Five years after bursting onto the Latin pop scene with Rebelde (2004), RBD released their fifth and final studio album, Para Olvidarte de Mí, a sappy swan song effort that finds the teen pop group having outgrown its musical act. Songs like "Para Olvidarte de Mí" and "Adiós" are fan-oriented tearjerkers that reflect on RBD's remarkable rise from telenovela creations to Latin pop sensations to full-grown teenagers in search of solo career paths. These fan-farewell songs, along with the album's heavy emphasis on emotional ballads in lieu of fun-loving pop, make Para Olvidarte de Mí feel slight, as if it's oriented toward the group's core fan base rather than the Latin pop mainstream. In addition to the farewell songs, there are a few songs that are stand-alone highlights ("Camino al Sol," "¿Quién Te Crees?," "Puedes Ver Pero No Tocar"), and group member Dulce contributes two songs of her own ("Más Tuya Que Mía," "Lágrimas Perdidas") in a showcase of her solo career prospects. Longtime RBD hitmakers Armando Ávila and Carlos Lara chip in once again, the former contributing a couple standouts ("Esté Donde Esté," "Adiós") and the latter another couple ("Para Olvidarte de Mí," "Hace un Instante"). There are enough highlights to make Para Olvidarte de Mí a worthwhile listen for fans, yet the album feels not only slight, as if it were slapped together hastily as a final contractual requirement by the group members and their hitmakers, but it also feels ill-timed. There's no question that the RBD phenomenon had already run its course by the 2009 release date of Para Olvidarte de Mí, as both the group and its fans had long outgrown the adolescent spunk that made the Rebelde debut such a delight. Had the group released its farewell album a couple years earlier, it would have carried more weight. As it happened, however, RBD overran the course of their popularity and were left to bid farewell to a greatly diminished fan base, not to mention an otherwise uncaring Latin pop mainstream that had grown increasingly weary of the group as the years passed and the novelty wore thin.
© Jason Birchmeier /TiVo