A decade later, Selena albums still hot items
March 31,2005
Dulcinea Cuellar
The Monitor


Even 10 years after her death, Selena records continue to sell in
South Texas.

Like Elvis Presley and John Lennon were to the generation before
her, Selena was a star, the hope of tejano music fans and performers
hoping to break out. Her death not only solidified her place in
music history, but also turned her into an icon for generations of
tejano fans.

"In tejano music, she was the reina (queen)," said Robert Ceballos,
programming director for KJAV, Jammin' 104.9, an easy-listening
station in McAllen. "The young reina."

Laura Rojas, store manager at Sam Goody in La Plaza Mall, said
customers come in everyday wanting to buy Selena's music.

"We sell at least 10 a week and then another 10 on the weekend," she
said. "That's excellent for somebody that barely came out, was on
the charts and had (a few) top 10's."

Out of Selena's catalog of nearly 11 discs, the singer's most
popular is her Greatest Hits, followed by the 1995 Dreaming of You,
Rojas said.

"But that's the hardest one to get a hold of," she said. "Mostly
because that was her crossover. People come in and have to order it
if we don't have it."

Selena's 11th album, on EMI Latin, was released March 15, 2005. It's
a CD and DVD of her last concert, at the Houston Livestock Show in
1995. The singer performed the concert in February, a little more
than a month before her death.

Rojas couldn't give dollar amounts, but said Sam Goody customers who
buy Selena's music there are from all over the Valley and Mexico.

"Veracruz, San Luís (Potosí)," she said. "People really love her."

Selena's music fused pop, Latin and tejano, making her marketable to
both young preteen girls and older tejano fans.

"She was just a fusion, a mixture, between your normal, traditional
Spanish regional music and the pop style," she said.

Ceballos, the programming director who was working at tejano music
station KIWW when Selena was killed, said the music doesn't die.

"People who like Ramon Ayala don't get burned out by the music.
Selena hasn't burned out. I don't know if it's marketing or just
musical taste," he said.

Tejano music fans were ready for a young Hispanic woman to come into
the market, said Mando San Roman, programming director for KKPS, a
Valley Spanish-language station.

"There really wasn't young female talent out there (at the time),"
San Roman said. "People were just drawn to her and her music."

Rojas agrees.

"I saw her in Corpus Christi and she was really, really good," she
said. "That's why her music sells."

And she believes people will continue to buy Selena CD's, Rojas said.

"That's what people do with good artists," she said. "People can be
dead for so long and they become classics.

"She's become a classic."