Gloria Estefan - The Essential Gloria Estefan
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Free Music Notes for The Essential Gloria Estefan
Free Music Review: Glo's best Greatest Hits comp yet
Hit: 5 Stars
Well worth the wait...now only Celine Dion seems to remain among Sony superstars not yet included in the "Essential" series. This nicely-done compilation fills two discs with 37 career highlights, including rare single mixes of "Live For Loving You" (much livelier than the LP version), "Bad Boy" (the glaring omission, along with "Dr. Beat," from the first GH set), and "1-2-3", among others. "Dr. Beat" is here as well, along with a recent/bizarre Eurohit remix called "Doctor Pressure".
Disc 1 has the fast ones, Disc 2 has the slow ones, both with plenty of high points. All three of Mrs. Estefan's pop #1's were ballads and are on the 2nd disc: "Anything For You" (my favorite), "Don't Wanna Lose You", and the inspirational "Coming Out of the Dark."
All but three chart hits are here, hope they're not deal-breakers for you, gentle reader: "Betcha Say That", "Seal Our Fate", and "Can't Forget You".
I lived in North Miami Beach when even the lower-charting Gloria/Miami Sound Machine releases became radio staples. My sister and I heard "Conga" on the car radio a full year before it hit in Billboard. It was hard to stay inside the lane on I-95 when that one came on. I always thought Gloria Estefan handled her stardom with class, and her recovery from that terrible bus accident was inspirational. I'm really glad the label did a good job on this for the artist and her many fans.
Free Music Review: A very solid collection
Hit: 5 Stars
Gloria has always been one of my guilty pleasures, and this collection contains all of her best work.
You're better off buying this collection than you would be buying the Greatest HIts albums -- both for content and value.
Free Music Review: Music From The Heart
Hit: 4 Stars
There have been numerous hits collections that really have made an artists career seem definitive, or somebody feel like there career could've used more improvement. That has been the same with so many of the younger female artists like Jessica Simpson, Beyonce', and Ashanti. Although they've tried to stretch themselves into so many positions as singers, actresses and other positions, they don't seem to really have the organic feeling of what great music is all about. For somebody like Gloria Estefan, she is somebody who has been through hell and back from a nearly fatal accident in 1989, to being told she couldn't have kids. She had beaten all those odds, and now a definitive hits collection shines out of Gloria's music.
The 2006 Essential Gloria Estefan is a very long, overdue definitive hits collection taht spotlights her longevity as the most successful crossover female Latin/Pop artists ever. The double album does a very good job at highlighting her career throughout 3 decades in the spotlight. The collection though is similar to other greatest hits records like Whitney Houston's 2000 hits collection, where one disc is all about the dance tracks and the other disc is all about her pop ballads. The collection here highlights her career very well, and includes all of her big hits from the classic covers Turn The Beat Around and Everlasting Love, to dance beats from the classic Conga, Mi Tierra and Heaven's What I Feel from the movie Dance With Me, all the way around her soulful ballads such as Music Of My Heart with N'sync and I See You Smile. All in all, the songs for the record have all been remastered very well, and highlight each song beautifully. The only disadvantage with the record is that the songs weren't in chronological order for each track, which makes it a bit confusing for those who haven't heard her music, or newcomers who don't own a Gloria Estefan album yet.
Despite one major flaw, The Essential Gloria Estefan is one of the very few greatest hits record released this year that really has delivered as good as the greatest hits album has defined. I love her songs a lot, and I just wish a lot of people who seem more interested on who has to be hot on MTV, could try a change of pace, and listen to Gloria Estefan's magic. I absolutely recommend this hits album a whole lot. The rhythm will still get you.
Album Cover: B+
Songs: A-
Price: A-
Remastering: B+
Overall: B+
Free Music Review: An Aptly Titled Album
Hit: 5 Stars
"The Essential Gloria Estefan," a two-CD retrospective on the English-language career of Gloria Estefan (with a few Spanish highlights such as the anthemic "Mi Tierra" thrown in for good measure) presents the singer as something more than the pop songstress she has been labeled as. Disc one, the fast disc, highlights most of Estefan's dance hits, opening with the 80's kitch of the sadly underrated "Dr. Beat" (which also closes the disc in a remixed form that topped European dance charts again last year, twenty years after its initial release). And all the Miami Sound Machine songs that brought Gloria to the top of the charts are accounted for: the timeless and wonderfully Latin-tinged "Conga," which not only opened the door for crossover success but broke it down, "1-2-3," "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You," and "Get On Your Feet." ("Essential" also marks the first time that "Bad Boy" and "Falling In Love (Uh-Oh)" appear on an Estefan compilation, righting some of the wrongs committed on 1992's "Greatest Hits.") But more than just solidifying Gloria's status as an 80's pop icon, the disc showcases her transcendence from bubblegum to progressive. 1989's "Oye Mi Canto (Hear My Voice)" is a delightful and poignant commentary on acceptance that breaks into full-on flamenco guitar; "Turn The Beat Around" and "Everlasting Love" (a duo of songs from 1994's covers album, "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me"), the former going all-out in Latin percussion and the latter unabashedly celebrating the glory days of disco, typify recreation; and 1998's "Heaven's What I Feel" (from the buoyant "Gloria!" album) is perhaps her most mature concoction of dance-pop to date. And then there's the caliente-ness of "Oye," a dance-floor throw-down with an undeniable salsa rhythm, that arguably bridges the gap between American and Latin flavors better than "Conga" did. Disc two, the slow disc, however, is the one that presents Gloria in perhaps her best light-as a songwriter who possesses the gift of capturing the most complex of human emotions with the simplest of words. All those broken-hearted love songs that you remember well are here (including "Words Get In The Way," "Can't Stay Away From You," "Cuts Both Ways,' the superior "Here We Are" and the number one smashes "Anything For You" and "Don't Wanna Lose You"), but it's the post-prime material that beckons for a second listen. "I See Your Smile" (previously only available on "Greatest Hits") is a stunning, piano-driven, tear-jerker; "I'm Not Giving You Up" (from 1996's sorely under-appreciated masterpiece, "Destiny") combines the Afro-Cuban rhythms explored on her Spanish albums with English pop sensibility; and the folkloric "Wrapped," the only song representing her most recent, and most personal, output from 2003's autobiographical "Unwrapped," is, with its poetic lyrics and unique use of mandolin and panpipes, unlike anything you will hear elsewhere. But it's the anthemic songs, such as 1991's gospel-infused "Coming Out Of The Dark" and 1996's Olympic theme "Reach," as well as the poignant "Always Tomorrow," that perhaps best represent Estefan as an artist: they are hopeful and inspiring, and they speak to the resiliency of the spirit, which is something Gloria Estefan has done effortlessly for the past two decades. "Essential" is the long-overdue musical portrait of an woman who rose to fame with an infectious dance ditty and then went on to redefine herself as a viable and serious voice of her generation. Free Music Review: Gloria!
Hit: 5 Stars
This excellent two-disc retrospective is a reminder that from 1985 to 2000, Gloria Estefan was a top-notch pop artist in her prime. In recent years her career has slowed down a bit, and in this day and age of dark pop and hip-hop, Estefan's bouncy, Latin-flavoured pop would seem out of date.
Which is too bad, really, because artists like Estefan are much missed on radio today. She has the perfect pop voice, and at her peak, she delivered hit after hit.
This compilation features all her popular dance hits on one CD, while disc two covers her equally popular ballads. With enduring hits like "Bad Boy", "Anything For You", "Don't Wanna Lose You" and "Turn the Beat Around", Estefan proved she could hold her own with mega-stars like Madonna, Whitney and Celine Dion throughout the '80s and '90s.
By the late '90s, Gloria was taking more chances. Instead of churning out hit ballads as if they were on an assembly line, Estefan, perhaps encouraged by the surprising success of her Spanish album "Mi Tierra", became more interested in getting her fans on the dancefloor. 1998's Gloria! is perhaps my favourite album. It's a non-stop dance album that preceded Madonna's "Confessions on a Dancefloor" by several years. She also recorded more Spanish songs and recorded albums ("Destiny" and "Wrapped") that were more introspective than syrupy, but never losing her ability to create fine pop music.
This collection covers those albums and much more. It truly is essential.