'BORDER' LINE SINGER PAULINA RUBIO'S LIFE IS IN FAST FORWARD, BUT CAN SHE AVOID THE STRESS?

Byline: Phillip Zonkel Staff Writer

PAULINA RUBIO is impatient.

The feisty Mexican singer, promoting her first English-language album, ``Border Girl,'' is on fast-forward, but says she needs to slow it down a bit.

``I need to learn to be more patient, breathe,'' Rubio says. ``That's why I do yoga, to try to meditate and avoid stress.''

Before and since the release of ``Border Girl,'' which debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard charts, Rubio's life has been in overdrive.

The daughter of Mexican actress Susana Dosamantes and attorney Enrique Rubio, the 31-year-old is a pop star south of the border, who hopes her musical multilingualism will be her passport to success.

She's one of the headliners at Saturday's Reventon Super Estrella concert at Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.

In 1981, at 10, Rubio joined the six-member pop outfit, Timbiriche, a coed version of Menudo. Seven years later, she dabbled in acting with the film ``Pasion y Poder'' (``Passion and Power''); ``Vaselina,'' the Spanish version of ``Grease'' and the TV series ``Baila Conmigo'' (``Dance With Me'').

``In Mexico, coming from a well-to-do family is a big factor in who gets to be a pop star,'' says Ramiro Burr, music reporter at the San Antonio Express-News and author of ``The Billboard Guide to Tejano and Regional Mexican Music.'' ``These pop stars are not discovered on the street already happening; they're marketed because their parents knew the right people or music industry folks got them on the right TV shows.

``I can't think of a single one that really started humbly, poor, on their own, created a song and got lucky, except for the rockers.''

More than a dozen pop confectionary CDs later, Rubio left Timbiriche (as members aged, they automatically left the group). Her solo debut, ``La Chica Dorada'' (``Golden Girl'') debuted in 1992, followed by a stint on the soap opera ``Pobre Nina Rica'' (``Poor Little Rich Girl'').

But her solo albums, primarily collections of dance-pop, were lackluster. In 1996, after four lukewarm releases, Rubio took a four-year hiatus before ``Paulina'' caught everyone by surprise and shot her onto the Mexican and U.S. charts. That 1.5 million-selling CD was Billboard's Latin Album of the Year for 2001.

On ``Border Girl,'' Rubio takes several tracks from ``Paulina'' and injects English lyrics. Though mainly a pop-dance showcase, the CD also highlights hip-hop rhythms and ranchera melodies.

``It's a very commercial CD. That's the way they're molding her,'' says Lelia Cobo, Miami and Latin America bureau chief for Billboard magazine. ``She's not a great singer, but she does take over the stage well.''

And is comfortable taking off her clothes. In numerous photo shoots, Rubio is presented as a seductive sex kitten - with the word ``PUNK'' written on her underpants, bending over with a guitar on her near-naked back in Rolling Stone.

``It's absolutely intentional,'' Burr says. ``She's trying to appeal to that young market out there that's hungry for some superstar, mystique, sexy, attractive new young face to enter the market.''

But Rubio says she's more than a pop pawn. She talks about reading Freud, losing interest with acting and trying to write in English.

Q: I heard that you're currently reading books on Sigmund Freud?

RUBIO: I love Freud. I love Kafka. I love Nietzsche. I love Descartes. I love all types of philosophers.

Q: Which of those philosophers do you enjoy the most?

RUBIO: All of them. They're so passionate, like me. We share that.

Q: Speaking of passions, you went from being a singer and actress to now just a singer. You like singing more?

RUBIO: I don't like to be someone else waiting in a freezing camper. I prefer to make concerts. I don't want to act. I want to write my own music and still go in the direction that I'm living right now.

Q: Did you enjoy acting when you were doing it?

RUBIO: The only thing I remember is it was not the same as after a concert or in between. I prefer to be on the road with my mariachis and my band and my dancers and all my crowd.

Q: How many songs on this album did you write?

RUBIO: I didn't write any. It's my first English album. I wrote ``The Last Goodbye'' in Spanish, but we didn't translate it; we started from scratch. I usually write my own music, but this was a challenge for me. If it's not your natural language, what do you do?

Q: What did you do?

RUBIO: We had a workshop here in New York where we started from silence. I had the opportunity to work with Brian Rawlings, David Ericksen, Chris De Walden and Hex Hector, all the different producers that I chose, so it could be Paulina. We were all writing the lyrics. I'm preparing myself for another moment to write in English, but I'm a perfectionist. I'm very critical with myself.

Q: Almost every song on the CD talks about love, broken relationships, new relationships. ...

RUBIO: My whole inspiration is love.

Q: In the future, do you want to write about other topics? Social issues or political issues?

RUBIO: It reflects what I had inside me at that moment. ... All the songs I ever record are autobiographic. For example, ``Not That Kind of Girl'' is very feminist, and ``The Last Goodbye'' as well, and ``Fire.'' A lot of songs from my last Spanish album I didn't just want to translate them. I chose my favorite ones to show the world how Paulina really is. I don't believe in translations because it's never perfect.

PAULINA RUBIO

What: Fifth annual Reventon Super Estrella concert with Enanitos Verdes, Fey, Elvis Crespo, Pilar Montenegro, Rabanes, Aleks Syntek and Kabah.

Where: Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, 2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim.

When: 4 p.m. today.

Tickets: $65. Call [phone] or www.ticketmaster.com.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

no caption (Paulina Rubio)