Graciasland

Last updated

Graciasland
Graciasland.jpg
Studio album by
El Vez
Released1994
Genre Rock and roll
Label Sympathy for the Record Industry [1]
Producer El Vez
El Vez chronology
Fun in Español
(1994)		Graciasland
(1994)		Merry MeX-mas
(1994)

Graciasland is an album by the American musician El Vez, released in 1994. [2] [3] Often labeled as parody rock, the album addresses issues related to Mexico, immigration, and Chicano culture. [4] [5]

Contents

Production

The album was produced by El Vez. [6] He recorded it with his band, the Mexican Mariachis, and his backup singers, the Elvettes. [7] [8]

"Aztlan" is a reimaging of Paul Simon's "Graceland", with the Rio Grande used instead of the Mississippi; Graciasland's album cover also sends up Graceland . [9] [10] [11] "Immigration Time" is a takeoff of "Suspicious Minds" that also incorporates elements of "Sympathy for the Devil". [12] [4] "Hurarches Azules" is an interpretation of "Blue Suede Shoes". [13]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [14]
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [6]

The Chicago Reader wrote that El Vez "combines one part Elvis with one part bilingual and musical puns, then adds dollops of everything from Hendrix to the Clash." [15] The Boston Globe noted that El Vez "shuffles the familiar and Williams Burroughs-like, cuts it up and recontexturalizes it into new, jarring forms, some in English, some in Spanish." [16]

The Press-Telegram called "Immigration Time" "a timely, topical tune sung to the melody of the King's 'Suspicious Minds' with lyrics right outta Prop. 187." [17]

AllMusic wrote that "Graciasland is El Vez's best work, smoothly combining humor, social and political satire, and great rock & roll in one fell swoop." [14] MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide deemed it "his crowning achievement," writing that the musical references "are played neither for parody nor nostalgia, but as legitimate touchstones from our popular history." [6] In 2009, the Iowa City Press-Citizen called the album a "delightfully subversive, post-modern collision of Elvis Presley with his often-unwitting, pan-global spinoffs." [18]

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."La Negra" 
2."Hurarches Azules" 
3."Aztlan" 
4."Chicanisma" 
5."¡Go Zapata Go!" 
6."It's Now or Never" 
7."Cinco De Mayo (W/Blackbird) Edit." 
8."Gypsy Queen" 
9."Trouble" 
10."The Cuauhtemoc Walk" 
11."Cesar Chavez" 
12."Mexican Radio" 
13."Safe (Baby Let's Play Safe)" 
14."Immigration Time" 

References

  1. ↑ Moon, Tom (August 25, 1995). "El Vez". Features Weekend. The Philadelphia Inquirer. p. 17.
  2. ↑ "El Vez Biography, Songs, & Albums". AllMusic.
  3. ↑ Lozaw, Tristram (August 26, 1994). "El Vez Sighting". Boston Herald. p. S18.
  4. 1 2 Saldivar, Jose David (Spring 2003). "In Search of the 'Mexican Elvis': Border Matters, 'Americanity,' and Post-state-centric Thinking". MFS Modern Fiction Studies. 49 (1): 84–100.
  5. ↑ Marez, Curtis (Autumn 1996). "Brown: The Politics of Working-Class Chicano Style". Social Text. 48. Duke University Press: 109–132.
  6. 1 2 3 MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Visible Ink Press. 1999. p. 381.
  7. ↑ Salas, Abel (January 12, 1995). "El Vez has left the hacienda: The Mexican Elvis ain't nothin' but a rock star". XL ENT. Austin American-Statesman. p. 16.
  8. ↑ "Elvis Week Events". The Commercial Appeal. August 12, 1994. p. E13.
  9. ↑ Fluck, Winfried; Pease, Donald E.; Rowe, John Carlos (February 6, 2011). Re-framing the Transnational Turn in American Studies. UPNE.
  10. ↑ Lifshey, Adam (2009). "The Borderlands Poetics of Bruce Springsteen". Journal of the Society for American Music. 3 (2): 223.
  11. ↑ "Memphis to Mexico". News. Mohave Valley Daily News. December 11, 2018.
  12. ↑ Bass, Holly (August 19, 1994). "More Ersatz Elvis, and More Royalties for the Newlyweds — El Rey of Rock and Roll Is a Mexican-American". The Wall Street Journal Europe. p. 1.
  13. ↑ Berressem, Hanjo (2001). "'Think Globally, but Better to Act Elvisly': Elvis and El Vez". Amerikastudien/American Studies: 433.
  14. 1 2 "Graciasland". AllMusic.
  15. ↑ Wyman, Bill (August 11, 1994). "El Vez". Chicago Reader.
  16. ↑ Sullivan, Jim (August 25, 1994). "El Vez: Original plundering". Calendar. The Boston Globe. p. 23.
  17. ↑ Grobaty, Tim (October 28, 1994). "Things That Go Thump in the Night". Press-Telegram. p. W3.
  18. ↑ Musser, Jim (July 16, 2009). "Record Rewind". Iowa City Press-Citizen. p. C3.
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