Review Summary: Not so much actively bad as boringly harmless.
Those who watch, or have at any point watched, pro-wrestling may be familiar with the name Lillian Garcia. She’s the leggy blonde that introduces the wrestlers before every WWE Raw match, sometimes even getting involved in the odd girlfight herself. What you may not know is that more recently, Ms. Garcia decided to profit from the stellar conditions the WWE gives its affiliates and launch her very own musical career.
Quiero Vivir is her second (!) album, released in late 2007. (I have no idea what the first one was called or when it came out).
Now, this is another one of those albums I would never have bought, but would have strived to listen to. Thank God for download providers, because just a short while after discovering its existence, I had
Quiero Vivir on my MP3, and was ready to laugh my pants off.
That, however, was not to be, simply because this is nowhere as hilarious as I first envisioned. What it is is somewhat deceiving, mainly in the art department. You see, when you first look at the cover, and assimilate the fact that the album is sung in Lillian’s native Spanish, you figure she’s going for a “next J-Lo” sort of thing. But once you listen to the actual album, you find out the overall sound is closer to a Latino Ashlee Simpson or Kelly Clarkson.
In fact, “pop-rock” is the perfect tag for these songs, because that is what they are: pop tracks with a slight rocking groove. Sturdy, yet melodic guitars, simple percussion patterns, buzzing bass and Lillian’s pleasant, if unspectacular, voice dishing out lyrics of pain and lovelorn-ness. It’s all very formula, but it works well.
The problem, however, lies in the songwriting. Although there are a couple of stellar moments – particularly the bouncy
Desenamorada, the absolute standout of the album – the vast majority of the material lacks that “something” that makes even shamelessly mainstream albums enjoyable. You see, there’s nothing fundamentally
wrong with Lillian’s songs; they’re just…blah. Of the whole bunch, only the title track and the aforementioned
Desenamorada really get you grooving, and warrant repeat listens. The rest of the songs are not bad, but they’re not really good, either. They’re just….there. They whizz by, one after the other, without ever overstaying their welcome, but without ever eliciting much of a reaction either. The only one that does stir up an emotion – a negative one – is the painful duet
Adónde. In this syrupy ballad, Lillian hooks up with some third-tier Enrique Iglesias clone who couldn’t sing to save his mother from burning at the stake. Oddly enough, this is the one track where the songwriters went the Latino/J-Lo route. A potential single, maybe?
Another interesting fact is that neither of these tracks goes above four and a half minutes -.most clock in at under four – but most of them seem to drag on endlessly. An example of uninspired songwriting, or just someone who is admittedly not used to this type of music? You decide. What I know is that I could hardly bring myself to listen to this more than once, and even then, the final tally was two and a half listens.
Another very uninspired move was to recycle two of the tracks and remake them with English lyrics. Therefore, tacked on at the end of the album, we get
Under in Love and
Where Did Love Go, anglicized versions of, respectively, the best and worst songs on the album. Oddly enough, the effect of these songs is inversely proportional to that of the original.
Where Did Love Go is marginally better than the dire
Adónde (even the guy has learned to sing, or maybe it’s the language change), while
Under in Love lacks the spark that made
Desenamorada such a good pop song. Also, it’s interesting to see how they managed to adapt the lyrics to another language without changing their fundamental meaning, something a lot of artists can’t pull off. Still, if these had been bonus tracks, they’d be all right; bus as mere, shameless padding for an already short album they’re uninspired and inexcusable. I mean, they’re
not even the last two songs – we get one more track after them,
Que Seria, which reverts back to Spanish and makes the two tracks seem even
more disjointed from the rest.
So, you get the drift – this is a listenable album, not without its merits, but ultimately rather boring. The aforementioned songs do stick out, but the rest just blend into a muddle of faux-aggressive guitars, mid-tempo drums and quasi-soulful vocals. Lillian has a pleasant enough voice, no great shakes, but not Ashlee-caliber, either (and probably auto-tuned, as well). She is (or seems to be) several leagues above other celebrities like Paris Hilton, but she falls short of the Clarksons and Aguileras of this world.
Her lyrics are the most interesting part of the record, as nearly all of them deal with breaking up and the pain that ensues for both parties. Although I doubt she wrote them herself, they’re still interesting enough to listen to, and different from the usual drivel we get on this type of album (see: Steven Seagal). The – almost integral – use of Spanish, rather than English, also lends this album a veneer of honesty; after all, her roots
are Latino, as much as her tye-dye hair belies that statement.
However, ultimately, this album is brought down by its own blandness. As noted above, very few songs stand out or even make an impact, making this a pleasant, but also extremely bland listen. Seriously, when the best thing you can say about an album is that it’s “pleasant”, it may be time to change. I believe Lillian has some talent, but she needs to put it to better use.
Another quirk this album has is which niche it will fit into. The 12-year-old girls this seems to be marketed towards won’t know who Lillian Garcia is, while their wrestling-buff older brothers will be disappointed by the lack of aggressive guitars and shouted vocals. This leaves poor Lillian with an audience of a few curious souls, like me, whose curiosity was piqued by this harmless oddity. Ultimately, not enough to assure her another album, unless they start marketing her
fast, and at least as well as they did John Cena. Although I suspect Raw maniacs won’t lap this up as easily as they did Cena…
Ultimately, then, this isn’t a horrible album. But it begs the question: with so much interesting music out there, why would you want to get this album? Unless you are a wrestling completist – and even then, you will probably leave this CD over at your girlfriend’s rather than put it on your shelf next to the Disturbed or Three Days Grace CD’s .
Final verdict: not as bad as I expected, but not particularly good, either. Go download
Desenamorada and leave the rest alone. And to you, Lillian: sorry, but you fail. Still, it’s only a D+, and it can easily be improved with a little more work. Better luck next time.
EDIT: The duet guy is actually Jon Secada!! What the hell…?!
Recommended Tracks
Quiero Vivir
Desenamorada
