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In a couple of new interviews, Tejano icon Selena Quintanilla Perez’s family announced plans to release a new album this spring, 27 years since Selena, then 23, was tragically shot and killed by her former employee, Yolanda Saldivar, the incident that inspired both an acclaimed biopic and a Netflix miniseries.
Her father, Abraham Quintanilla, told Latin Groove News that the as-yet-untitled project would be distributed through Warner Music and feature 13 ballads and cumbias, comprising ten unreleased songs and three new arrangements of previous songs.
Producer A.B. Quintanilla, Selena’s brother, also recently shared to Tino Cochino Radio: “It’s a crazy concept album. I remixed all her vinyls and just, with this album, with an EDM world, with arpeggiators and with keyboards, I made her flow to cumbia. Normal songs that were not normally recorded in cumbia.”
Quintanilla explained how they digitally altered her voice to make her sound older, as some of the tracks were recorded when she was a teenager.
“We were also able to de-tune her voice to make her sound older than what she was. So she was 14 or 15, we were able to make her sound like she just stepped out of the booth at 23 years old.”
He added that “by de-tuning her voice a little bit, it actually made her sound deeper, like she sounded before she passed.”
In the interview with Abraham, he says he is amazed at how “26 years later the public still remembers Selena. They haven’t let go of her. They’re waiting for a project like this to come out, and I know it will be well received by the public.”
He adds, “I said right after she passed away that I was going to try to keep her memory alive through her music, and we have done that.”
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