NorteñoBlog

Welcome to the Songwriters’ Showcase! In this exciting feature, NorteñoBlog attempts to bring interest to the boring love songs on the Mexican radio chart by pointing out who wrote the boring love songs! Eventually I lose interest in that too! (Please note: some non-boring songs also lie ahead.)

At number 10, Diego Herrera adds lush guitar to a banda ballad, or maybe vice versa, and pledges his fidelity and jealousy to a mujer he claims is a good kisser. The song’s by Joss Favela and Luciano Luna, the (collective?) Diane Warren of norteño music, and if you’ve heard one of their love songs you’ve heard “Si Te Enamoras De Mi,” but the guitar makes some difference.

Case in point: Banda El Recodo’s at number 6 with another Favela/Luna love song, “Si No Es Contigo.” (Watch for my forthcoming pamphlet on the role of fate and potential realities in the Favela/Luna songbook.) Even though Recodo’s tune is skippier than Herrera’s, you can easily imagine them slowing it down and turning it into a waltz. While we’re talking about Recodo, NorteñoBlog would like to congratulate them on their Grammy nomination in the category Best Regional Mexican Music Album (Including Tejano). Alternate parenthetical: (Stop Complaining, Noisy Tejano Voting Bloc).

Arrolladora has the number 2 song, which is not by Favela and Luna; rather, “Ya Te Perdí La Fé” was written by the similarly prolific Edén Muñoz (of Calibre 50) and Horacio Palencia. It’s a simple “now you’re gone” ballad dressed up by an epic video in which a wealthy mujer is torn between her husband who’s in the slammer and his (spoiler alert!) devious business associate.

I’m gonna assume Muñoz also wrote Calibre’s big dumb cumbia (and previous Pick to Click) “La Gripa,” at number 7. Speaking of singers writing their own songs, Gerardo Ortiz wrote his pretty good chart-topping ballad “Fuiste Mia,” and Edwin Luna had a hand in Trakalosa’s “Pregúntale,” now at number 3.

Palencia also wrote Banda MS’s “Solo Con Verte” at number 5; it opens with the singer watching his mujer while she sleeps, so maybe Palencia is the Diane Warren of norteño. (I really like Warren, btw, and once got her to autograph my sheet music of “When I’m Back On My Feet Again.”) Like many MS songs, “Verte” is impressively boring, a blank space where a song should be.

The liveliest song in the top 10 is La Adictiva’s breakneck key-changing “El Viejón,” in which singers Isaac Salas and I Dunno Crazy Hair urge an attractive mujer with a grande saco (pretty sure she’s the viejón in question) to leave her zero and get with a hero. “El Viejón” was written by Luis Enrique Lopez, who also gave us German Montero’s jaunty 2008 reflection on fate and potential realities, “Si Te Tengo,” and it’s the follow up to their giant (and far inferior) binational smash “Después de Ti, ¿Quién?” Pick to Click!

Try though I might, I can’t figure out who wrote that Sebastianes song at #9. Dogged researchers will be duly shouted out.

These are the Top 20 “Popular” songs in Mexico, as measured by monitorLATINO. Don’t confuse “Popular” with the “General” list, which contains many of the same songs but also “Locked Away,” the ubiquitous “Hello,” Calvin Harris/Disciples’ “How Deep Is Your Love”, and Justin Bieber ft. J Balvin doing “Sorry.” Note: that’s a Canadian and a Colombian storming Mexico on U.S. money. What a time to be alive! (The song’s still good, too.)

1. “Fuiste Mia” – Gerardo Ortiz
2. “Ya Te Perdí La Fé” – Arrolladora
3. “Pregúntale” – Edwin Luna y La Trakalosa de Monterrey
4. “Pistearé” – Banda Los Recoditos
5. “Solo Con Verte” – Banda MS
6. “Si No Es Contigo” – Banda El Recodo
7. “La Gripa” – Calibre 50
8. “El Viejón” – La Adictiva Banda San Jose
9. “Quien Que Crees Tú” – Banda Los Sebastianes
10. “Si Te Enamoras De Mi” – Diego Herrera

11. “¿Por Qué Me Ilusionaste?” – Remmy Valenzuela
12. “¿Y Qué Ha Sido De Ti?” – Chuy Lizárraga
13. “Bien Enamorado” – Kevin Ortiz
14. “Sonrie” – Duelo
15. “Tu Cárcel (En Vivo)” – Los Tigres Del Norte ft. Marco Antonio Solís
16. “Moneda Sin Valor” – Pesado
17. “Típico Clásico” – Luis Antonio Lopez “El Mimoso”
18. “Hoy Toca” – Alfredo Ríos El Komander
19. “Soy Feliz” – Fidel Rueda
20. “Me Gustaría Creerte” – Los Horóscopos de Durango

¡Adios!
“Te Cambio El Domicilio” – Banda Carnaval
“La Frontera” – Juan Gabriel ft. J. Balvin and Julión Álvarez
“La Miel de Su Saliva” – Banda El Recodo
“Ginza” – J. Balvin