G major · Camelot 9B · 89 BPM
Amor prohibido
by Selena
- 89
- BPM
- G major
- Key
- 9B
- Camelot
- 69
- Danceability
- 67
- Acousticness
Selena wrote "Amor prohibido" after deciding she wanted to record a song based on the story of her grandparents, who fell in love despite belonging to different social classes. Her inspiration came from love letters written by her grandmother, a maid for a wealthy family who described her infatuation with their son and how she was forbidden to form a relationship with him because of her social class. The singer called it a "forbidden love", and she brought the idea to her brother and music producer A.B. Quintanilla, who began co-writing the track with her and Selena y Los Dinos backup vocalist Pete Astudillo.
The song was recorded at a studio in San Antonio, Texas. While cutting the vocal, Selena ad-libbed "oh baby" after the refrain, and her brother later said the recording would not have been the same without it. Her husband, Chris Pérez, wrote in his 2012 memoir that her voice on the track sounded richer and more mature than before, with singing that was more emotional and powerful as a result. A.B. wanted "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" to be the leadoff single, but Selena and EMI Latin pushed for "Amor prohibido" instead.
EMI Latin released the single on April 13, 1994, in the United States and Mexico. It topped the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart for nine consecutive weeks, giving Selena her first number one as a solo artist, and it finished as the most successful US Latin single of 1994. The track later earned the Tejano Music Award for Single of the Year.
Amor prohibido runs at 89 BPM, the tempo of boom-bap hip-hop, reggae and slow R&B. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.7 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 674 ms. It is in G major, Camelot 9B, which shares its notes with E minor and mixes cleanly with C major and D major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.