MEXICO CITY (AP) — Twenty-seven years after releasing her song Amor a la Mexicana, Thalía expands her catalog of regional music with an album dedicated to the genre in which she pays tribute to her Mexican roots while fusing them with electronic and pop music.
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In A Mucha Honra, released on Friday (April 26, 2024), Thalía created a new version of her song originally included on her 1997 album Amor a la Mexicana, but now closer to modern corridos.
Thalía has closely followed the rise of regional Mexican music to the top of global popularity charts in recent years. For her it is a reaffirmation of the search that she has had in her career in which she has performed mariachi, bolero and banda.
"For me it is like the perfect circle, it perfectly closes that story that I have been telling through my music, that pride of mine in being Mexican, in my roots, in the sounds with which I grew up," Thalía said in a recent interview by video call from New York. "It is feeling proud of what is happening with regional music globally at this moment, but at the same time it is feeling happy and pleased that I have done something coherent with what I have wanted to narrate and tell."
"A mucha honra" is also a phrase from her character María la del Barrio from the 1995 telenovela of the same name that completed the trilogy started with María Mercedes and Marimar that made Thalía famous internationally.
"I have been very fortunate to play these beautiful characters," said Thalía. "They continue to sweep, because the novels continue to be passed around and continue to come out in different formats and on different platforms."
Actors often say that making a soap opera is quite hard because they take a year to shoot and are generally recorded from Monday to Friday. Thalía remembered that time full of activity in her career.
"I rested, I think for two months, and I started recording for another whole year," she noted. "More going on tour, going on tour, it was everything, recording videos, recording albums, everything came together, but the truth is that it has been a very fortunate career, with many opportunities."
Now in 2024, her children Sabrina Sakaë, 16, and Matthew Alejandro, who turns 13 in June, accompany her in her musical work, including reviewing the mix of songs for her new album.
"They come and start dancing," Thalía said. "They begin to understand music from a different perspective, but they enjoy it as we experience it."
Thalía said that her children mainly listen to alternative artists, but that they do not limit themselves and cover all types of musical genres, as is the case with many young people who, thanks to streaming platforms, can jump from one genre, era and style to another with ease.
"I feel that these generations, or this generation, are not married to a single style or a single artist," said Thalía. "This is how this generation is growing and it keeps us as singers, performers or producers on tiptoe because we always have to look for how to reinvent ourselves, how to grow, how to improve."
In A Mucha Honra Thalía has a collaboration with a new generation artist with Troca with Ángela Aguilar. When she started working on her album almost two years ago she noticed that it was a song that would suit Aguilar's voice very well and together with producer Jimmy Humilde she did not hesitate to call her.
Another of their guests is Eduin Caz from Grupo Firme on Te Va A Doler, a song whose remix mixed by the American DJ of Mexican origin Deorro, Thalía premiered live at the Latin American Music Awards on Thursday night. Deorro usually includes regional music in his sets.
"When I heard Deorro's music I said I love this arrangement, I love this production, who is this?" said Thalía. "I gave him the song to cover and it turned out spectacular."
Thalía recorded the album at Edgar Rodríguez's YellowRoom Music studio in Los Angeles, which she described as the "mecca" of this new wave in regional Mexican music. Thalía also filmed videos for her disco songs in that city, but Caz got so excited about Te Va a Doler, that she wanted to collaborate with her part filming from Mazatlán, Mexico. The video, in which they both drive convertible cars, was released with the release of the album.
"Pretend that it is as if we had filmed it together, the truth is that it was spectacular," said Thalía.
For now there is no complete date for Thalía to go on tour, but it is an idea that excites her.
"I would love to return, it's something they ask me all the time," she said. "I have to get ready to go out, I think it would be a show full of so many songs and so many moments, from heart-breaking ballads, from Primera Fila, to Thalía la Antigua, to Thalía Amor a la Mexicana, Arrasando, Piel Morena and the one from the novels, Mixtape, regional Mexican, is going to be an impressive show."
Source: AP News
