| Moonchild Mixes | |
| Type: | album |
| Artist: | Selena |
| Cover: | Moonchildmixes.jpg |
| Genre: | Tejano cumbia |
| Released: | August 26, 2022 |
| Recorded: | 1986 – 1988 |
| Studio: | AMEN Studios |
| Label: | Warner Music Latina |
| Producer: | A.B. Quintanilla |
| Prev Title: | Ones |
| Prev Year: | 2021 |
Moonchild Mixes is an album by Selena. It was released posthumously through Warner Music Latina on August 26, 2022. The album originated in 2011 by Selena's brother and music producer A.B. Quintanilla, who wanted to modernize previously released and unreleased songs recorded by Selena. A.B. was able to de-tune Selena's voice, making her sound older than she really was in the original recordings.
News of the album's release sparked criticisms by fans who believed the album would not be authentic and questioned the motives of the Quintanilla family in releasing the album. Critics shared fans' negative reactions towards the album, questioning the ethics of Selena's voice being retouched by computers.
"Como Te Quiero Yo A Ti" was released as the lead single of Moonchild Mixes on July 29, 2022.
Moonchild Mixes debuted at number 12 on the US Billboard Top Album Sales, including number 8 on the Top Latin Albums, number 1 on the Latin Pop Albums and number 2 on the Regional Mexican Albums charts with 5,000 album-equivalent units.[1]
The album's release continues a promise Abraham Quintanilla told his family following the shooting death of Selena on March 31, 1995, that he will continue to preserve her memory through her music. According to A.B. Quintanilla, Suzette Quintanilla, and Selena collectively agreed that if anything were to happen to any one of them, their wish would be to continue on with their music. A.B. said that one of Selena's wishes was for her to "never go away", the Quintanilla family believes that by releasing Moonchild Mixes, they are upholding Selena's wish. The development of this album traces back to 2011 when Abraham and A.B. had wanted to create an album with modernized tracks of previously released material and five unreleased songs from Selena prior to her contractual commitments with EMI Latin in 1989. They announced the album could be released in fall 2011 or early 2012. On August 17, 2011, Abraham announced that the album would be released in 2012 with ten tracks from a selection of five master recordings Selena recorded in the 1980s. Abraham said his goal was to "rejuvenate their sounds and bring them up to date". EMI Latin decided on a remix album with tracks by Selena turned into duets with popular artists. The album, Enamorada de Ti, was released in April 2012 to critical and commercial success.
Abraham and A.B. revived their original plans to release a remix album in 2019 with a 2020 release date. The album's production was the first project that A.B., Abraham, and Suzette all participated in since the 2004 release of Momentos Intimos. During an interview with podcaster Smoothvega in April 2020, A.B. spoke about the remix album telling fans of Selena that "you got juicy music tracks and textures and colors of beautiful pictures that I've painted and Selena has put her vocals on them." However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the album was postponed. A.B. resumed production of the album through 2021, using Steve Aoki's soundpack to remix the songs. He revealed that he was able to de-tune Selena's vocals which provided her with a deeper sound, making the singer sound older than what she really was in the original recordings.
Suzette found the new arrangements on Moonchild Mixes to have "breathe new light" on the recordings made during the 1980s and believed it felt "like [Selena] went into the studio again and recorded [them]." A.B.'s desire to release Moonchild Mixes originated of Selena's "ability to transcend generations", while Suzette noticed that a newer, and younger, generation is discovering her and are interested to know more about her. Suzette believed that it was important to curate an album of older material and rejuvenate them for the newer generation. A.B. found the process of converting Selena's vinyl into the digital age challenging. Along with temporal measurement adjustments, he had to "clean Selena's vocals" as well as lowering her pitch "just a hair" in order to make Selena sound mature.
The album was expected to be released in April 2022, through WEA Latina. In May, Abraham announced that the recording would be released sometime that year. On July 11, it was announced that Moonchild Mixes would be released on August 26, through streaming platforms, alongside a physical release.
On March 15, 2022, Abraham announced that the follow-up album will contain "1980s-era Tejano music" with a tracklisting containing a sample of "50 unreleased songs" recorded by Selena.
The songs on the album are tracks recorded by Selena during her teenage years and her vocals have been digitally modified to make her sound as if she recorded them "right before her passing". The songs on the album have been modernized, utilizing technology to create "beautiful [new] arrangements" from songs recorded in the 1980s. The album will contain a mixture of ballads and cumbias, with some electronic dance music influences. The album contains 13 songs with "completely new arrangements" by A.B. Initially, media reports wrote that the album would have a mixture of released and unreleased songs recorded by Selena, and that ten of the 13 songs would be previously unreleased songs. One track includes a song Selena recorded in 1983 or 1984 when she was 13-years-old, the oldest track on the record. A.B. was able to update her vocals digitally to change its timbre.
The first single released from Moonchild Mixes, "Como Te Quiero Yo a Ti" was released through digital and streaming platforms on July 29, 2022. It is the third version of the song following its original debut in Preciosa (1988) and a re-recorded version on Momentos Intimos (2004). In a Good Morning America segment, John Quiñones believed the song "honors the Tejano legend's memory and legacy." A.B. revealed that it took him over a year to update the sounds on "Como Te Quiero Yo a Ti" to its finished product because of "many obstacles" that prevented him from doing so. Reactions to "Como Te Quiero Yo a Ti" were positive following the announcement of it as the album's single.
Abraham announced the album through an interview with San Antonio-based Latin Groove News on March 10, 2022. The album has been completed, though it was being remastered while the artwork was being handled by Suzette, at the time. In April 2020, A.B. revealed that their mother, Marcella Quintanilla, had originally selected the artwork for the album before it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Abraham, this album has been long-awaited by fans of the singer and believed it will be received positively by the public. News of the album's release sparked criticism from fans who believed the album would not be authentic, while others questioned the family's motive for releasing the album believing they "are profiting off [of Selena's death]". Abraham responded that he is aware of their criticisms and believed that those who are critical of the album are unaware on the recording contract that the family made with Selena prior to her death. Abraham has received negative comments from fans since Selena's death; he initially found her fan's criticisms hurtful, though he now says that the negative comments he receives no longer bother him. EMI Latin has released a plethora of posthumous albums, as well as unreleased material by Selena since her death. Suzette stressed that the preservation of Selena's legacy through her works has been a difficult task that has made it harder for the family in coping with the singer's absence. A.B. recalled a phrase Selena would often say: "The goal isn't to live forever but to create something that will" when interviewed by a reporter for La Prensa Latina on the negative responses the family has received. Biographer Joe Nick Patoski, called the commercialization of Selena a business, saying that "it happens when your father is your manager".
WOAI-TV called comments such as "just let her die" and "let her go, she's dead" that were left by people on their Facebook posts on Selena, as seemingly insensitive. Matt Wille of InPut Magazine, believes that positive responses by fans depend "greatly on the care" the family incorporates in the recordings. Critics have questioned the ethics involved in creating the album. Wille questions this in the involvement in the computer manipulation of a singer who has died saying the "conversation is much less clear-cut", in comparison to living musicians who use this technology, he also questioned whether or not Selena would have approved of this album. This concern was echoed by Craig Huber of Spectrum News, who found the idea of updating a 13-year-old Selena song both "interestingly, and perhaps controversially". In a poll conducted by The Today Show, 57% of participants believed that unreleased songs by Selena should not be released with a digitally updated voice, while 29% believed that there is no harm in doing so, 14% were neutral or had no opinion. Stella Chavez of National Public Radio (NPR) took to Twitter to complain about the new release disliking the idea of Selena's voice being "done using computers". Suzette Exposito of Rolling Stone magazine, also took to Twitter to criticize the release writing that "nothing is stopping Selena's family from working with new artists today". According to Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist and professor at Berklee College of Music, the ability to digitally age Selena's voice is "a simple process" that he believes "could potentially require just an isolated recording of the singer and the appropriate digital software." A journalist for The Los Angeles Times, called the project "a Selena robot album" that the singer wouldn't have wanted.
In their response to critics, A.B. and Suzette agreed that if Selena were alive, she would have been overjoyed of Moonchild Mixes. Suzette believes in tuning out critics, "what critics? We don't care about them", as she later puts it. She finds that "as an artist and musicians and people that are in the public eye" need to find a way to ignore those who oppose them. She explained that her family will continue "to do what we want with our music, with our sister, with our band", though they want people to understand their projects for Selena have been done "with loving care and with beauty." A.B. disagrees with the notion that the family is taking "advantage of Selena's legacy", saying that "what we're doing is honoring her memory, her legacy. That's what it's about".