Thalia’s Mixtape: El Soundtrack de mi Vida (Paramount+) is a three-episode docuseries that features the award-winning Mexican singer and actress exploring the songs that inspired her lifelong love of music and performing new versions of that material alongside both her heroes and artists of Latin music’s next generation. There’s a promotional tie-in here – Thalia’s Mixtape, her recently-released nineteenth studio album, follows this same collaborative format. But the palpable enthusiasm Thalia brings to the conversations with her influences and the performances themselves isn’t just stunting for the cameras.
Opening Shot: In a lively graphic sequence, a needle is put to vinyl as a fresh tape is pushed into a cassette deck and a finger scrolls through the options in a streaming music menu. “When I was a little girl,” Thalia says in voiceover, “I’d sit in front of the radio, and when the song I was waiting for came on, I’d run to my room to get a virgin cassette. I’d stick it in, press record, and cross my fingers that the DJ wouldn’t open his mouth and ruin my mixtape.”
The Gist: “It all started with the gramophone, a device with a heavy needle that turned big rubber discs at 78 revolutions per minute.” Appearing in an inset TV screen effect, Thalia is describing a kind of timeline for the physical media of music. The gramophone gave way to vinyl, “and then cassette tapes arrived in the ‘70s” – and what the format that defined Thalia’s youth lacked in fidelity, it made up for with mobility and freedom of curation. The singer champions the specific order of songs on a mix, and explains how she’d always place “Persiana Americana” first. That 1986 hit from Argentina’s Soda Stereo was a real moment for rock en español, one of her earliest musical influences, and Thalia is over the moon as she meets Soda drummer Charly Alberti in a recording studio and they gush about the importance of mix tapes as a communication device for young people.
Thalia has two teenage children with her husband, longtime music executive Tommy Mottola, and she says social media isn’t the ideal platform for her to share with her kids what’s tangible. She wants them to know about the songs and artists she loved the old fashioned way. And with that, Thalia joins Alberti and his band to perform a stripped-down and rocking version of Soda Stereo’s post-punk classic “Persiana Americana.”
Each episode of Thalia’s Mixtape melds the singer’s exploration of music and how we experience it with site-specific performances like this, and in the second segment of the first installment, Thalia joins Roco Pachukote of Mexican rock en español heroes La Maldita Vecindad. As Roco touches on the rock, reggae, and ska influences that informed the Maldita sound, Thalia tells him how much his band meant to her while growing up in Mexico, and then it’s time for another vibrant collaboration. Maldita’s 1991 song “Pachuco” is reborn for Mixtape, complete with backup dancers hanging from chandeliers, a full horn section, and a tearaway zoot suit for Thalia.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? In Thalia’s effusive praise for the sounds and artists that inspired her, she has a fellow traveler in Dave Grohl. In 2014 the Foo Fighters poobah put together the docuseries Sonic Highways (HBO), which profiled the music and representative artists of eight American cities and featured the Foos playing songs with their heroes and collaborators in those resonant places. And for even more Thalia on HBO, check out Viva Tour en Vivo, a concert film based around her 2014 world tour.
Our Take: At times, the meetups she features in Mixtape can feel a tiny bit staged, like when the host of a home improvement show lobs prompts at an expert guest to fill out the exposition. But that awkwardness doesn’t last, and it’s actually obliterated once Thalia gets on a roll. Her excitement as she meets her musical heroes, and her enthusiasm as they perform together – it’s striking, and feels 100 percent authentic. It’s cool to watch her nerd out with Soda Stereo drummer Charly Alberti about crafting the perfect and personally sequenced mix, and speak with Roco Pachukote about their shared formative influence in Mexican actor, singer, and comedian Tin-Tan. And Thalia proves to be an effusive host for the viewing audience, too, as she connects the physical history of how music has been distributed with what that evolution means not only for the memories she has of making her own mixes, but how the next generation of musicians and listeners will craft their own experiences.
Future episodes of Thalia’s Mixtape will include the singer in conversation and performance with David Summers of Spanish group Hombres G, Mexican singer and YouTube personality Kenia Os, And Tijuana-based pop-electronica singer Bruses. But within the frame of Mixtape, which provides continuity through its graphical elements and emphasis on music’s ephemeral joy becoming a solid as it mixes with analog tapes and the yellow “Sports”-style Walkmen that play them, Thalia allows the interview and performance aspects of her series to be more spontaneous. So while she’s in a traditional recording studio setup for her conversation and performance with Charly Alberti, she hops into a cherry red Cadillac with David Summers, and they drive around New York City at night. And naturally, for that one, she pops a tape into the deck.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: As Thalia muses about the way music formats shift access across the decades, she also sets up one of her encounters in the second episode of Mixtape, namely a rendezvous with David Summers of Hombres G. “Tonight I settle scores and need an accomplice,” he says, and she’s willing to ride along.
Sleeper Star: The purple-streaked visuals of Thalia’s Mixtape combine analog and digital elements with animation and stock footage for a presentation that feels compiled from a span of decades. Which is perfect for a docuseries that takes as its guiding principle the careful construction of a personal mix from a handful of disparate influences.
Most Pilot-y Line: Thalia says the songs that influenced her throughout her life and career have carved out her destiny. “We’ll recreate them, we’ll enjoy them, and we’ll be able to understand them through their original heroes while we examine music history and its impact.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. Thalia’s Mixtape leans into its concept with a giddiness that’s energizing, unpredictable, and made thoroughly enjoyable by featuring Thalia as both an engaging singer and curious and effusive interviewer. And if you’re already a fan, Mixtape features a handful of truly customized Thalia performances.
Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges