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California trio Thee Sacred Souls bear it all on their self-titled debut LP, out Aug. 26. A "Frankenstein of love stories," Thee Sacred Souls culls universal stories for a beautiful, accessible introduction to sweet soul revival.

A series of 30-second demos posted to Instagram changed Thee Sacred Souls' lives. Then in their early 20s, the San Diego-based trio uploaded three clips of stripped-down, mid-tempo soul — partially-engineered clips reflecting their burgeoning creative relationship and shared love of early-to-mid 1960s records – and left the rest to the universe.

Their passion, strength of songwriting and their singer's Marvin-meets-Curtis falsetto meant the band’s demos ended up in the hands of Daptone Records head Gabe Roth. Not too long after, Thee Sacred Souls drove north to record at Roth's — one of the architects of the contemporary soul revival — Riverside studio. They developed on their demos and, from that session, "Can I Call You Rose" became the band's first single as well as one of five 45s on Daptone's new imprint, Penrose Records , in 2020.

Released at the top of 2020 right into the pandemic, "Rose" quickly became popular among soul aficionados and made Thee Sacred Souls a leading light in the burgeoning sweet soul scene. Alongside contemporaries like Durand Jones and the Indications and labelmates the Altons, Thee Sacred Souls blurred Chicano soul, California's "Westside Sound" and the popular tracks one might hear coming from the radio of a lowrider as it cruised down a boulevard.

In the 1960s, such songs lacked the polish of Motown soul, but often employed equally engaging harmonies and earnest messages of love. Those rougher, more raw songs endure  among soul aficionados and, when reimagined by the Souls, made their work strike a nerve during the unpredictable early days of the pandemic.

"In times of despair, people always kind of turned to entertainment for solace," theorizes singer Josh Lane. "With so much going on, I think having a song that was so heartfelt and about the fanciful idea of love like that, COVID definitely inflated the energy of the song."

Fast forward two years and three 7-inch singles later, and the Souls are bearing it all on their self-titled debut LP, out Aug. 26 on Daptone/Penrose. Although thematically similar – the album and the band's singles are almost exclusively love songs — Thee Sacred Souls is a "Frankenstein of love stories" — the band’s words — pulled together for a devastatingly beautiful, accessible record.

Thee Sacred Souls universal messaging also underscores the thoughtful development of a group that's learned together, finding their groove while blooming, quite like a rose.

GRAMMY.com sat down with Lane, drummer Alex Garcia and bassist Sal Samano on a brutally warm afternoon ahead of their SummerStage performance in New York. It was the band's second time performing in town in less than a month — at their sold-out previous show at Brooklyn Made, the audience seemed to hang onto every lyric.

This interview has been edited for clarity .

Tell me a bit about the origin of Thee Sacred Souls.

LANE : I was following Alex’s project and… . we would just kind of go back and forth on Instagram. One day, one of us said we should jam. So we went to his garage studio and he showed me a bunch of his work and we jammed out for a minute. I didn't know that he and Sal had met once before and kind of started the project that we are now — writing some original instrumentals and doing a lot of old soul covers.

After we jammed out for like an hour or so, he was like, "I got some demos I've been working on with this guy if you want to listen." I liked them all, but one of them I was instantly vibing with, so we started writing right there. We wrote the song "Rose" in one sitting, really.

SAMANO : Me and Alex were playing in separate bands and we were playing a DIY show. We started talking about what we grew up listening to and what we wanted to make. Pretty much just decided right there that we wanted to try doing some soul.

Were you guys hip to any of the other soul revival stuff that was happening at the time, particularly around Daptone?

LANE : I didn't grow up on soul; our parents were really Christian and so I grew up on gospel music. My grandma listened to some soul. When I was in college, I started listening to soul — Marvin Gaye , Aretha Franklin , Al Green — pretty much all the soul artists that everybody kind of grows up knowing in America. They all came from the church. So I resonated with that.

But my main influence at the time was Stevie Wonder . I had all his albums on my cheap MP3 player. And so I would listen to that on my way to college to community college, just singing all his songs.

SAMANO : I was a little bit, but not as much as Alex. Alex knew a lot more about what Daptone was doing. I was fairly new to learning about all the newer groups.

GARCIA : To me [Daptone’s] sound is still different from the rare soul sounds. The Daptone sound is their own thing; they don't sound like any other bands. I like their ethos about the way they make music and Gabe’s ideology with studio production. Just that they’re like a real family as far as record labels go. So, all that stuff turned me on to them.

I started to dig deeper into finding their influences and I really liked instrumentals mainly because that's where I come from.

The Souls are one of the early groups on Daptone's Penrose imprint; how did you come into that world?

GARCIA : We had put our demo out, just like a short clip on Instagram, and it kind of took off. People started talking about us and sending it to their friends. This one dude named Diego, he's in a band called With Strangers… he knows Gabe, and he's like, "Yo, I want to send this to Gabe Roth," and [Gabe] came out to our gig in Fullerton.

It's exceedingly rare that a band that just has a demo would get label interest — especially for one that's as notoriously particular as Daptone or Gabe. What about those demos caught his ear?

GARCIA : Like 30 seconds of a demo. It was "Rose" and "Weak For Your Love" and maybe "Will I See You Again" too.

SAMANO : Maybe he heard through our music what we want to sound like or what we listened to. So I think that Gabe being who he is, knowing what he knows, I'm sure he was able to pick up on that just [by] listening to us. I mean, we weren't killing it up there; we didn't sound amazing. So I think that he probably saw us and was like, maybe they have potential.

GARCIA : The producer's mind sees the diamond in the rough for sure. That's, like,  one of their gifts.  I'm not even like a flaunty person, but I think [the demos] sounded good.

LANE : We wrote good songs, and the engineering wasn't bad either. I think people like Gabe want to see people who are self-sufficient enough to have ideas and cut demos on their own so that he can work faster and get right to the heart of the idea.  I think he heard all that.

What were you guys listening to during those early days of the band?

SAMANO : Old records, obviously. all kinds of s—, right? But me and Alex listened to a lot of rare soul records, kind of obscure records.

GARCIA : Like the Royal Jesters.

SAMANO : Yeah. Back then, it was more of the West Side Sound, which was a lot of Chicano soul, soul from San Antonio and Albuquerque.

Are you guys record collectors as well?

GARCIA : Yeah. But I mean, when we first started, we were just trying to get our collection up, then digging together. We’re at Soul Shack — this one record shop that Sal used to work at — they’d let us in the back room before they were open.

LANE : I was super new to even the concept of collecting. I was an LP collector of current stuff. And then I would always look to get different compilations of like Aretha or Marvin Gaye. So while they were building their collections, and already those guys I was kind of in a class of sorts. Alex knew some of the people that I liked, and he saw a nice Al Green cut and was like "you want this one." And it's one of my favorite records, "Wish You Were Here."

A lot of the times when we would write songs, they would just have  things in their mind that other 45ss reminded them of, and it was a new way of songwriting for me — creating something brand new out of thin air based off of a passion and influence.

This album comes out two and a half years after your first single. How did you create this record? Did you go into Penrose and do it all two years ago or was it a long process?

GARCIA : In 2020, it was hard to even get into the studio. I don't remember how many sessions we had [that year].

LANE : The two singles happened pretty fast. That was like one session, a couple of days, in and out.

GARCIA : All four of those [first Penrose] songs were done before the pandemic. And then we were supposed to go back in right to start recording more. Also, the [West Coast Penrose Showcase] tour was supposed to be happening.

I feel like [lockdown] also gave the songs more of an opportunity to sit out there, for people to get into it, and  listen to the songs over and over again.

LANE : You sit and talk to people for an hour after a show and so many people said, like, "This song got me through so much during COVID." A lot of couples would come up holding hands being like, "These were our songs that we'd slow dance to in the living room when we couldn't go nowhere." So, I started to see the value of that silver lining of COVID.

Do you think that's one of the reasons why your first few singles, particularly "Can I Call You Rose?," hit so hard?

LANE : In times of despair, people always kind of turned to entertainment for solace. Like back in the '20s and '30s. You wouldn't be caught dead not trying to make it to a dancehall to check out your favorite jazz band or whatever because times are so tough. Even if it's your last dollar you're going to use it to go see music.

With the 2008 bubble or whatever that s— was, my family would go to the movies every weekend. We didn't have the money for it, but they were trying to get our mind off of the pain. And COVID being in a lockdown situation… psychologically, there's a lot of warfare to be with your own thoughts without your friends.

With so much going on, I think having a song that was so heartfelt and about the fanciful idea of love like that, COVID definitely inflated the energy of the song.

SAMANO : Record record collectors love collecting records. They bought like every single color [vinyl] just to  lay them out and look at them. We're just like, alright! [ Chuckles ]

You know he's gonna go and put those on Discogs later! For this record, were you taking songs that you had written during the pandemic and brought them into the studio?

LANE : The sessions were kind of different. Some of them were like a week long; some of them were like, come down for two days. At some point, Gabe realized that it might be better for us to like, do three, four day sessions, go home, sit on that energy, write more and come back.

SAMANO : Toward the end it was like long sessions – like just book a week, maybe have a week off and then book another week. We were going pretty hard.

GARCIA : Till Three mornings, sometimes, driving home afterwards. Sometimes just like staying in the studio and waking up starting in the morning.

Are there any songs that you're particularly proud of from all that effort? Or ones that were really really hard?

GARCIA : My favorite song's probably "Love Comes Easy," which is the last song on the record. It's got the most Chicano soul sound. I track organ on most of the record…but that was pretty hard for me because I'm not I'm not a keyboard player.

SAMANO : Probably "Future Love." I remember I had a pretty hard time on bass on that song. I didn't even know that we got the take at the end of that session. Then, I played drums on it, which I don't usually do. The song reminds me of a Whatnauts track — their earlier stuff.

I t's interesting that you guys are all playing instruments that you don't play normally on the record. Was that your desire or was Gabe being like, "try this thing?"

GARCIA :  If I'm tracking a demo, I'll track bass and keys and whatnot. But I wouldn't want to play that in the studio. But Gabe was really pushing for me to play organ.

LANE : If you see life as lessons, it really is a master class as well as working on your trade. I played some glockenspiel, some vibraphone. My point though, is that I would go home leaving the studio and being like, Man, I really got to start woodshedding just for the future , because it's fun to have that energy of like who's doing what , and to be at that caliber where you can . Someone might be technically better at something, but if you could all get to the baseline level of being a good musician at different instruments, maybe you want this other person's color on this instrument, even if that's [another person's] sword.

I think my hardest one was "For Now" because Alex came up with a sick riff — I think the coolest riff on the record to me. It's such a pretty riff that's also sad. So, it instantly brought up sad feelings for me. I didn't finish my last verse till we were in the studio… I pulled from all the different sad emotional situations I've had in my relationships. I pulled from every relationship and made it one for the song, and it was hard.

This album is a portrait of all stages of  love — longing, that feeling when you're super deep in, and then love that's lost. What connects all of these different stories? Are you guys writing about somebody in particular?

LANE : I think about this concept a lot actually. Even growing up, I didn't even think of the concept of not writing love songs. I remember early on Alex being like your love is cool and everything but we don't need every song to say "loving" or be about love.

But love has so many faces. Life is love. Whether it's envy — that’s like a tainted kind of infected version of love — or heartbreak, it's the inverse of it's all the same feeling just given different meanings. And so I pulled from the imagination. If it happened to me, I pulled from old relationships, but very obscure, like fragments — none of the songs are about one person.

"For Now" is about the breaking up of a love [where] one person is feeling it intuitively, the other person knowing it's going to happen and they're going to be the one to do it, but they don't know how to do it. I've been that guy and I've been the guy that had to happen to me from a lover.

So it wasn't, like, Taylor Swift -style with "this song's about this person." It's like fragments of all these loves and heartbreaks and things, and storytelling and cinematic nature. It's like it's a Frankenstein of love stories."

We exist in this time of such turmoil on so many different levels. Do you ever feel the drive to make music that's a bit more political or that says something about this particular time?

LANE : So, I'm not going to speak for everybody, but it's always in the forefront of my mind. I kind of see music for music's sake, and the beauty of it. But also as a society member and a firm believer in the beauty of humanity… I have a really strong idea of heartfelt brotherhood, [a] love that goes past romantic ideas. Which I think is what we kind of leaned on for this album.

I think the reason people look for old school love music or soul music is because it just felt deeper and more fulfilling and had more to it. And instead of being political this round, it's like how about we just give people something that makes them think about love deeper? And maybe kind of cleanse them that way?

[With] "Give Us Justice"...I've already dealt with insecurities about being Black in America, and not seeing myself as valued or valuable. And then seeing all this murder happen. And then all this uproar.

That was a moment where there was no ifs, ands or buts — it's not necessarily being political. It's speaking of pain, so that other people have something to hold on to.

I'm fascinated by scenes and subcultures, and there's certainly a whole sweet soul scene that's that next generation from the Daptones and the Colemines of the world. Share your perspective on what's going on right now.

SAMANO : It's cool to see everybody that's kind of on the younger side tapping back into what they remember growing up. It just starts this cycle of younger bands looking up to newer bands that are looking up to older bands. [I think everybody] is going to start to [incorporate] different things into their sound.

LANE : I think there is a scene, but I think we've lived kind of in and out of it. Not to say that we don't find the people in the scene to be friends, and we hang out from time to time, but… it's more like labels that are kind of cultivating new scenes, kind of making new universes and it's still in the baby stages.

GARCIA : I feel like Daptone’s probably the closest that you'll get to what Motown had — just tons of different sounds and styles within soul, played by the same group.

What within this world of soul are you guys particularly excited about?

SAMANO : I'm excited to always hear anything that Brainstory ’s got coming out. I was saying how everybody has different interpretations of soul; they definitely got some soul like infused with psychedelic and funk and jazz.

GARCIA : Bobby Oroza too. Also Max Traeger and Paul Sha La Da – their new project Las Los.

LANE : I'm personally just excited for the whole scene, because once a scene is established, it has no choice but to kind of evolve over time. And so I just love to see the different mergers like our friends Brainstory with this infusion of 70s/60s soul and psych. Holy Hive, which kind of infuses soul with folk and indie. I'm excited for our bandmate [backup singer] Jensine .

And I'm excited for us, honestly. We're brand new. Our relationship as writers is growing and changing. I don't even know what to expect for album two or three. The sky's the limit, and it's cool to see where our hive mind comes up with the direction for those projects.

What's next for you guys? Are you already working on album two or three?

GARCIA :  I've been dabbling, but it's just kind of hard to find time right now. Because it's getting busier so we're gonna have to adapt to a new way of writing.

LANE : I think we've all low-key been dabbling in our own little garages and rooms. Just a couple of days ago, Alex was already kind of starting to team lead some direction with it when it comes to like, Hey, we should set aside certain days out of the week to actually sit and have sessions.

We all got ladies — shout out to the ladies — and we got to balance the time with our people and our creative interests. It's gonna be a tough one.

I don't know if you guys all know this, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on each of your ladies’ favorite songs.

LANE : That might be, like, a text message later — I don’t wanna get in trouble. [ Laughs ]

SAMANO : She’ll walk around just singing every single song. She gets all mad; she's like, “Your songs are always stuck in my head!”

GARCIA : For my girlfriend Emily, it's more like let's just get the record out , because she's been designing for us since day one. We designed the cover together and it was a long process. She has a different perspective on our band because she's working directly with us and Daptone.

LANE : I'm not gonna try to discredit my love story because it's new, but she's a music head. When I was listening to basic-ass music in my younger adult time, she was like one of those obscure '60s music collectors and listeners. So, she's always sending me songs that remind her about our love and stuff.

Reggae Band The Frightnrs' 'Always' Delivers On A Promise To Their Late Singer, Dan Klein

Photo: Rick Mandonik/Getty Images

From James Brown impersonator to Daptones Records recording artist, Bradley's deep passion and soulful voice will not be forgotten

Charles Bradley, the electrifying soul singer and critically acclaimed artist, died on Sept. 23 at age 68 after battling cancer of the liver and stomach.

"It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Charles Bradley," said Bradley's representative in a statement. "Always a fighter, Charles battled cancer with everything he had.."

Bradley's incredible career, which began as a James Brown impersonator, blossomed marvelously in recent years as a recording artist, releasing three studio albums on Daptone Recrods.

Just recently, Bradley announced that due to complications from his illness, he would forego his upcoming tour dates in order to recover. Unfortunately, the heartbreaking news of his passing comes as a devastating reminder of how lucky we were to experience Bradley's unique artistic talents.

Charles Bradley Cancels Tour Due To Liver Cancer

Six years after their debut record floored reggae fans, New York group the Frightnrs' 'Always' honors late vocalist Dan Klein — and the insatiable chemistry of a band on the rise.

In late 2015, Queens reggae group the Frightnrs had gathered in their home rehearsal space in high spirits. After years of playing together, they were getting ready to record their first full-length album for venerable Brooklyn soul label Daptone Records. Little did they know, vocalist Dan Klein wouldn't be around to experience the record's success.

In preparation for what would become Nothing More To Say – a lush, luminous rocksteady record, released in September 2016 – the four-piece gathered four days a week to record demos that they would then show producer Victor Axelrod. Brothers Chuck and Preet Patel, and drummer Richard Terrana developed rocksteady rhythms in the smooth, lovestruck style of Jamaican music popular in the late ‘60s, while Klein freestyled over them.

"Around that time, everything was very natural and everyone was at the top of their ability for some good reason," Chuck Patel, the group’s keyboardist, tells GRAMMY.com. "We were at a high in our writing ability, with each other and our chemistry [as a band]."

The Frightnrs produced about 20 demos from those sessions, though only 11 made it onto Nothing More To Say . The album was an instant classic in reggae circles, revered for the way it honored and built upon the rocksteady tradition, its period-perfect production (a hallmark of nearly all Daptone releases), and for Klein’s distinct vocal stylings.

Yet, just three months before the album’s release, Klein passed away from ALS — a brutally degenerative neurological disease. He was 33.

Despite praise for the record and scores of touring offers, the two-year period that followed was expectedly dark for the Frightnrs. And after the Patels’ father passed away in 2016, Chuck felt like he would never play music again. Yet the band had promised Klein that they’d continue on.

Six years later, the Frightnrs are delivering on that promise with Always , a 10-track album out May 27 on Daptone. Consisting of reconstructed and developed-on demos recorded in their Queens living room, Always shows the Frightnrs coming full-circle in both style and production.

"[When] we started to realize we had some of these demos with Dan’s vocals, that was the first time in a very long time that we had any kind of motivation," Chuck recalls. He adds that the demos were filed away in a computer, rediscovered prior to the pandemic.

Before lockdown could prevent the band from getting together, the Frightnrs got to work expanding upon the ideas in their demos. Fortuitously, they had recorded Klein’s vocals as isolated tracks, making for slightly easier studiocraft.

A few songs were nearly complete — including the album’s title track and the slowly grooving "02-30-56" — while Preet developed guitar and basslines for less-polished tracks. Together with Axelrod, the group painstakingly tracked, retracked and mixed Dan’s freestyle vocal stems into complete songs.

"That was some of the hard work we had to do with Victor," Chuck says. "Some of the songs we had to put together vocal takes, but we also had to conceptualize them somehow and make it feel natural — make them feel like it was a fully written song even though it wasn't."

As a result, Always is less lush and lyrically poignant than Nothing More To Say — though, in effect, the album is more reflective of the band’s influences. While there are elements of rocksteady ("Tuesday"), Always incorporates the sparse quality of dub reggae, pulling from the vocal traditions of Linval Thompson, Alton Ellis, Sugar Minott and Tristan Palmer. Local reggae-rocksteady group the Slackers (whose guitarist, Jay Nugent, produced early Frightnrs tracks including 2011’s "Maybe Isle, which appears on Always ) and neo-soul pioneer Erykah Badu also factor into the record’s hauntingly cool vibe.

Lyrically, Always is imbued with themes of love and loss, traditional to rocksteady. While a song like "Profilin" is political and among the album’s strongest tracks, love songs such as "You Still" and "Why Does It Feel Like A Curse" showcase the Frightnrs’ sensitive temperament and leadership in contemporary reggae.

Where Axelrod had much influence curating the rocksteady sound of Nothing More To Say , "for this we held our ground a lot more. We tried to stretch him as far as he could stretch while agreeing with us, which was a struggle sometimes. I'm sure he feels that same way about us!" Chuck says, laughing. "After all the hard work and back and forth… I think we all agree that it's the best it could be."

Speaking to the New York Times in 2016, Klein explained how the Frightnrs respect themselves and their audience. "We know we’re never going to sound like our favorite Jamaican artists," he says. "But we’re going to chase this dream, and in the process we’re going to find ourselves."

That current of respect flows through time and space. Always feels like an echo from another era — one without illness, without as much complication, and with impeccable, insatiable chemistry bursting forth from a Queens living room.

"It brought us light that we could fulfill that promise [to Klein] by working on these songs. Not only is it that we're making new music, but it's new music with Dan," Chuck says. "He never got to see the success of [ Nothing More To Say ]. He also had a whole bunch of new fans that never got to hear him.

"To be able to introduce more songs to those fans with Dan is rewarding," he adds."Emotionally, it’s pretty much worth it."

Original Koffee Takes The Reins: How The Pandemic Provided The 22-Year-Old GRAMMY-Winning Reggae Artist Room To Grow Ahead Of Her Debut LP, 'Gifted'

Photo: (L-R) Pam Francis/The Life Images Collection Via Getty Images/Getty Images, Jim McHugh © 1994

Fans can hear Selena's voice in a new way on 'Moonchild Mixes,' a remix album posthumously released by her family on Aug. 26. In celebration, revisit some of the singer's most inspiring songs.

Seven years since Selena 's last posthumous album, her music is getting re-imagined in a new way. On Aug. 26, the family of the Tejano music queen unveiled Moonchild Mixes , a new remix album that features remastered versions of 13 songs (10 unreleased tracks and three new variations of previous releases) that she recorded as a teen. The release marks a special moment for those who loved the late star — who was tragically killed in 1995 at just 23 years old — and continues a legacy that lives on long after her passing.

"We've always said it has to do a lot with her personality — not just the music alone," Selena's father, Abraham Quintanilla, Jr. tells GRAMMY.com of why her music continues to connect with people around the world. "Selena had a beautiful personality. She was a beautiful person that people fell in love with and they still love her 27 years later."

Born Selena Quintanilla Pérez, she started out in a family band in the '80s with her sister Suzette on drums and brother A.B. Quintanilla III on bass guitar. As fourth generation Mexican-Americans in Texas, their pop-leaning, Top-40-influenced spin on regional Mexican music created a fresh kind of Tejano music. Throughout the '90s, Selena's colorful style of Tejano music helped the local genre go international with hits like "Como La Flor," "Amor Prohibido" and "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom."

Selena's success was transcending genre as she was becoming an all-around Latin pop star. In 1994, she became the first Tejano artist to win Best Mexican-American Album at the GRAMMY Awards for Selena Live! , and she logged eight Top 10 hits on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart during her lifetime. 

Though Selena's career was sadly short-lived after her murder in March 1995, her music has continued to touch hearts around world, especially through the English-language songs that were planned for her pop crossover like the posthumous single "Dreaming of You." Even in her wake, Selena has become the face of mainstream Latinx representation in the U.S. and beyond.

"[The fans] are wanting to be like her. They're looking up to her. Not just as an artist, but because she was an amazing person as well — and a great role model for Latinos," Selena's sister Suzette adds. "We're talking 27 years later. She's still very much relevant in this music industry and dear to a lot of people."

Every song in Selena's catalog, from the well-known anthems to the B-sides and covers, have resonated with her fans in different ways. She tackled multiple genres in her lifetime without losing the spark that has made her an enduring light in the Latinx community. Below, take a look at Selena's legacy in songs — from the hits to the deep cuts to Moonchild Mixes .

Listen to GRAMMY.com's official Songbook: Selena playlist on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Pandora. Playlist powered by GRAMMY U.

After steadily growing a fanbase throughout the '80s, Selena landed her first big hit in 1992 with "Como La Flor." A standout from her Entre Mi Mundo album, "Como La Flor" blends cumbia beats with influences of reggae and Latin pop music. Backed by colorful production, Selena wishes her ex-lover all the best after their love wilted like a flower. The heartbreaking track became a staple in her concerts, sounding even better live with the haunting intro that she belted out.

The title track from the last album that was released in her lifetime, "Amor Prohibido" serves up one of Selena's most powerful vocal performances. It's a story of forbidden lovers, and the will to keep their romance alive against all odds. (As Abraham reveals, the song's origin story stems from his grandmother, who grew up in a Mexican town with two different social societies.) The resilient message of "Amor Prohibido" has resonated with Selena's LGBTQ+ fans and become an anthem for them.

"Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" is one of Selena's most funky songs, with a strong reggae influence that made it stand out from her other tropical-infused tracks. Over a bubbly beat, Selena sings about the sound her heart makes when she's in love. The song also had a rock edge that was new to regional Mexican music at the time, with an electric guitar solo about halfway through the track. The vivaciousness of "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" came to life in its music video, with Selena flashing her unforgettable smile as she dances with a crowd of people.

In "Dreaming of You," Selena gives a heartfelt performance as she sings about an otherworldly romance. The haunting single was a preview of the pop music that she was working on in 1995, as Selena and her label, Capitol EMI Latin, had plans to release a crossover album later that year. But when her time was tragically cut short in March 1995, the posthumously released album (also titled Dreaming of You ) was rounded out with Spanish songs she'd previously recorded as well as remixes of old tracks like "Amor Prohibido." The beautiful ballad became poignant for fans when it was played over the memorial scenes in the 1997 movie Selena that starred Jennifer Lopez .

Another song that made an impact after Selena's passing, "Techno Cumbia" has become a club anthem since its release. Selena commanded the dance floor as she encouraged her listeners to move along with her: the Spanish lyrics translate, "Dance, dance, don't stop/ There's no time to rest,"

A.B.'s techno-inspired production on "Techno Cumbia" pushed cumbia forward at the time, and as Suzette explains, the sounds inspired the new Moonchild Mixes album. "You can hear a little bit of that fusion in this new album," she says. "It's a little bit of old school mixed with the future."

Selena delivered a knockout performance with "Ya No," from her Amor Prohibido album. Backed by electric guitars, she channeled her inner rock star as she let a cheating lover know that his days with her were numbered. Despite lyrically being a kiss-off anthem, its musical inspiration ironically came from Selena's husband, Chris Pérez. "He was a rocker," Abraham explains. "We put him on the guitar and that gave it that rock feel."

Mexican music royalty collided with Selena's cover of "Costumbres." For her 1988 album Dulce Amor , Selena sang the heartbreaking ballad that was popularized by Spanish singer Rocío Dúrcal and written by Mexican icon Juan Gabriel . She gave a sweeping performance while adding a new Tejano twist to the track with sparkling synths and a funky keyboard.Though she was only 17 when the song was recorded, Selena's voice already sounded beyond its years with an emotional depth that would mark her later works.

While "God's Child (Baila Conmigo)" may be a lesser-known song on Selena's Dreaming of You album, it's arguably one of the most experimental in her catalog. She teamed up with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne for the fiery song, which saw Bryne — who also produced the track — blend his rock sound with Selena's flamenco music influences. Trading verses in Spanish and English, both artists invited listeners to join their global dance party.

From Celine Dion to Lady Gaga , many of pop's biggest stars have worked with legendary songwriter Diane Warren in their careers. Selena was among them when she recorded "I'm Getting Used to You" for her Dreaming of You album. Selena sang from the depth of her soul about a blossoming romance that had her head over heels. The track masterfully blends Latin instrumental touches with slinky pop beats, offering a promising sign of the pop career that Selena sadly never got to live out.

Fans got more familiar with Selena's earlier career through Selena: The Series , a two-season Netflix series that ran from 2020-2021. The show focused on her career in the '80s as they were getting Selena y Los Dinos off the ground. The sweet love song reflected the band's Tejano music roots as well as the youthful sound that Selena's dulcet voice brought to life.

Selena's family revisited her earlier recordings in the Moonchild Mixes album, which features songs she recorded from ages 13 to 16 that have been re-produced by her brother with the latest studio technology. Selena's voice on the recordings have been mastered to sound more mature, like on the lead single, "Como Te Quiero Yo A Ti (Regional Mexican Version)," a dreamy ballad that's backed by a mariachi band. (The song also received a pop version on the album.)

"It's a beautiful song, and with the new music on it, and the enhancement of the voice, I think that the fans will love it," Abraham says. "It gives you a feeling like she went into the studio this morning and recorded this song."

Throughout the rest of the album's 13 tracks, A.B. explores the cumbia music that encompassed Selena's last hits with a fresh pop twist. The enchanting " Enamorada de Ti " — which sees Selena pleading for her lover not to leave her — has sweeping, stadium-ready production. The sweet " Cariño Mio " is transformed into a dance-floor anthem with its blast of cumbia beats. " Corazoncito " is like a successor to "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" with a pulsating, club-inspired beat that mimics the sound of a beating heart. The breathtaking ballad "Dame Tu Amor" is another track with multiple variations on the album, a mariachi mix and a cumbia version .

"[The album is] fused with more modern [sounds]," Suzette says. "We love the way that album came out and the way that there's my fusion of my brother's sound. Definitely you can hear my brother's sound in there."

Selena's family views the Moonchild Mixes album as a way for her longtime fans to have a new way to experience her songs and for the new generation to continue discovering her music. "They're searching for her. They're wanting to know more about her," Suzette Quintanilla adds. "This album is something definitely that they've been wanting and they've been asking for."

ReImagined At Home: HAUSER's Instrumental Version of Jennifer Lopez's "Let's Get Loud" Is A Glammed-Up Dance Party

Photo: Courtesy of the Recording Academy

Britney Spears' showmanship was on full display at the 42nd GRAMMY Awards in 2000, when she brought two hit songs off her '...Baby One More Time' debut to colorful, cinematic life.

Back in 2000, Britney Spears was riding high on the global success of her hit breakout album, ...Baby One More Time . She was a first-time nominee at the GRAMMY Awards that year, receiving nods in the Best New Female Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance categories, the latter for "...Baby One More Time."

That 2000 GRAMMYs also marked Spears' first GRAMMY performance, which remains an unforgettable piece of GRAMMYs history today. In this episode of GRAMMY Rewind , turn back the clock to that epic, dazzling performance, which established Spears' prowess as one of the early 2000s' most imaginative, energetic entertainers. 

The four-and-a-half-minute number opened with a flashback scene, putting a spotlight on young Spears as she watched the GRAMMY Awards from a couch at home. "Tina Turner and Janet Jackson," an announcer on the TV listed, name-checking two of young Spears' musical idols. "Wow!" the young girl thought in a voiceover clip. "Someday I'm gonna be there, just wait and see."

Sure enough, that clip fades into a dream sequence, and Spears kicks off her performance — beginning what was seemingly a full-circle moment for the star. As the singer stands amid a small group of backup dancers dressed as flowers, she belts out her heartbreak ballad, "From the Bottom of My Broken Heart," in stunning fashion.

As things begin to pick up with some booming thunderstorm visuals, Spears — who changed from a pastel tutu to a skin-tight glittery red bodysuit — is then joined by a phalanx of robot backup dancers. She launches into "...Baby One More Time" with an acrobatic dance routine, dazzling the crowd with epic production, dance moves and vocal theatrics. 

Press play on the video above to revisit this iconic performance from Spears, and keep checking GRAMMY.com every Friday for more episodes of GRAMMY Rewind.

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