A couple weeks agoBillboard reported that Ariel Camacho‘s “Hablemos” had debuted at #44 on its Hot Latin chart. This is the same “Hablemos” whose yearning, lovey-dovey video dropped in March of 2014, almost a year before Camacho died; it now has 48 million views. This week the song moves up to #14 Hot Latin and #9 on the airplay chart, and it’s also the title track of a new Camacho album. Hablemos (DEL) contains some previously released songs and some apparently unreleased ones that I wanna call “unearthed,” or “liberated from the vaults,” or maybe “scraped from the studio dustbin.”
Not that Hablemos is a bad album. As Sierreño offshoots go, it’s better than the latest by Los Cuates, because Camacho’s guitar chops and his interplay with Omar Burgos’s tuba elevate his music to its own league. But aside from “Entre Pláticas Y Dudas,” a killer two-year-old corrido that’s this week’s Pick to Click, the whole thing feels a bit lethargic.
Down at #20 this week we find La Séptima Banda, evidently so emboldened by their recent hit love songs they think they can skirt any Mexican bans on radio corridos. “El Hijo del Ingeniero” (Fonovisa) is a song the banda picked up from their corridero labelmates Los Hijos de Hernández, although NorteñoBlog should note that Sr. Hernández is not the Ingeniero in question. But who is the Ingeniero? This song calls for a new edition of HASTY CARTEL GOOGLING: Continue reading “Who’s On the Mexican Radio? (ft. La Séptima Banda & Hasty Cartel Googling)”→
Since Billboard‘s Latin charts tend to turn over slower than car engines during Chicago winters, the scene doesn’t look much different than it did two weeks ago. All titles in the Top 10 remain the same, with more than half of them occupying the exact same positions. The presidential primary campaign chart tenure of King Romeo’s indecent proposal has reached 118 weeks, and there are only six new songs, four on the big chart and two on the Regional Mexican airplay chart. Plus — and this makes NorteñoBlog howl hot tears of pain — both of Pitbull’s songs, “El Taxi” and “Baddest Girl In Town,” have left the Top 25. Beep beep, sir; beep beep.
But! As you know, NorteñoBlog has a bit of a thing for the late Ariel Camacho, whose “Te Metiste” is still sitting pretty at #7 Hot Latin without placing on the Regional Mexican chart, meaning people continue streaming and/or downloading the heck out of it. (Probably streaming.) Other songs in this predicament: Arrolladora’s “Confesión” and Recodos’ “Mi Vicio Más Grande,” both of which boast expensive-looking novela-lite videos.
Hay mucha intriga on one of the Mexican charts this week, the secondary one that measures radio spins rather than total audience. It seems La Trakalosa de Monterrey, given to illustrating their humdrum power ballads with dramatic eight-minute videos starring the expressive face of frontman Edwin Luna, have undergone a dramatic name change: they’re now Edwin Luna y La Trakalosa de Monterrey. Wham!
The principles of detection and/or YouTube rabbit holes tell me this revolution began a month ago, with Trakalosa’s humdrum “Pa’ Quitarle Las Ganas.” You’d could easily have missed the name change, which only appeared in the opening credits. With the new humdrum chart single “Pregúntale,” though, the situation comes to a head. As the video starts, the words “Edwin Luna” seem to flash across that expressive face every few seconds: not only is Luna gradually extricating his name from his group’s, he cowrote the song and stars in the video, and receives credit for each task.
As you’d expect from the guys who used their single “La Revancha” to film a mini-novela about crime, fate, and revenge, “Pregúntale” is no ordinary video. This otherwise simple, “Break Up With Him”-style song transforms into a Very Important Message about Not Mistreating Women — can’t argue with that — through the Magic Of Acting. Throughout the video, Edwin Luna points his pained and uncomfortable face at the woman for whom he pines as she gets pushed around by her boyfriend, Luna’s boss. The woman in question, sobbing, flashes back to their schooldays when Luna used to wear attractive red-framed glasses, but she keeps coming back to the abusive boss. Edwin Luna then points his pained and uncomfortable face at us. I, for one, felt pained and uncomfortable. Continue reading “Who’s On the Mexican Radio? 10/23/15”→
It’s not quite our one-year anniversary — that’ll come next week — but NorteñoBlog has been at this funny business for 51 weeks and in all that time, Billboard‘s Latin charts have always contained a song by either Gerardo Ortiz or El Komander. UNTIL NOW. Well, really until two weeks ago, when Komander’s “Malditas Ganas” dropped off the chart. “Malditas Ganas” entered the chart back in May, hi-fiving Ortiz’s “Eres Una Niña” as it sauntered out and paving the way for Ortiz’s “El Cholo” a week or three later. (NorteñoBlog doesn’t need your fancy “fact checkers.”) And now “Ganas” and “Cholo” are both gone, and NB’s heart is empty, and… ooh, what’s that! New Chuy Lizárraga!
Please note: it’s entirely possible that both Banda MS and Julión Álvarez have been on the charts the entire length of the NB’s existence, much like well-known Methuselan beard “Propuesta Indecente” (116 WEEKS!), but frankly, that last bit of data gathering has plum tuckered me out and I would like to listen to some songs now.
The Hot Latin Top 10 is a complete reshuffle of a month ago. (NOBODY. EVER. GOES. IN. and NOBODY. EVER. COMES. OUT.) So we’ll just skip down to #11, where Bomba Estéreo have repurposed their excellent single “Fiesta” to include a rap by new Bomba Estéreo superfan Will Smith. This isn’t Smith’s first visit to the Latin charts: “Men In Black,” “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It,” and “Wild Wild West” were all monster hits that received Latin airplay and broke the Hot Latin top 40 back when the Hot Latin chart allowed for such things. (Weirdly, “Miami” doesn’t seem to have received the same bienvenido.) This may, however, be the first time someone has tried to rhyme “mamacita” with “beer-a.” Let’s hope it’s the last. Smith’s other intriguing line is this odd bit of post-coital pride: “Woke up behind her/ No gas in me, I’m a Tesla.” Yo homes, smell you later! Continue reading “Desfile de Éxitos 10/24/15”→
Mexico and the U.S. might not agree on how to end the drug war or where to store El Chapo, but say this for international unity: we both love us some Banda MS. The banda’s uncharacteristically snappy “Piénsalo” continues at #1, both on the Mexican “Popular” chart and on Billboard‘s Regional Mexican chart, which measures U.S. airplay. Within the genre, they occupy the same position Arrolladora did a couple years ago, where any single they release is guaranteed to inundate radio playlists and hang out high on the charts for a couple months. (Not that Arrolladora’s doing badly for themselves lately — see #7 below.) I for one welcome our new romantic overlords and would like to encourage them to play a unity concert for the Supreme Leader of Iran.
New and notable this week:
At #12, Noel Torres’ ballad “Me Interesas” finally enters the Mexican chart, more than a year after topping U.S. airplay. More notable as an accordion hero and corridero, Torres also knows how to do banda romance right, largely because he knows his own voice. Nobody’s ever gonna mistake him for the world’s greatest crooner, so he skimps on the vibrato and instead delivers each lyric with forthright efficiency that cuts through the sentiment. Hearing him grow more confident with ballads has been an unexpected pleasure of following his career. (Don’t confuse “Me Interesas” with El Komander’s “Me Interesa,” returning to this chart at #16 and not nearly so interesante. Nobody’s ever gonna mistake El Komander for the world’s greatest crooner either, but he has fewer coping strategies for ballads.) An unenthusiastic Pick to Click!, then — did I mention this song is really old?
ROBERTO TAPIA GRAPPLES WITH FEELINGS, FENG SHUI ON BEACH:
If you’ve hung around NorteñoBlog for very long, you’ll know that when I fall for a Roberto Tapiabanda single, I fall hard. So it is with his new tune “No Valoraste” — the waltz beat is stiffer than his previous “Me Enamoré” and “Mirando Al Cielo,” but the high-climbing melody sounds great in his upper range. Along with Friday’s brand new video, and having heard it on the radio a couple times last week, “No Valoraste” shoots into Pick to Click status. And by all means watch that video: it’s like Ingmar Bergman shot a novela on the beach using the castoff furniture from Return to Oz. See Tapia and his ex-mujer stalk one another in symbolically opposing color schemes, as they seek cold comfort from an absent God and/or Princess Ozma.
Tapia’s at #4 on the airplay chart, so the streams racked up by this new video should propel him onto the big Hot Latin chart next week.
NorteñoBlog has pretty much made its peace with boring ballads about corazones and the hombres who break/nurse/fondle them, so this week’s Mexican Top 20 comes as a pleasant surprise. Most of the new songs are fast! Or at least midtempo, which often sounds like “fast” around this lot. (When Arrolladora’s devious mujer destroyed their collective soul, she also apparently destroyed their ability to play faster than 60 bpm.) Almost every inch of this new batch is perfect, from the bottom to the top:
At #20, Leandro Ríos, of superfun rhyming exercise “Debajo del Sombrero” fame, is now a no-good cheating bastard. But he’s really tortured about being caught “Entre Ella y Tú,” so that’s gotta count for something, right? Oh wait — HE’S NOT TORTURED AT ALL. As long as you’re content with the amount of Leandro you’re getting, what’s the problem? The jaunty accordion gave him away.
NorteñoBlog is un poco freaking out this week, because if you look way down at Billboard‘s Regional Mexican airplay chart, you’ll see Roberto Tapia has a new single called “No Valoraste.” Unfortunately Tapia hasn’t finished the video yet, nor has the song hit any of the streaming services I’ve checked, so I have no idea what “No Valoraste” sounds like. NorteñoBlog doesn’t always enjoy Tapia, but when I do, I prefer his popsingles. And it’s not just me! My son, who’s kind of rockist but also digs Kidz Bop and EDM-pop, normally hates when I turn on the Spanish language radio stations, but as we pulled into Grandma and Grandpa’s driveway the other night we found Tapia’s monster hit “Mirando al Cielo,” and he was grooving. It actually delayed our triumphant race to the grandparents’ door, as we sat in the car and seat-danced. Um, Pick to Click!
So Tapia’s latest will either be profoundly great or profoundly disappointing, is what I’m saying.
Thank heavens for “Mirando al Cielo,” from whence cometh our help, because this week’s charts are slim pickings. The best newish tune is by Banda MS: “Piénsalo” is the higher of their two songs inside the Hot Latin top 20, and it’s uncharacteristically fast, if not too special. MS typically hits with the stickiest of treacly ballads, and these concoctions have brought them untold fame and Youtube hits. Their older top 20 hit this week, “A Lo Mejor,” has gotten some click-baity help from Remex’s big-budget novela video, in which infidelity and mistaken identity somehow result in stabbing and crashing cars. Desafortunadamente, to make sense of all that you have to listen to “A Lo Mejor.”
Elsewhere, Joan Sebastian’s epic death bump evaporates as we say adios to his four revived hits; La Séptima Banda score a second decent airplay hit, though it’s no “Bonito y Bello”; Pitbull continues to be awesome; and people evidently continue streaming “Propuesta Indecente,” now at 107 weeks on the chart. Think about that. When “Propuesta Indecente” came out, NorteñoBlog’s guinea pig WAS NOT YET ALIVE. (“Propuesta Indecente” has always been at war with alfalfa hay and cilantro.)
After speaking with a big Máximo Grado fan the other day, I fear NorteñoBlog may have given short initial shrift to that group’s really pretty good “Unas Heladas,” currently at #14 airplay. So here it is, en realidad, this week’s Pick to Click:
These are the top 25 Hot Latin Songs and top 20 Regional Mexican Songs, courtesy Billboard, as published August 22.
A couple weeks ago Billboard reported that Ariel Camacho‘s “Hablemos” had debuted at #44 on its Hot Latin chart. This is the same “Hablemos” whose yearning, lovey-dovey video dropped in March of 2014, almost a year before Camacho died; it now has 48 million views. This week the song moves up to #14 Hot Latin and #9 on the airplay chart, and it’s also the title track of a new Camacho album. Hablemos (DEL) contains some previously released songs and some apparently unreleased ones that I wanna call “unearthed,” or “liberated from the vaults,” or maybe “scraped from the studio dustbin.” 
NorteñoBlog 