Dreaming of You is the sixth and final studio album and second posthumous album by Mexican American Tejano pop singer Selena. The album was first released on July 18, 1995, and was re-released, being part of the 20 Years of Music Collection series, on September 24, 2002, with extra tracks, music videos, and spoken liner notes by her family, friends, and her former band, by EMI Records and EMI Latin. The album itself is classified as a double album with unreleased English language tracks and Spanish language tracks that were previously released prior to the album's release, which was given a Caribbean remix like dance hall and reggae. The album incorporates slow and mid-tempo R&B ballads and pop songs, while the rest of the album incorporates Latin-inflected grooves.

Debuting at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, it sold more than 330,000 units in its first week, making her the first Latin singer to accomplish this feat, and Dreaming of You the second highest debut after Michael Jackson's HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I.Hodges, Ann. . Houston Chronicle, December 6, 1996. Retrieved on May 20, 2006. On its release date, the album sold over 175,000 copies, a record for a female pop singer. Critics received the album with mixed to positive reviews with many of them stating that Dreaming of You was not Selena's peak as an artist, while stating that her previous record, Amor Prohibido, is a more consistent release that it was an effective introduction, and showed why she was adored by Tejano fans alike. Dreaming of You has proven commercially successful, selling over 2,000,000 copies in its first year.

Dreaming of You was among the "top ten best-selling debuts of all time" along with being the "best-selling debuts for a female artist", selling 175,000 copies on the very first day. In July 1995, Dreaming of You joined five of Selena's studio albums that remained on the top ten of Billboard Top 50 Latin Albums. Dreaming of You also became the highest ranking Spanish language album to chart Billboard Top Latin Albums.

Production and development

Prior to signing a contract with EMI Latin Records, Jose Behar, the former head of Sony Music Latin, wanted to sign Selena for a major crossover album in 1989 which was a long time dream for Selena. Selena recorded, "Only Love", "Is It the Beat?" and "Where Did the Feeling Go?" for the heads of EMI Records. Behar's request for a major crossover was denied and was told that in order to sell a major record, Selena needed a bigger fan base. In 1993, after winning a Grammy Award for Best Mexican American Album for Selena Live!, Selena was signed with SBK Records to begin recording her first major English language album. EMI Latin's purpose for the crossover album was said that Selena reached her peak in the Spanish language market and wanted to propel Selena into mainstream stardom as an American solo pop artist. Throughout her interviews, Selena stated that the album was going to be released sometime in 1994. Selena was questioned by many of her fans and interviewers about the album's release date after Selena released, Amor Prohibido, Selena stated to her fans and interviews that the album is still being developed. During a lunch break in 1994, Selena began crying due to the pressures of the press about her album to Jose Behar. Selena stated that she told numerous interviewers that her album is going to be released and Selena bolted in tears as she exclaimed that she has not even recorded one song for the album, the statement enraged Jose Behar and said that Selena was right and told EMI Records that Selena and her band, Los Dinos are going to "walk" and find a different record company who are willing to record an English language album for Selena, which EMI Records did not want to happen. During late 1994, Selena began recording her first song, "I Could Fall in Love" for the album. Selena was paired up with major Pop music producers, some of which won Grammy Awards for their works. Before recording, Selena's sister, Suzette Quintanilla stated that Selena would take a very long time before deciding a song that represented what "Selena" was all about. Recording sessions for the album took place during 1994 to 1995 at several recording studios, including at her father's recording studio, Q-Productions in Corpus Christi, The Bennett House in Franklin, Tennessee, Bananaboat Studio in Burbank, California, Oakshire Recorders in Los Angeles, California, Conway Studios in Hollywood, California, Clinton Studios in Clinton, New York, and Levosia Entertainment in Hollywood, California some recording sessions were done at North Hollywood, California. Producers and songwriters having collaborated with Selena on the album include Keith Thomas, Trey Lorenz who is courtesy of Epic Records, Mark Goldenberg, Kit Hain, Guy Roche, Donna Delorey, Diane Warren, Rhett Lawrence, David Byrne who is courtesy of Luaka Bop Inc., Frane Golde, Tom Snow, Full Force, Brian "Red" Moore, A.B. Quintanilla III, Barrio Boyzz, K.C. Porter, Felipe Bernmejo, Jose Hernandez, Felipe Valdes Leal, and for the Japanese release, Rokusuke Ei and Hachidai Nakamura.. Dreaming of You was the first album that her family was not producing. Prior to the albums recording sessions, Selena's family step back, as they allowed professional pop-recording producers work with Selena, this however paved way for stress on Selena; who briefly talked about her feelings towards the decisions that the record company forced, in order to sell a record.

Recordings for the album were in contrast from what she usually sings. The songs produced were mostly Pop songs about love. Selena wrote and recorded with David Byrne for his Gospel song, "God's Child (Baila Conmigo)", her vocals were later used in the song after Byrne recorded it in Clifton, New York. Before choosing, "Dreaming of You", Selena's husband Chris Pérez and brother who was the producer of her music, A.B. Quintanilla III told Selena that they both dislike the song. A.B. Quintanilla III stated that now he understands why Selena choose the song, stating after Selena's death. Pérez stated that he grew to love it. Keith Thomas stated that every time Selena would walk in the recording studio that all eyes would be on her due to her energy and eager to succeed, who made everyone laugh. Thomas also stated that there was no ego involved with her. Selena recorded four songs by January 20, 1995, she began recording songs in late 1994. Selena never recorded the song, "Oh No (I'll Never Fall in Love Again)" but Selena revealed its fate during a small interview for a small Spanish language television special. "Oh No" was later recorded in Spanish by her brother's band, Kumbia Kings, on their album Amor, Familia Y Respeto which was released on March 23, 1999. The composer Keith Thomas who wrote "I Could Fall In Love", never finished a second song and revealed the song's fate when he made an appearance on the A&E series, Biography which talked about Selena's life and death.

Composition

Musical style and lyrics

EMI Latin and EMI Records wanted to transform Selena's musical styles from Tejano and Latin Pop to Pop and R&B to convey the crossover dream that Selena ensued. The albums booklet also states that Selena displayed an instinctive ability to convey passion and sentiment in a variety of ways and gave the example of the first half of the album which "spotlighted Selena wrapping her creamy seductive mezzo sound around slow confessionals such as "I Could Fall in Love", "Missing My Baby", and the title track." Selena worked with Smooth Rock, Pop, and R&B for her song "I Could Fall in Love" while doing almost the same for "Captive Heart" which took a more steadily fast Rock and added Electropop feels. "I Could Fall in Love" talks about Selena being in a distant relationship that the other partner does not know that she is in love with him, she tries to be in a relationship with him by following her heart but questions if he will love her which then Selena decides not to tell him of her love for him. "Captive Heart" is driven about a women who is being captivated and controlled by her partner and who is in deep with him to let go and be free of her own emotions.

For the song, "I'm Getting Used to You", Selena worked with Baroque pop and Dream pop, the song talks about Selena being in a relationship that she did not used to, and is now getting the hang of being with that person who she is in dying need of. The song also talks about her partner changing her mind about love and the meaning to it by "opening" her eyes to see what he sees in her. For "God's Child (Baila Conmigo)", David Byrne first recorded his vocals to the song in New York and later Selena finished it up by adding her Spanish translations of the song in Texas. Byrne claims the song is about "two young transvestites" who used to live in his neighborhood in New York City The song uses Gospel pop simply using the term "God" throughout the song, also throughout the play of the song loud drums are played before Selena prepares to sing. For "Dreaming of You", Selena uses mainly Pop and R&B. The song describes a girl who is alone at night while everyone in the world is saliently sleeping, dreaming about their relationship together. The song then goes in depth with the girl feeling abandoned and wondering if he knows that she is there, she also states that if he stares closely at her eyes that she feels that he would not even care to look. The girl then says she will still dream of him endlessly.

Originally the album was going to enlist more English language tracks during the morning hours of March 31, 1995, while being scheduled to appear at her fathers recording studio to record another song called "Oh No (I'll Never Fall in Love Again)", Selena was shot to death by her fan club president and employee for Selena's boutiques, Yolanda Saldivar. The album was then once again put on hiatus until the reactions of Selena's death embarked EMI Records to release the album and its progress, while doing so, the company re-released Selena's most toping and famous works which mostly were remixed with Caribbean music like Dance hall and Reggae.

Artwork

For the album, no photo shoots were taken due to Selena's death while the album was still in progress. EMI Records and EMI Latin choose a photo shoot Selena took with Maurice Rinaldi in 1994 that was taken for Selena's greatest hits album, 12 Super Exitos (). The art direction were Jose Behar and Barbie Insua. The picture use was also cropped in a small old 18th century picture frame that is located at the right of the artwork for the album, the styles (around Selena) also illustrates if she was an angel in the stars which also describes how the song "Dreaming of You" is mainly about. The U.S. edition paper that was used for the artwork design was white paper that had touches of stains throughout the art work to express the feeling of an old story. Inside the book includes a short and long version of her biography told by John Lannert. Lyrics to all songs are also included, the Spanish songs are also translated in English. At the end of the book, fans alike were also given the chance to collect official Selena merchandise. The artwork for the Japanese edition was similar in design to the U.S. version but had a mixture of hardcover and softcovers booklets for the artwork. The biography and lyrics are written in Japanese, similar to the Korean release.

Use of styles

Throughout the book (artwork) fans of Selena can spot old style mini-bronze replicas of a ballerina, guitar, crown, heart chain, hands, and the Selena lapel pin metallic which is seen golden. Both the album and singles that were released used the new "Selena" logo, however, the album used the color red for the logo while the singles used gold. The logo used script, papyrus, monospaced and Old English words for her name.

The text above was sampled by "Como La Flor", one of Selena's signature songs, the text can be seen at the back of the booklet. The Spanish verse is sampled at the bottom of each word in red while the English text is Arial. Most texts found in the book are lower case Old English texts.

The album's and singles disc, except "El Toro Relajo" uses the Latin old English, golden color or red, "S" that is surrounded by unreadable words that comprised each other, also, to make it more unreadable, some ink splats are also visible on some words. The singles that were released sampled the same picture frame that was used for the album with a few minor exceptions. The singles artwork are equivalent of old 20th century frames with signs of decay. For "I'm Getting Used To You", the front cover was given the same treatment that the album's disc had. On the back of, the singles' artwork and inside, a small portion of the paper is seen with smoulder. The single, "El Toro Relajo", is the only disc that includes a picture of Selena (of the same photo shoot), her full name in golden Old English texts and "golden water" that raises from the letter "L". For the single, "Captive Heart", pink "kiss" marks are seen fading away. This is the only single to have only the letter "S" on the front cover. The picture, similar to "I'm Getting Used to You", includes a different photo shoot that Selena took for her Amor Prohibido album. The album also includes the heart-shaped locket that is also seen inside the main albums booklet. On "God's Child (Baila Conmigo)", the artwork is seen entirely similar to the main album, unlike the main album, "God's Child (Baila Conmigo)" has its color in purple with flowers visible in the background.

Release

The album was put on hiatus due to Selena's death on March 31. The album was scheduled to be released sometime in 1994, however, it was delayed after Selena released her last Spanish language studio album, "Amor Prohibido". Jose Behar, who was the head of both Sony Music Latin and EMI Latin, told EMI Records that Selena and her band, Los Dinos was going to "walk" and find another record company who were willing to sign Selena for a major English language album. This helped boost EMI's decision to embark Selena for her crossover album. The official release of the album was July 1995 as told by Selena during a small interview on January 20, 1995. Three months after Selena's death, EMI Records and EMI Latin released Dreaming of You on July 18, 1995 and it quickly debuted #1 on the U.S. Billboard 200's chart, selling more than 331,000 copies in its first week and knocking off the Pocahontas soundtrack and Michael Jackson from the top spot. EMI Latin's president estimated that the album had actually sold more than 700,000 copies the first week because Billboard did not include discount stores or the small shops specializing in Latin music. Well received by critics, the album also debuted #1 on the Billboard Latin Albums, and Billboard Latin Pop Albums music charts and maintaining on the charts for nearly 200 weeks.

The album itself was sold in more than 15 different countries around the world. In the months following the albums release, Selena became more known due to her songs, "Dreaming of You" and "I Could Fall in Love" had heavy airplay throughout major English language speaking radios, preferably Adult contemporary music radios. Dreaming of You sold half a million copies in the state of Texas alone. The album was certify thirty-five platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America selling more than 3,500,000 copies in its first year.

Within ten months of the release, Dreaming of You was nearing triple-platinum status. Billboard named "I Could Fall in Love" and "Dreaming of You" the #1 and #2 spot on their "Billboard book of top 40 hits". Upon the release of the album, EMI Latin was backed up with orders from retail stores of 500,000 units when the album sold over 2,000,000 copies, which then small retails store like Abdelsayed's Counterfeit Factory were unable to fill, the Counterfeit Factory and another small Providence, Rhode Island music store was broken into by fans of Regional Mexican music who netted over 35,000 cassettes mostly of Selena's album "Dreaming of You", the criminals were arrested of felony. The album was also the "biggest Latin album" since Julio Iglesias recorded his first English-language record, 1100 Bel Air Place.

In July 1995, Dreaming of You joined five of Selena's studio albums that remained in the top ten of Billboard Top 50 Latin Albums, the album peaked at #1. The album itself archived two unprecedented chart achievements, and is the first album to be mostly recorded in Spanish to debut number one on the Billboard 200 and is the first Latino artist to accomplish that feat. Two years after Selena's death, "Dreaming of You" and "Siempre Selena" took on the third and fourth slots, respectively, on the Billboard Top 50 Latin Albums. Dreaming of You reached gold status in Canada selling more than 50,000 copies.

Singles

The company, EMI Latin released the first leading single, Dreaming of You on August 14, 1995. The song later peaked at #9 on both the U.S. Billboard Hot Singles Recurrents and U.S. Billboard Latin Pop Airplay. The single also reached top ten and top twenty in many other charts. Within weeks of the song's released, a double single version of Dreaming of You was released on August 28, 1995 and comprised "Techno Cumbia" with added remixes. "I Could Fall in Love" became the second leading single off of the album on October 17, 1995, the company also re-released it with as a double single on the same day comprising "Tú Sólo Tú". "I Could Fall in Love" peaked #2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Latin Tracks the single also reached top ten and top twenty in many other charts, "I Could Fall in Love" also peaked #10 for eight weeks on the New Zealand Album Charts starting on October 22, 1995, the song was also the "highest ranking English language single" on the Hot Latin Tracks.

"I'm Getting Used To You" became the album's fourth single released from the album on November 26, 1995. "El Toro Relajo" became the first single off of the album to be released for Mexico and the single was also released as a promotional single for the United States on December 24, 1995. "Sukiyaki" became the first single released off of the album for Japan only on January 8, 1996 the single also comprised "Dreaming of You" and "I Could Fall in Love". For the singles, "God's Child (Baila Conmigo)" and "Captive Heart" were both released only for the U.K. and Canada during early January 1996. These singles became the final singles to be released from the album. "Tú Sólo Tú" won Song of the Year during the 1996 Tejano Music Awards while "I Could Fall in Love" won Tejano Crossover of the Year. During Selena's fifteenth anniversary, Popmatters stated that, even the most sheltered English-speaking music fan might not know Selena's name, that if you mention her hit singles, "Dreaming of You", or "I Could Fall in Love," that they'll likely respond with I remember that song, or I love that one. Singles, "Dreaming of You" and "I Could Fall in Love" were EMI Records, "top selling downloads" for the first quarter of the year 2005, as well as the year-to-date, which covered the periods of April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2005. For the week ending April 9, the two songs continued to chart the list.

Critical reception

Stephen Erlewine who reviewed the album expressed that producers Keith Thomas and Guy Roche envisioned Selena as a dance-pop diva similar to Pop recording artists, Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey, but with a Latin twist. Allmusic stated that most Americans first learned about Selena due to her murder and hence Dreaming of You is also the first record they ever heard of Selena. Allmusic also states that the English songs are very different from her Spanish songs and that the album Dreaming of You could've been a stronger album if she had lived.

Entertainment Weekly, David Browne complained that the album was the quickest posthumous albums ever cobbled together. Browne states that the "true" unbridled Selena can be found on her old hits, remixes, and soundtrack songs that fill out the rest of the album. Browne expressed that whether Selena is belting out at traditional ballads or tropical fantasies that she evokes lust and passion which he believed were both absent from her English tracks. Browne reviewed "God's Child (Baila Conmigo)" as a playful, galloping duet that hints at what the right producer, a fewer commercial concerns, could have done for Selena's "sadly never-to-be-realized crossover dreams". Billboard states that "Dreaming of You" captured Selena stepping from her Tejano roots into today's world of Anglo pop. Vibe states that the album was a brief recap of her cumbia flavored, Tex-Mex excellent poignant glimpse of the path the album was taking at the time of its release. Vibe also commented on the sadness of Selena's tragedy by stating that "you almost can't listen to the damn thing" due to Selena's death.

Personnel

Credits are taken from the album's liner notes.EMI Telvisia (1995) Selena – Dreaming of You (Liner Notes) EMI Records.

*Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (main and back-up vocalist, composer, and ideal)

*Keith Thomas (Composer, producer)

*David Byrne (Composer, guitar, harmonium, percussion)

*Kit Hain (Composer)

*Tom Snow (Composer)

*Pete Astudillo (Composer)

*Franne Golde (Composer)

*Mark Goldenberg (Composer)

*Diane Warren (Composer)

*K.C. Porter (Composer, engineer)

*Felipe Valdés Leal (Composer)

*Los Kumbia Kings (Composer)

*Trey Lorenz (back-up vocalist)

*Guy Roche (producer, keyboards, synthesizer)

*Nathaniel "Mick" Guzaski (mixer)

*Mario Luccy (engineer)

*Brian "Red" Moore (engineer, mixer, recorder)

*Moana Suchard (engineer and assistant engineer)

Charts

Album charts

Singles charts

Sales

Certifications

Notes

Note that Recording Industry Association of America has launched its Oro y De Platino certification scheme for those albums the 50% of the content of which are in Spanish, initially, the award-levels for Oro y De Platino were: Gold=100,000 and Platinum=200,000. In February 2008, Recording Industry Association of America reduced the certification-award-levels for Oro y De Platino to Gold=50,000 and Platinum=100,000.

Awards and nominations

Release history

See also

* List of works published posthumously

* List of number-one Billboard Top Latin Albums from the 1990s

* List of number-one albums of 1995 (U.S.)

References

Category:1995 albums

Category:Selena albums

Category:Albums produced by A.B. Quintanilla

Category:Albums produced by Guy Roche

Category:Albums produced by David Byrne

Category:EMI Records albums

Category:EMI Latin albums

Category:Bilingual albums

Category:English-language albums

Category:Spanish-language albums

Category:Concept albums

Category:Latin pop albums

Category:Posthumous albums

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