheesy madeline rn. Her ballads were on point, though.

The titular track sounds like something off of Cosmic Thing (another album I had in regular rotation in that general era). 'Give it Up' is almost a Sade manqué. Now I'm trying to remember if their song from the Cobra soundtrack was on this album.

Man, I'm suddenly realizing that I pretty much had the album collection of a soccer mom when I was in junior high.

extra-cheesy madeline

i don't wanna madeleineshame here but that sounds revolting, who taught u to bake ffs

I guess the actual equivalent in this scenario would be like a Little Debbie oatmeal crème pie. The American south of the late-'80s was slightly less refined than 19th Century France.

re: having the album collection of a soccer mom, i was bumping amy grant's heart in motion hardcore at age 10 which seems to fit firmly in this zone

"Can't Stay Away From You" is boss.

xpost Yuuuup. Just threw that puppy on the other day. And I still listen to Basia way more than can possibly be healthy.

Can't believe 'Anything for You' got zero votes in this poll. That song still has the power to mess me up a little.

I'd love to go longer.

https://media3.giphy.com/media/dzOBEVT802XgcpS0vg/giphy.gif

CONGA

"Oye Mi Canto" shoulda broke the Top 40

I See Your Smile's been in my rotation lately. hadn't heard it since I was 12.

p devastating ballad