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Archivos de 2001: Los Twiins Break Through

los twiins

Lovelorn bounces and classic fanfares, old hats and new jacks, and early work by one of the most influential production duos of the past two decades, any genre: these were Billboard‘s top 10 Regional Mexican songs on May 19, 2001.

1. “No Te Podias Quedar” – Conjunto Primavera (#4 Hot Latin)
The pride of Ojinaga, the gas-guzzling romantics of the road, Primavera scored their fifth Hot Latin top 10 with this soppy contribution from their go-to songwriter Jesús Guillén. Sometimes songwriters just find a niche, and Guillén was put on this earth to write soaring climaxes for the cavernous throat of Tony Melendez, the continent’s best singer before Primavera’s output dropped off and Julión Álvarez came along. The song itself barely exists.

2. “Y Llegaste Tú” – Banda El Recodo (#6 Hot Latin)
In 2001, after 60 years of playing brass band shows to adoring but limited audiences, Recodo was enjoying the public’s newfound vogue for banda music and their first gold album. A couple years earlier, they’d begun hiring producer brothers Adolfo and Omar Valenzuela, aka Los Twiins, aka the bankrollers of El Movimiento Alterado later in the decade. (El Komander still records for them.) The brothers had their identical fingers on the pulse of the youth, and in this song they led Recodo toward a sound that blanketed the airwaves all year, and then for years afterward — a newly written Noel Hernandez song that sounded trad yet vibrant, with a arrangement that turned contrasting instrumental sections into hooks. Plus, “We’ve learned how to really tune the banda,” said Omar, “which [in the past] maybe wasn’t really done.” Progress! Pick to Click!

3. “Me Declaro Culpable” – Los Tigres del Norte (#13 Hot Latin)
Sad limericks of lost love — with sax! Continue reading “Archivos de 2001: Los Twiins Break Through” →

May 20, 2016 3

Intocable y Daddy Yankee en la Jukebox

Donald-Trump-unificado-Daddy-Yankee_CLAIMA20150925_0320_28

Esta semana: dos Picks to Click anteriores!

En 2016, el mejor solo de acordeón es posiblemente en los manos de Ricky Muñoz. En la radio, esas 16 medidas de “Tu Ausencia” contrastan con todo que está cerca, incluso mis propios dedos. Mis gorditas pequeñas se muevan como perezosos. Escribir para el Singles Jukebox, Leonel Manzanares nos dió un sinopsis util de Intocable (“the Steely Dan of Tex-Mex”), todavía una banda importante y divertida.

Escribí:

For the second time in a decade, Ricky Muñoz cries out “me faltas tú” in the chorus of a song; and just like last time, René Martínez bashes his batería with cheerful indifference to his friend’s bereftitude. I just finished reading The Giver so I’m a little tender, but for all the heartbreaking details in the lyrics — color giving way to gray, the absence of dew and breath — the most striking moments are pure communal musical joy: Hotshot accordion duking it out with distorted guitar. Cadences stretched past their expected stopping points. Muñoz’s inexplicable ability to scan the word “inexplicablemente.” The rhythm section that keeps finding new ways to lope. And finally, “eeeYAHW!!!!”

******

¿Por qué nadie se gusta “Shaky Shaky”? (Excepto Cassy Gress; gracias, Cassy. Shaky shaky.) Pobre Daddy Yankee. Sí, él es “repetitivo,” pero LA VIDA es repetitivo. Ergo Daddy Yankee representa la vida… y el terremoto… y el aficionado de booty en todos nosotros.

Escribí:

Daddy Yankee’s “One take!” braggadocio makes him more Cee-Lo than Glenn Gould, so thank goodness DJ Urba and Rome marshaled a small army of Yankees to squawk and pop off around him. Working those “rrrrr”s and changing his delivery from one chorus to the next, Yankee twitches like a seismograph needle giddy over the destructive potential of booty.

¡VALE LA PENA!

May 18, 2016 2

Smells like Remex Records: Trakalosa, Atraktiva, Zancudito, Mi Padrino (yeah)

la atraktiva

It’s been a while since NorteñoBlog caught up with Remex Records, the YouTube telenovela factory that fronts as a powerhouse indie label. Run by brothers Domingo and Germán Chávez, the sons of the late DISA Records founder don Domingo Chávez, Remex recently signed a deal with the indie distributor Select-O-Hits — meaning, I guess, that they intend to stay independent for a while longer. (The younger Domingo has gone on record supporting Mexico’s corrido bans — Remex acts sometimes sing corridos, but never the bloodthirsty kind.)

Their distance from the majors doesn’t seem to have hurt them. Remex bands are all over the radio and their YouTube counts sometimes resemble the budgets for Avengers movies. The one place Remex bands tend to go missing is the award show circuit, which behind all the pyrotechnics and back slapping remains a shadowy cabal of major label machinations. Although flagship banda La Trakalosa de Monterrey has shown up at the Premios de la Radio, Remex bands have rarely if ever played the Latin Grammys, probably because it would cost the label $40-to-$100,000 to send one of their acts to perform. But who cares about some dumb award when, like Joe-C, you’re down with the devil?

I refer of course to “Mi Padrino El Diablo,” Trakalosa’s excellent tale of Faustian woe. In the two years since the 18 members of Trakalosa collectively shook the hand of el diablo in song — I like to imagine a post-fútbol receiving line with murmurs of “buen juego” and a Gatorade cooler full of goat blood — they’ve grown into YouTube marvels, with frontman Edwin Luna evidently prepping for a solo career or a run at movie stardom. In his band’s melodramatic videos, now credited to “Edwin Luna y La Trakalosa” (wham!), he flares his nostrils like Kristen Stewart used to bite her lip. And she’s a big star now, so…

Trakalosa’s new album Así Cantaba Mi Padre appears to be a tribute to Luna’s late father Miguel Luna, “El Gorrión” of the duo El Palomo y El Gorrión. It’s full of classics from the Great Mexican Songbook, including first single “En Toda La Chapa,” featuring Luna’s uncle Cirilo. (You guessed it: he’s “El Palomo.”) Like most Trakalosa singles, “En Toda” is charting in Mexico, partly because it sounds thoroughly modern — the recording captures both the density of the brass and the lightness of their step, not to mention Luna’s patented oversinging — and partly because the audience for classic norteño has never gone away, even with the rise of the modern banda pop industry. (The past is never dead, etc.) Continue reading “Smells like Remex Records: Trakalosa, Atraktiva, Zancudito, Mi Padrino (yeah)” →

May 17, 2016 2

Desfile de Éxitos 5/21/16

Daddy-Yankee-Cortada1

It’d be hard to top last week’s spate of three-count-’em-three norteño debuts on the Hot Latin chart, including new songs from Arrolladora (this week at #28), Los Gfez (#36), and Hijos de Barrón (#47). But if you enjoy boring banda ballads, Norteñoblog has just the songs for you!

At #29, the week’s highest debut of any genre comes from Banda MS and their song “Me Vas a Extrañar,” which has been waltzing its sad tale of love gone wrong across Mexico for a couple weeks. Banda MS continues to be wildly, inexplicably popular. Their earlier hit “Solo Con Verte” just notched its 26th week on the U.S. Hot Latin chart, with no sign of slowing down: it’s still at #4, and this week it boasts the biggest gains in streams and digital sales. After half a year! I mean, as boring banda ballads go, “Solo Con Verte” is decent, but that’s sort of like calling John Kasich the standout candidate in the most recent Republican presidential primary. The field was not exactly an embarrassment of riches. (Other kinds of embarrassment, definitely.) But this comparison might be inapposite anyway, because John Kasich’s YouTube numbers are way below Banda MS’s.

At #48, the second banda debut is the title waltz from Recoditos’ latest album Me Está Gustando. Sung by Samuel Sarmiento, its video features not one but two inappropriate workplace romances and the band’s other lead vocalist, Luis Angel Franco, wearing a construction helmet. Sharpen those slash fiction pencils!

The debuts on the Regional Mexican radio chart are a little better. Continue reading “Desfile de Éxitos 5/21/16” →

May 13, 2016 1

¡Nuevo! (starring Joss Favela, Remmy Valenzuela, y más)

tapatias

Songwriter José Alberto Inzunza — aka Joss Favela — has probably made more money than any of the other kids from Código F.A.M.A. Season 2, the TV talent show where he finished seventh in 2004. The winners of Season 2 went on to star in Misión S.O.S., a novela that featured the following novel plot points:

[T]he neighbors of Buenaventura have even darker futures, as they are in danger of losing their homes, their school and much more, because the evil old Severiano plans to tear down the neighborhood and build an enormous shopping mall in its place. To accomplish his plan, Severiano is willing to resort to any means, and will provoke a series of disasters to drive the inhabitants away.

The decrepit old theater is the children’s favorite spot, and this is where they meet a mysterious little man who will change their lives and the fate of Buenaventura forever. Chaneque, a friendly elf, is a magical being who is on an important mission: to save his elf-world from destruction.

Yes yes, Shakespeare plots sound ridiculous when you describe them, too, although I’m not sure El Bardo ever resorted to the ol’ “save the theater before the evil capitalist tears it down” gambit. The point is, Misión only ran for a season, so I’m guessing its actors aren’t earning much in residuals. (If that’s how things work in Méxican TV.) Joss “Seventh Place” Favela, though, became a songwriter who scored massive hits. “Te Hubieras Ido Antes,” Favela’s favorite because it “crossed genres and borders” and therefore made him lots of money, had the good fortune to be sung by the continent’s best voice, Julión Álvarez; “¿Por Qué Terminamos?” landed with Gerardo Ortiz, who also got his start singing on Código F.A.M.A., where he looked exactly the same as he does now — only shorter and more elfen.

Favela just released his solo debut album, Hecho a Mano (Sony). He sings with a fine quartet — accordion, tuba, bajo sexto, drums — whose personnel NorteñoBlog is still trying to track down. As you’d expect from this born romantic balladeer, the melodies are strong and soaring. As you might not expect, the band and their leader sometimes have great fun crushing lovelorn sentiments into a fine dust. For example, the standout “No Vuelvas a Llamarme” is a days-of-the-week song like Craig David’s “7 Days,” but it’s also a furious rolling waltz where Favela urges his ex not to call him, because he always has something better to do. (“Believe it or not, I go to Mass on Sundays” — and if you’ve ever tried to use your phone inside a cathedral, you know the reception sucks and the wi-fi’s probably spotty.) The well-rehearsed band has their stop-start game down cold, and the rhythm section’s licks fly nonstop like the popcorn Favela enjoys at those Wednesday double features he claims to never miss. Pick to Click!

Continue reading →

May 9, 2016 4

Who’s On the Mexican Radio? 5/3/16

bien servida

Welcome to the Mexican charts, where change, as my cosmetic podiatrist likes to say, is afoot. Although it’s been several weeks since NorteñoBlog tuned in to the Mexican radio, the rate of turnover feels much quicker there than in El Norte. For example, check out the norteño and banda songs that have been hanging around the charts the longest:

U.S. Hot Latin:
#19 – “Ya Te Perdí La Fe” by Arrolladora, 26 weeks
#4 – “Solo Con Verte” by Banda MS, 25 weeks
#13 – “Broche de Oro” by Trakalosa, 24 weeks
#14 – “Tomen Nota” by Adriel Favela ft. Los Del Arroyo, 20 weeks
#19 – “DEL Negociante” by Los Plebes del Rancho de Ariel Camacho, 20 weeks

Mexican Popular:
#8 – “Tragos de Alcohol” by El Komander, 14 semanas
#13 – “Préstamela a Mí” by Calibre 50, 14 semanas
#17 – “El Borrachito” by Julión Álvarez, 14 semanas
#7 – “Espero Con Ansias” by Remmy Valenzuela, 13 semanas
#12 – “María” by Pepe Aguilar, 11 semanas

I know what you’re thinking: the Mexican list is way better, and not just because you’re sick of all the U.S. songs after five months! You’re right, but that quality judgment is probably just a coincidence. (And one that doesn’t account for NorteñoBlog’s fave wristwatch porn jam “Tomen Nota.”) You might also be thinking these two charts aren’t equivalent, because Hot Latin measures radio plus streams plus downloads, whereas the Mexican Popular chart only measures radio. Verdadero; but if you check out Billboard‘s radio-only Regional Mexican chart, the U.S. songs have charted for roughly the same amount of time, give or take a week, plus you find Adictiva’s certified 37-weeker “Después de Ti, ¿Quién?”, a real tantric filibuster. Continue reading “Who’s On the Mexican Radio? 5/3/16” →

May 4, 2016 2

Guitars, WhatsApp, and San Juditas Medallions

martin castillo big

UPDATE: Never mind what I wrote below, Gusttavo Lima’s “Balada” was a hit in the U.S. too.

When NorteñoBlog last caught up with the prolific drummer-corridero Martin Castillo, he was philosophizing somewhat threateningly over rippling guitars and tubas. This hasn’t changed on his new album La Historia de Mi Vida (Gerencia 360/Sony). Castillo enjoys portraying the tough narco who takes wounded pride in his work and life, wearing a San Juditas medallion on his chest to show the world what a martyr he is. His lovely single “De Compadre a Compadre” is a dead homies song that, chord-wise, recalls Gerardo Ortiz’s equally elegiac “Archivos de Mi Vida.” Pick to Click!

Continue reading →

April 29, 2016 3

¡Indies a Go Go! (starring La Rumorosa, Los Rodriguez, y más)

La_Rumorosa_Lunario2

If there’s one thing NorteñoBlog loves, it’s a nasty kiss-off delivered with borderline psychotic cheer. If there’s another thing, it’s a pop song brassed up with a banda or mariachi chart. This week’s Pick to Click is both. La Rumorosa is the nombre de electro-polka of María Inés Ochoa, a Mexican singer with a thick alto and a mile-wide vibrato she deploys at dramatic moments. And make no mistake: every La Rumorosa song contains dramatic moments. Last year’s album Lamento (Espiral) has its intermittent moments of fun, too; but they’re not quite as fun as her new single “Todo Lo Que Merezcas.”

It’s a cover of a song by Spanish indie rocker Xoel López (what does the idea of an “indie label” even mean in Spain?), a song that wishes karmic justice upon someone who did the singer wrong. Neither López nor Rumorosa specifies what this cad did, but whatever the deed, it earned the doer some delicious curses. Rumorosa wishes they would lose all their air, drown in the silence, and cry every day; that their days would be filled with an infinite desert. (Maybe the perpetrator will wake up inside a Buñuel movie.) She belts all this in commanding ranchera fashion, over a jaunty accordion/brass polka, with a tuba-based rhythm section that sounds hopped up on lollipops. There’s even a synth solo fanfare in the middle. Honestly, before I ran the lyrics through Sr. Translator I thought this was the happiest song on earth.

La Rumorosa’s next album Yo Por Amor drops sometime in May. Pray do not cross her. Continue reading “¡Indies a Go Go! (starring La Rumorosa, Los Rodriguez, y más)” →

April 27, 2016 3

Parade (Desfile de Éxitos 4/30/16)

huracanes-del-norte-estrenan-video — Life could be so nice…

Controversy over Gerardo Ortiz‘s “Fuiste Mia” video continues this week, as it returns to YouTube in a version designed to make you and your computer blue. The video, you’ll recall, opens with a scene of Sr. Ortiz and the most beautiful girl in the world sharing a kiss in the shower, getting soft and wet 2gether. In the next scene, Ortiz catches her starting to work it with another man, asks the eternal question “Why you wanna treat me so bad?”, and shoots that dude in the head atop the bed, leaving him dead on it. The video ends with the beautiful ones on the outs, Ortiz shoving her into the trunk of his sporty little automatic, and, tick tick bang, blowing her up. Scandalous! This time, in a delirious attempt to make the video less dark, the action is obscured by a big “Gerardo Ortiz” logo that refuses to gett off the screen, but all these plot points remain plain as Morris Day.

Arguments for and against the video have gone round and round. Critics, seeing in this video a sign ‘o’ the times, have accused Ortiz of exploiting Mexico’s chaos and disorder, and treating glibly the country’s violence against women. In a press conference, Ortiz countered with the “baby I’m a star” defense — he’s only acting, the video is pure fiction, and it’s his job to push the envelope to the max. Cynics might note that the song itself is a standard “when you were mine” love song — it’s fine but not exactly jam of the year — and that this arbitrary video is a mismatch for the song’s style. As a publicity move, the video is an undisputed, if underwhelming, success: the new “Fuiste Mia” video has racked up 1.6 million views and last week hit #20 on the ladder of the Latin pop life, Billboard‘s Hot Latin chart. This week it drops to a new position at #30. (Ortiz’s other chart hit this week, “¿Por Qué Terminamos?”, peaked at 7.)

Elsewhere, Jesús Ojeda drops to #42 with his own video wet dream. Songwriter Jesús Sauceda — who assures me via emale that he is NOT Jesús Ojeda, 3121 online bios to the contrary — enters at #47 with Los Huracanes’ “Amarte Es Hermoso.” Los Titanes‘ previous Pick to Click “Rumbo a Maza” — remember? the one where they get caught speeding in their little red white Corvette but then talk their way out of the ticket and go free? — holds steady at #49. If you’re anxious for a new chart entry worthy of NorteñoBlog’s coveted Pick to Click status, we’re still waiting for someone to release it. Trust me, I feel for you.