The Queen of Tejana Music
Mexican-American Tejano singer Selena’s fifth solo album, “Dreaming of You,” was released July 18, 1995 — 30 years ago today. It would sell 175,000 copies that first day and 331,000 copies over its first week in stores.
The sad part: Selena wasn’t around to enjoy her sudden crossover success. She had been murdered three and a half months before.
An Enormous Posthumous Hit Album
Selena Quintanilla was born in 1971 to Mexican-American parents in Freeport, Texas. The doctor who delivered her was future Congressman Ron Paul.
She began singing at an early age and became lead singer of a Tejano band that included her two older siblings. That band, Selena y Los Dinos, began recording albums for independent labels in 1984 but found limited success in the Latin market.
Selena recorded her first solo release in 1989 when she was 18. Her third album, “Entre a Mi Mundo,” was released in May 1992 and was an enormous success, occupying No. 1 on Billboard’s Regional Mexican Albums chart for eight consecutive months. Her fourth album, “Live!,” released in May 1993, spent 20 weeks at No. 1 and won a Grammy Award for Best Mexican/American Album.
By this point, Selena was eager to record a “crossover” album — one aimed at both her usual Latino audience as well as English-speaking record-buyers in the United States. She wanted her album to reflect her own musical heroes: Madonna, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.
Released in March 1994, "Amor Prohibido" would occupy No. 1 on Billboard's Regional Mexican Album Chart for 96 out of 109 weeks through May 1996.
Her label, EMI Latin, was reluctant to make a leap like this. After her Grammy win, however, Selena signed with SBK Records and began recording tracks for her fifth album.
Selena had recorded four tracks for her English-language album planned for release in late 1995 and several Spanish songs for another Tejano album the year after when she was murdered by the former manager of her Corpus Christi, Texas, boutique and beauty salon in March 1995. Selena was 23.
After her death, SBK Records decided to combine all Selena’s recent work into one album. The first six songs were in English and featured ballads, dance-pop and doo-wop while the other seven tracks were in Spanish and included Tejano, ranchera, cumbia, bolero and mariachi music.
“Dreaming of You” was released in the U.S. on July 18, 1995, and sold 175,000 copies that day — a record, at the time, for a female vocalist. It sold 331,000 copies in its first week, which was enough for the album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. This made Selena the first Hispanic artist to debut at No. 1 and the third solo artist to debut a posthumous album at No. 1, after Janis Joplin and Jim Croce.
“Dreaming of You” spent nine weeks in the top ten of Billboard’s album chart. It spent nine months at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart and became the best-selling Latin album of all time in the U.S.
Selena’s previous Latino album, “Amor Prohibido,” had spent 47 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Regional Mexican album chart before she was killed. After her murder, the album regained the No. 1 spot and spent another 27 consecutive weeks in the top spot. It would return to No. 1 yet again in October for another 18 consecutive weeks. In all, “Amor Prohibido” would spent 96 weeks at No. 1.
Selena’s next four releases — two greatest hits collections, an album of remixes and a boxed set — would also sell well over the rest of the 1990s.
Selena's "Dreaming of You" album, released three months after her death, would debut at No. 1 in the Billboard 200 album chart and would go on to sell 3.72 million copies.
Selenas' No. 1 Albums
Selenas' Singles Chart History
