‘Selena’ Soundtrack Captures Excitement

Could this be the birth of Selena the disco queen?

The “Selena” movie soundtrack, which hits stores March 11, focuses on the late Tejano star’s affinity for dance music. A disco medley recorded during her 1995 Houston Astrodome concert has been broken up into two cuts: Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and Lipps Inc.’s “Funkytown” on the first, Van McCoy’s The Hustle and Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” and “On the Radio” on the second.

But there’s more of the club Selena on the CD, which will be released 10 days before the film makes its nationwide debut March 21. “Is It the Beat?,” one of three songs recorded in 1990 for possible inclusion on a pop cross-over album, has been revamped with a ‘90s hip-hop track supporting Selena’s original vocals. The other two songs from those sessions are “Where Did the Feeling Go?,” a ballad that will accompany the film’s closing credits, and the adult-contemporary cut “Only Love.”

“Every album that Selena released had a different variety of music,” says her father, Abraham Quintanilla, the album’s producer. “We are following that same tradition. Selena was an artist that could sing different genres of music and put the right feel into them. We want to show people in South Dakota, who didn’t know Selena when she was alive, what she was all about. There was more to her than Tejano music.”

Live tracks from the Astrodome concert will be used throughout the film. The soundtrack also includes a medley of Selena’s Spanish anthems: “Baila Esta Cumbia,” “La Carcacha,” “Como la Flor” and “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom.”

Actress Jennifer Lopez will be lip-synching to Selena’s vocals in the film, while the singing voice of the early Selena will be provided by Jennifer Pena, the 12-year-old vocalist of Jennifer y Los Jetz, who were discovered by Quintanilla in 1995.

“Since we didn’t have clean recordings of when Selena was young, we used Jennifer’s voice,” he says. “But that will not be on the soundtrack (album).”