Selena’s Family Is Releasing a New Album of Unreleased Material Almost 30 Years After Her Death
Tejano music icon Selena Quintanilla died with a beloved catalog of songs including “Como la Flor,” “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” and “Dreaming of You.” But now, nearly three decades after her death in 1995, the Quintanilla family is releasing never-before-heard music from the Selena vault.
Selena’s music career
As a young Mexican American girl growing up in Texas, Selena wanted nothing more than to just sing. As a child, she and her siblings played in her father’s band, Los Dinos. As she grew older, Selena became the group’s lead singer, and they became Selena y Los Dinos.
Throughout the early ’90s, Selena grew to become the beloved Queen of Tejano music. She had hit songs like “Como la Flor,” “Amor Prohibido,” and “El Chico del Apartamento 512,” all entirely in Spanish, despite not being fluent in Spanish herself in real life.
By the time of her death in 1995, Selena had recorded her first crossover album of English songs, and was on the verge of a mainstream breakthrough.
Selena’s family is releasing new Selena music
In a March 2022 with Latin Groove News, Selena’s father Abraham Quintanilla Jr. spoke about the family’s decision to release a new album of Selena music, consisting of unreleased music as well as never-before-heard versions of previously-released songs. The album will feature 13 tracks with new arrangements by her brother A.B. and artwork by her sister, Suzette.
One song, Quintanilla said, was recorded when she was just 13 years old and has been digitally modified to sound how she did as an adult.
“What’s unique about it is, not only is the music completely new arrangements, my son worked on Selena’s voice with computers and if you listen to it she sounds on this recording like she did right before she passed away,” Quintanilla said. “It sounds incredible.”
In a 2021 interview with Tino Cochino Radio, A.B. Quintanilla said that he’d remixed all of Selena’s records and “detuned her voice,” making it deeper and closer to how she sounded in her twenties.
Selena’s legacy has been kept alive by her family through a movie, TV show, and more
Since her untimely death in 1995, Selena’s family has worked to keep her legacy alive in various forms of media. In 2020, for example, MAC Cosmetics released an exclusive Selena collection that included several products, including her iconic red lipstick.
In 1997, Selena was brought to life on screen by Jennifer Lopez, at that time a dancer who rose to fame as a Fly Girl on In Living Color and was breaking into the acting world. And in 2021, her rise to fame was portrayed in the Netflix show Selena: The Series.
