Gloria Trevi, “Pelo Suelto”
If you look at the Wikipedia page for Gloria Trevi, you’ll see that some Internet wag has claimed that her signature song, “Pelo Suelto,” went to #1 on the Billboard Hot Latin chart. Billboard itself, however, notes that it got no further than #19 in the latter half of 1991.
Which is something of a disappointment, as I was looking forward to writing about this song for Bilbo’s Laptop, my one-song-at-a-time journey through the #1 hits of the Billboard Hot Latin chart. It would have been the second song in the list so far that I’d heard at the time; in fact it was something of a formative experience for the young pop-naïf I was in 1991.
So I’m writing about it here. Click play and read on.
In 1990 and 1991, Madonna haunted my dreams. I had never heard a note of music by her, but I had seen her “Vogue”-era picture in the paper, heard second-hand stories about her sexualized music, about her blasphemous use of Catholic imagery, about the Sex book and the Erotica album, and was ravenously attracted to her in secret while being officially repulsed by her in my capacity as the responsible eldest son of missionaries. All of which sounds supremely silly, now that I know what I know about Madonna, but in those days everything unknown carried an electric charge of eroticism.
That’s the condition I was in when I turned on the Guatemalan music-video channel and saw Gloria Trevi for the first time.
She often drew comparisons to Madonna, I would later learn, especially for her outspokenness about AIDS, abortion, and religion; but it was as a package of raw sexuality that I first understood her, and which first invited the comparison in my jittery thirteen-year-old mind. Her trash-chic aesthetic, her physicality, and even the untamed mane of her hair made her an object of both desire and fear — I wanted her even as I knew there was no way I could withstand her.
The song itself deals in the erotics of female power, or the power of female eroticism, and was both furiously controversial and a massive hit. “Pelo Suelto” means “loose hair,” a metaphor that loses some potency in translation, but think about a society in which the elegantly draped mantilla is a symbol of feminine virtue, and Trevi’s gleeful countercultural cherry-bomb takes its proper dimensions.
In fact, the lyrics are so important that an impromptu translation is in order. Mexican feminism circa 1991, this is your face:
I like to go out with loose hair I like everything that is mysterious I like to always go against the wind If they say white, I'll tell them black. I like to go out with loose hair Though they look at me like I'm entangled I like everything that is sincere I am real, and I don't go in reverse. I like to go out with loose hair Although they tell me to sweep the floor, To be aggressive like a jealous cat And sometimes meek like a sleepy lion. I like to go out with a loose mop Although my grandmother just had a stroke I like to go out with loose hair Although they shout at me from heaven. And I'm going, and I'm going, and I'm going And I'm going, and I'm going, and I'm going I'm going to wear my hair loose I'm going to do whatever I want I'm going to forget about inhibitions I'm not going to be afraid of anyone I'm going to wear my hair loose I'm going to do whatever I want Although they accuse me of indecency Although they spread rumors about me I like to go out with loose hair I can't stand serious men If someone wants me to cut my hair Even if I love him he can go to hell. I like to go out with loose hair I can't even find my hairbrushes anymore I like being true to my feelings I'm going to forget about the sad times. And I'm going, and I'm going, and I'm going And I'm going, and I'm going, and I'm going... (chorus) I'm going to wear my hair loose They call me crazy they snub me I'm going to wear my hair loose No, I won't calm down I'm going to wear my hair loose I'm going to always be how I am.
The album after this was called Más Turbada Que Nunca, (Crazier Than Ever, with a dirty pun so obvious even English speakers can get it), and as the 90s continued her always-controversial, religiously-denounced career tailspun into weird Rashomon-like territory that would be considered too unlikely and bizarre for a telenovela, involving backup dancers with a grudge, allegations of kidnapping and child rape, an Interpol manhunt, Brazilian extradition law, and the Bible being quoted from behind bars. What seems certain is that she did a lot of drugs, fled arrest, and was ultimately cleared of all charges in a Mexican court. She’s also had singles in the top ten on the Hot Latin chart for the first time ever since it all went down.
Gloria Trevi remains a fascinating figure in the Latin Pop world, and if her music has softened since her stint as a fugitive, that’s hardly surprising. I haven’t been able to find much about her in English — the soap opera of her life has been front-page news in Spanish-language media for two decades, but for most English speakers I bet this is the first time you’ve heard of her. She has a new album out this fall, and Madonna hasn’t sounded half as vital in a decade.
