13 Mayo 2006 - There is a blog about Soraya at "Soraya Chile".
10 May 2006 - I read with great sadness that Soraya died this morning. The cancer that claimed the lives of some of her immediate line also got her. I had never seen people susceptible to breast cancer as a line but her's obviously were. I had checked her web page several times since the first of the year and couldn't understand why she was on tv shows and presenting awards but not touring. Now I understand. She left messages for her fans, and the media. Her web site is "403ing (Forbidden)", which can mean that too many people are trying to access it. The only place I have been able to read them was on Univisión where they are in Spanish. The main link is called "Último adiós para Soraya" and you want to visit "Adíos Soraya". I saw a brief notice in English on the entertainment section of msnbc.com.
10 February 2006 - I was loading Soraya onto my computer using iTunes and found she has a new album out called "Gold". I have everything on the 2 CDs but will still buy it. I remember when the album "Soraya" was released. I would drive around all of the places that sold Spanish music playing Casi. I was very frustrated with her current label. In a marketing rating of 0-10 they scored a -10.
There are a number of Soraya's songs that I like but "Pueblito viejo" makes me feel melancholy and I want to travel to Old Town in Santa Fe. None of my amigos de México understand my attraction to her songs but that is ok because I don't think some of their "banda" music is music. At the 2005 Posada party, Fernanda de San Luis Rio Colorado was picking the music. It was all banda and norteño and none of it made me shudder like it usually does. I don't have a problem with norteño. For example, Bronco is one of the artists in my Nomad Touch´s "Playing Now" list. It is the banda that usually bothers me. Fernanda's choices were a long ways from Soraya but my taste in música latina is pretty broad. Much of Soraya's current music is more hip-hop and I don't appreciate it. She is selling more albums and I guess that is more important.
13 July 2005 - I was thinking about Soraya's latest album "El otro lado de mi". I didn't like this album as much as I did Casi. It was like she was trying to go Hip Hop and she is too old to fit the image. It didn't get the play time in the car. You can measure how I like an album by how many days it is left in the car's CD player. The timing was bad because I had just found Lila Downs and the songs were not enough to get me to change Lila's CD out. Some albums are hits but I think this one was a miss. Soraya received a grammy for the best singer, song writer. I have thought that was true since I heard "Cuerpo y alma".
The song Casi from the album Soraya was listed as the #1 Billboard Latin Single. I like this song and can almost play it and the acoustic version in a loop.
Historically, I bumped into the music of Soraya because of Amazon Books. I was looking for new CDs from my favorites and kept encountering Soraya. Amazon has this thing where they tell you who or what else people are buying. It is a cross compilation because it can cover artists with many different styles. Some of the choices are strange enough to look like Amazon was paid to advertise them. You can also create a fan list. Soraya was in many of the fan lists. You can visit Amazon's Soraya web page by clicking the link.
After two or more times when an artist shows up in the "also bought" category, I have a tendancy to go look and see what they have done. Soraya wasn't listed in just a couple of places. It seemed like she was listed on every page. That got my attention. The first thing I noticed was that Shakira and Soraya were both from Columbia; however, Soraya was also raised in the USA. The next thing I noticed produced a dilemma on my part. Soraya is releasing both Spanish and English versions of her a lbums. The dilemma was created because I didn't know which version to purchase. I wanted to understand Spanish more and chose the Spanish album - "cuerpo y alma". Once you get to her real web page, you can look at the CD's that she has released. The lyrics for each song is available. I absolutely identified with the first set of "I'm Yours". After three bad loves (read wives), I locked my heart in bands of steel. Unlike the song, I haven't found anyone to break the wall down for. Well, that isn't entirely true. During the summer of 2000, I found that I was especially vulnerable around a cool mujer from Southern Mexico but she is married and will never know. I bumped into her a couple of weeks ago and found that I could finally talk to her with out fighting to keep control. I also bumped into a nice single lady from Peru that kept asking her friend in Spanish if I was single. I just haven't figured out what I want to do at this point because I was thinking the same thing.
I keep coming back and listening to the album "cuerpo y alma", which I find amusing. I think it is either something you really like or you get picky in places. It just happens to grab hold of my "body and soul". Soraya doesn't have the vocal range of Mariah Carey; however, I can't listen to a Carey album on a repeat loop for hours but I can listen to Soraya for hours. I also believe that I can hear every word she uses. Some of the music can, depending on the timing, raise goosebumps. This is where the get picky comes in. Instead of getting picky, it raises goosebumps on my arms. Try to do that with some of Shakira's songs. I think it is the lyrics to "estoy aqui" where all I hear at times is a sequence of trilled rr's and reading the song while you listen doesn't help on some of them. In addition, Soraya doesn't have any songs with silly names such as "Moscas en la casa" or "flies in the house". However, when it comes to mid-eastern sounding songs, Shakira is on top as far as I am concerned.
The Soraya site was frustrating to me for a long time. It is a facinating site to visit. They have a list of people responsible for various things but I swore that there was not a living being on the other end. For example, the english biography had numerous bogus links. They pointed to the Macintosh that they were created on. I am big on verifying a web page as soon as I upload it and it is obvious that they don't appear to share the same philosopy. I sent emails to several of the people listed as being responsible for the web page and outlined the errors to no avail. There was a mailto:soraya@soraya.com but that was also undeliverable for a period of time. These problems have been corrected but it took time before the corrections made and you were left with a negative impression for many months.
The background on several of the web pages make reading very difficult. I could be one of a few percent that has that problem. There is a fan page on the "Links" that I would also avoid if you use Netscape Navigator. Navigator simply errors off; however, you can get in if you use Internet Explorer. It is called Soraya Online by Santiago Escudero. He is also someone that has obviously never done a QA of his web site. His excuse is the web server is undergoing severe changes but the date is from 2000. I have emailed him about his missing file with out effect.
I was sitting here reviewing what I had written and one of Soraya's video's came to mind. She is dancing on a small rotating surface. I thought the ladies dancing on the bar in the movie "Coyote Ugly" had a problem. They probably thought they were on a multilane freeway by comparison. I also have to chuckle because I eat out at night and just happened to stop by Camelot Music. I happened to notice that the section for Soraya was larger than usual. They had copies of "On nights like this" and "torre de morfil". I wasn't really hunting for "On nights like this"; however, a CD in the hand was an opportunity that wasn't going to be missed. I had been hunting for "torre de morfil" for quite some time and this opportunity REALLY wasn't going to be missed. I wanted a local sale because I have been telling people about Soraya and if the local music stores don't carry a full selection, I can't point someone in that direction.
Later that evening, I spent some time listening to "pueblito viejo". It is in Spanish on both versions of the CDROM. It was strange because I sort of felt like I did when I was listening to "una palabra" from the BMWFilm called "Powderkeg". Powderkeg is the only BMW Film that has a really sad ending. Downloading it just to watch it is something most people can't do beause it is 158 MB. Both songs are pleasant to listen to but "pueblito viejo" made me feel nostalgic and that I should be somewhere else. I just don't have a clue as to where.