Sunday, December 30, 2007

#32 Belinda, "If We Were"



We'd be the most beautiful mess
If we were forever


I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again: the English version of eighteen year old Mexican singer Belinda's "Ni Freud ni tu mama" lost my two favorite things about the Spanish original and yet somehow managed to appeal to me far more than the Spanish language original did (though after loving the English version, I went back and listened to the Spanish version again and love that too). "If We Were" doesn't have the snappy title of the original or the whole random English-in-the-middle-of-Spanish, tossed-off "you're hot...I forgot" line (its place is still there, but, though it's an important line to the song, the line has changed in meaning and loses its attitude and funny kind of randomness), but somehow having lyrics in English allowed me to better "get" how great its stompy electro-popness (with a little rock influence thrown in) was. It's a little like Kelly Osbourne's "One Word," but with more of a hard-hitting edge. Belinda sounds kind of creepy on this song, which I actually like--it takes it beyond typical "we'd be so great together" meaning and makes everything she's saying sound ominous, almost threatening. She does not sound like a girl you'd want to mess with on this song, even if, after all her "think of what'd you'd get if we were together" lyrics, she reminds us "but we're not...I forgot," giving a whole new meaning to the (even if accidental) threatening tones she's been using throughout the song.

Find it on: Utopia 2

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i didn't know raven-symone was in the video. pretty cool. love the song.

Poster Girl said...

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten that she was! Belinda was in a Cheetah Girls movie, I think, and Drew Seeley (singing voice of Troy in the first High School Musical and Troy on the HSM tour) is in the video too, so she must have some sort of Disney connections, at least in the U.S. Good spotting!