¡Nuevo!

¡Nuevo! (starring Javier Rosas y más)

[Updated to correct some discographical confusion.]

Sometimes it’s nice to hear pretty songs, or a variety of songs. But sometimes you just want an album to knock you flat for a half hour, and this seems to be Fonovisa’s goal with their new and unrelenting ~~compilation~~ reissue of Javier Rosas y Su Artillería Pesada‘s early-career highlight, Otro Golpe, featuring a flashier cover photo and a couple additional songs. Rosas and his rocking bass + tuba quintet released three (I think) albums on independent labels before their breakthrough hit “La China” led to a 2014 major label debut. ~~(Because it wouldn’t be norteño music without confusing discographies, one of those indie albums was also titled Otro Golpe.)~~ The singer-songwriter looks a little like Jonathan Rhys Meyers with his penetrating gaze, and he sings with blunt exuberance, as though spewing truths nobody else allows themselves. He enjoys spoken asides, too, which furthers the impression that he’s singing the collective unfiltered id. (Today’s gringo country comparison: Toby Keith.) Otro Golpe ~~cherrypicks~~ features some excellent math-oriented corridos like Pick to Click “Por Clave Llevo El 13,” “Soy El 4,” and “El 3-1.” I need to listen on better speakers, but I’ll go out on a limb and give this ~~comp~~ NEWLY REISSUED 2013 ALBUM a big VALE LA PENA.

Rosas also appears on Fonovisa’s new compilation Invasión del Corrido 2015: Sold Out, the third comp (at least) to feature Calibre 50’s “Javier El De Los Llanos.” Fonovisa repackages their songs as brazenly as Cook’s Illustrated recycles their recipes — not that I’m ready to abandon either friendly corporation.

The Hyphy label is also friendly — I know because I’ve talked with the owner (thinkpiece forthcoming!) — and it has two recent albums out: Chuy Vega’s Mas Underground y Mas Maldito: Puros Corridos and Los Originales’ Corridos de Poca M… (Ellipsis theirs.) Without running them through the translator, I’m gonna say both albums feature corridos, those traditional Mexican story-songs that often fixate on heroic tales of the drug trade. Listening while cleaning, Chuy Vega sounded slow and Los Originales sounded fast; do with that what you will. I will caution that neither album has anything to do with hyphy rap or hyphy norteño. (See thinkpiece, forthcoming.)

As we’ve discussed, the Goma label loves spreading the joy of puro Zacatecas saxophone to the world. Real “Up With People” types. To that end, they’ve released the latest dance album from Los Chacales de Pepe Tovar, Llego el Chacal, from Zacatecas by way of Wichita, Kansas. Lead song “Entre Fuegos Cruzados” is a spritely frolic.

Los Grandes Del Desierto are shrouded in sandy mystery, but they also have a sax and a new album, Reflexión (JB). Based on their album cover, the desierto in question belongs to Titan, the sandworm-infested (and poorly Photoshopped) Saturnine moon from Beetlejuice.

Remember back in 2006-07, when tierra caliente music briefly became a thing? Like duranguense, tierra caliente had synths playing banda parts, only with less frenetic tambora NRG. The band Tierra Cali, hailed by Billboard‘s Leila Cobo as standing “at the helm of this new wave,” recently released the very twee Enamorado de Ti (Los Creadores del Sacadito)(Ciudad). As you see from the album’s subtitle, at some point in their career Tierra Cali created a dance step, the Sacadito. I haven’t figured out the dance yet, but this live video, featuring the band looking and sounding markedly less twee, might help.

In singles, Nancy Hernandez, “La Dama Brava,” has a likable/annoying little song called “Mi Nuevo Cellular” (Starss). Basically it’s a single melodic phrase repeated over — and over — two chords and a ringing phone, but tuba and accordion are busy and Hernandez has the beginnings of a musical personality.

More accomplished but also more generic are Banda Pequeños Vendaval’s “Quiero Que Te Largues!” (Mayra) and Luis Vega’s “La Chica Nice” (Pegasus), two cheerful banda tunes. Vega’s better and faster, so if your clicks are limited click on his.

March 3, 2015 2

¡Nuevo! (starring Colmillo Norteño, Cuarteto Imperial, y más)

NorteñoBlog has been in the tank for Remex Records since hearing La Trakalosa’s “Mi Padrino El Diablo” on the radio. The song co-opted the Faust myth with more diabolical vigor than any of the surrounding songs could manage — any, that is, except those by other Remex bands, like Banda Tierra Sagrada and Marco Flores’s #1 Banda Jerez. Sometimes these bands falter: Tierra Sagrada’s “Soy Un Desmadre” is a great single, but most of their forgettable 2014 album was a disappointment. Overall, though, the Remex crew are a lively bunch who appear on one another’s tunes and seem perpetually on the verge of cracking up.

This week on Remex, the tuba quintet Colmillo Norteño releases their 10-song A Quien Corresponda, which features their own take on “Mi Padrino El Diablo,” along with the rapid-fire circus parade (and Pick to Click) “La Plebona” and some other good or promising stuff. Colmillo have been around for several years, their album covers growing shinier and less rural over time, and I dig their sousaphone “O.” They also appeared on Tierra Sagrada’s smash “El Bueno y El Malo,” which at last count had garnered ONE TRILLION YOUTUBE VIEWS.

Also on Remex, Trakalosa’s new single “La Revancha” may be good for practicing your cusswords, or at least your three-against-two subdivisions. Wouldn’t hurt you to click on that one, either.

Another single, by the duranguense goddess Diana Reyes, is not as good. She sings her self-released banda ballad “La Mesa Puesta” well, but the song itself lies flat.

Speaking of duranguense, El Trono de México has a new best-of, Los Más Grandes (Skalona), which kicks off with a song entitled “Se Fue” that is NOT the Diana Reyes song “Se Fue.”

La Original Banda El Limón drops Medio Siglo (Luz/Disa), from whence comes their Mexican top 10 ballad “Mayor de Edad.” Like their clademates in Arrolladora, Original reliably churns out two or three radio hits a year, and “Mayor” has begun its slow climb to mayority in El Norte.

In the world of cumbia albums that may or may not be compilations, but that are definitely pro-fishing, Cuarteto Imperial celebrates El Pescador (Utopia). I should caution that Cuarteto Imperial is South American, not Mexican: this busy album cover boasts “De Colombia a la Argentina ye de Argentina para el mundo!” World conquest may take them a while; when I went to watch the video for “El Alegre Pescador,” it had zero views. Now it has one. This is a great injustice you should help remedy, because “Alegre” is a lot of fun, heavy on synth and piano, and not the official Click to Pick only because I can’t tell if it’s new. Cuarteto Imperial also posted the rest of this album on Youtube. Go make some fishermen happy.

The late man-myth-legend Antonio Aguilar has a new compilation, Antonio Aguilar Eterno (Seamusic). Aguilar recorded 150 albums of ranchera music and acted in a bunch of movies. Billboard sez, “Much of his repertoire consisted of “Corridos,” the sung stories so beloved in Mexican music. He turned several “corridos,” into classics, including “Gabino Barrera,” “Caballo Prieto Azabache” and “Albur de Amor.””

I like the cover of this Ramon Ayala reissue:

February 24, 2015 1

¡Nuevo! (starring Proyecto X, Los Yes Yes, y más)

Proyecto X is a jaunty if not very memorable quintet, this week releasing their second album Con Más Pawer (Fonovisa). It’s the sequel to their 2013 debut, entitled — no points for guessing — Con Pawer. Of their ballads, “My Baby” is bilingual and “Eres Tú” is the hit. Their fiendishly short “Gallo de 5 Segundos” is worth hearing, but really, these guys don’t come anywhere close to wildin’.

Neither does Va Por Ti finalist Fernando Corona, this week releasing his self-titled debut album on Warner Latina, but at least he’s got a distinctive voice. Elegant and barely country, he looks and sounds like a cowboy Glenn Medeiros who’d sweep you off your feet in the nightclub — or possibly in one of the Southern Wal-Marts where he’s currently making personal appearances. Even with tuba basslines, Corona’s about as exciting as his namesake beer. Lead single is the watery “Llueve En Mi Cama,” which Corona says “tiene un poco de doble sentido.” You laugh, but at least he’s subtler than Chris Brown doing “Wet the Bed.” (You know who else was subtler than Chris Brown doing “Wet the Bed”? HITLER.)

As we saw last week, the Goma label is inundated with chipper saxophone bands. Flooded with ’em. Much like the Petri dish of Fernando Corona’s cama, which can pretty much spawn new life on its own at this point, Goma is so awash in sax bands they can call it a movement — el “Movimiento SAX” — and Los Chacales de Pepe Tovar are making it rain with “Todo Paso.” Since it’s a slow week, “Todo Paso” could be the Pick to Click, but only if you have a high tolerance for chipper sax bands.

BXS (Bryndis X Siempre) is a Dallas Tejano band, apparently unrelated to California’s long-running Grupo Bryndis, though both are family acts. BXS releases Todo Cambia on the indie label Azteca, and its lead single “Amar, Sabiendo Perdonar” isn’t unlistenable.

And finally, we come to Tus Favoritos de Los Yes Yes (Loud68music), a retrospective of easy listening cumbias from the co-ed combo Los Yes Yes. “El Verde De Tus Ojos” is the first of tus favoritos, but it’s not even my favorite song about ojos verdes — that’d be Julión Álvarez’s. Los Yes Yes has several Facebook pages, one of which is very special, pero no seguro para trabajar. Let’s just say, Los Yes Yes appears to know a thing or two about llueve en tu cama.

February 17, 2015 0

¡Nuevo! (starring Retoños del Rio, LOS! BuiTRES!, y más)

¡Bienvenidos a la nueva semana musical! It’s really slow! So slow that the highest profile albums overall, judging by Spotify’s home page, are the 50 Shades soundtrack — which, who knows, maybe it’s really good — and Ricky Martin’s new one. I’ve lost track of Martin since 2011, when his album Musica Alma Sexo was a sorry disaster. Checking my notes from that year, Martin’s album was slightly worse than a spottily recorded live reissue by Emerson Lake & Palmer, but somewhat better than contemporary work by The Aquabats! and Triumph Of Lethargy Skinned Alive To Death. (The latter sums up my feelings after hearing Keith Emerson play a keyboard solo.)

This week’s pick to click is the latest single by Retoños del Rio, “Por Que La Engañe” (Goma). It’s got an Intocablish country bounce, busy fills, and a jagged riff played by both accordion and saxophone. Retoños hail from the central state of Zacatecas, where the “puro Zacatecas sax” is a thing.

In fact, Goma would also like you to enjoy some puro Zacatecas sax from a different band, Capitanes de Ojinaga. Their “Cuando Quieras Llorar” could be Conjunto Primavera if you don’t play attention too closely, right down to the sax and the opulent ring in the singer’s voice. (Primavera’s from Chihuahua, where they enjoy some puro Chihuahua sax. Musicological comparison is forthcoming.)

The fellows in La Fe Norteña are not on Goma, but they are still puro Zacatecas sax and they claim they are “Adicto a Usted,” you poor thing. La Fe have a disease and you shouldn’t enable it.

“Indeleble,” the latest banda ballad by Banda Los Sebastianes, is anything but.

(Part way into this new Ricky Martin, it’s at least listenable if not indeleble. He croons, he croons.)

This week’s highest profile album is from LOS! BuiTRES! de Culiacán Sinaloa, their second volume of… well, I’ll let you intuit from the title, Tributo al Mas Grande Chalino Sanchez, Vol. 2 (Music VIP Entertainment). Chalino, of course, was the second act to break narcocorridos inside El Norte. Following in the paw prints of Los Tigres, he was altogether less respectable, both in his subject matter and in his we’ll say casual approach to traditional standards of musical quality. But he was a real man of the people, the people having paid him cash to set their stories to music, which he then sold on cassettes at swap meets. Quite the motherfucker, Chalino. His heirs LOS! BuiTRES! have displayed a similarly slapdash approach to their music, but they’re super productive and occasionally produce work of startling ambition and/or catchiness. So far this Tributo hasn’t startled me, but it does have me wondering what Jorge Cazares accomplished. Pura raza.

And finally, two reissues I’m including here because I like their covers: a self-titled album from Los Intocables Del Norte (RCA), who are not Intocable;

and Juan Montoya’s apparently explicit Mi Ultimo Refugio (Platonia), which has some electric guitar to go with its corrido bounce.

February 10, 2015 4

¡Nuevo! (starring Arrolladora, Incomparables, y Juanes)

Since Juanes is a Colombian guitar hero, he’s not exactly NorteñoBlog material, but today I’ll make an exception. After all, Loco De Amor was one of 2014’s best albums, a career high for the singer-songwriter, and now I see he’ll be singing his new song “Juntos” at this Sunday’s Grammys — y él estará cantando EN ESPAñOL! Besides his countrywoman Shakira, who’s busy nesting with a new baby, there are few Latino superstars better poised for such a breakthrough. Juanes has already played an all-Spanish concert on The Today Show, and his music is straightforward pop/rock with just enough touches of tropical rhythm and instrumentation to set him apart from, say, Sting. Unfortunately (you knew this was coming):

1. “Juntos” sucks. It’s toothless ska that would have been the eighth-best song, at most, on Loco De Amor.

2. It’s from the soundtrack to a terrible looking Disney movie where Kevin Costner plays the fish-out-of-water white hero to a Latino cross-country team, much like that movie where Jon Hamm recruits Indians to play… baseball, was it? I don’t feel like researching these movies, partly because the “Juntos” video contains a money shot of Costner staring skeptically at someone’s backyard rooster. Get it? OK, yes, roosters are naturally hilarious, but owning them isn’t. They and their harem provide eggs, companionship, and valuable childhood lessons about death. I’m pretty sure my (gringo) Mom had chickens growing up in central Missouri, and I know several (mostly gringo) Chicago suburbs have been lobbying for chicken-friendly zoning laws. Backyard chickens and roosters just make sense. If you’re gonna stereotype a whole group of people, at least get your signifiers right! This movie seems calculated to please the same people who’d enjoy that ridiculous McDonald’s commercial that currently precedes the “Juntos” video, the one where they encourage you to dance for your food. It’s not overstatement to say that McDonald’s, Disney, Kevin Costner, “Juntos,” and Juanes are complicit in hastening the end of civilization.

Um, watch the Grammys! Big moment for Juanes. For all of us.

Speaking of civilization in demise, La Arrolladora Banda El Limón drop a new album called Ojos En Blanco (Disa) this week. Its terrible lead single “Lo Hiciste Otra Vez” has already gone top 10 in both México and El Norte. (The song was written by newcomer Tláloc Noriega, who also landed the more swingin’ “Disculpa Corazón” with La Poderosa Banda San Juan.) Alert listeners and readers will remember these guys aren’t always terrible, especially when they sing Espinoza Paz songs: “Cabecita Dura” was a jam and “El Ruido de Tus Zapatos” led to a heightened state of awareness at least once.

In corridos, Los Incomparables de Tijuana released their 18th-or-so album Caro Quintero Soy (Sony), with a lead single of the same name, sung here in spellbinding duet with another band, Los Nuevos Rebeldes. (PICK TO CLICK!) Come for the big bushy beard; stay for the part in the middle where they put down their instruments and shout out their respective bands.

The Gerencia 360 label just put out a two-volume sampler called Evolution 360, featuring acts I know and love and included on 2014 year-end lists, including Noel Torres, Adriel Favela, and Martin Castillo. They also handle Helen Ochoa, pretty boy Jonatan Sánchez, Grupo Escolta, and a bachata dude named Yenddi, whose album The First Chapter drops this week.

And what would norteño music be without redundant and excessive exits compilations? Sony and Disa are flooding the market this week, with comps by Vicki Carr, Cornelio Reyna, Conjunto Primavera, Calibre 50, Recoditos (that one might be a lot of fun) — I won’t list ’em all, but they’re out there, cluttering up a discoteca near you.

February 3, 2015 1

¡Nuevo! (starring Marco Flores, El Komander, y mucho más …)

We’ve admired before the vitality of Marco Flores‘s dance moves and his voice, a gallo-rific crow that cuts through anything in its path. (Don’t confuse him with the Marco Flores who sort of sounds like Seal.) This week with his #1 Banda Jerez, Flores releases Soy El Bueno (Remex) in the U.S. Through 10 songs, the band’s energy never lapses. Three of the album’s songs have already charted in either Mexico or El Norte: “Soy Un Desmadre,” a duet with Banda Tierra Sagrada, also appears on their latest album; the title song won’t leave my head; and Espinoza Paz’s “El Pajarito” comes in versions both “sin censura” and, presumably, censura. Flores and Banda Jerez have been around since 2005 or so; in a Billboard from that time, Leila Cobo wrote:

With songs that bear such names as “La Cabrona” (think of a word that rhymes with witch), the 13-man troupe from Jerez, Mexico, seeks to preserve the sound of traditional banda music, yet tell it like it is.
“Our lyrics are about what’s happening and about what people talk about every day,” bandleader Marco Antonio Flores Sanchez says. “It’s what you hear in the streets. That’s the language people speak, which unfortunately, isn’t what you hear on the radio.”
Not at all. Given its naughty title, “La Cabrona” was an underground hit with limited airplay, both here and in Mexico.
Now, the band’s new single, “Billete Verde,” from the July 19 album by the same name, is also set to cause a stir of a different kind.
The track, whose title is a direct reference to dollars (“The Green Bill” is the translation), talks about those who leave Mexico for work, leaving families behind.
“And while they’re over there working, their wives are here getting all dolled up and going out,” Flores says wryly.
The story, Flores says, is one played and replayed every day in his neck of the woods. And that, he adds, is what Banda Jérez is all about. The group, which has several members still in their teens, wanted to return to the essence of banda, distancing itself from the more pop-leaning sound that several groups have now adopted.

One such pop-leaning group is Arrolladora, whose members play instruments built entirely of rose petals. One of their singers went rogue in 2008, and this week, Germán Montero releases Regresa (Sony), featuring the single “La Historia de un Ranchero.” Montero sounds like an old-school ranchera guy, even if he dresses like he gets all his mustangs from Ford. Maybe that’s why he broke with his more genteel colleagues.

Saul “El Jaguar” Alarcón’s Mi Estilo de Vida (Fonovisa) has already spawned one hit, “El Estilo Mafia,” featuring the nomenclaturally gifted La Bandononona Clave Nueva de Max Peraza. The next single is a ballad, “Que Te Quede Claro,” with the requisite backbeat built out of horns. El Jaguar has one of the better logos in the biz (see above).

For their 20th aniversario, Intocable goes double live (!!!) with XX (Fonovisa). THIS is now the highest profile regional Mexican release of 2015 so far, simply because most hardcore music fans know that a band called Intocable exists. Like, it comes up on the first screen of Spotify new releases. Doesn’t look like it contains their shoulda-crossed-over smash “Te Amo (Para Siempre),” but it did occasion Cobo to interview the band’s founder, Ricky Muñoz, which in turn led to this useful bit of taxonomy:

Cobo: Tejano music, as you’ve pointed out, was huge not only in Texas but all over the country at the time. But you weren’t playing Tejano, were you?

Muñoz: Tejano music was a bunch of keyboards. We were a band from Texas playing accordion music. Our first records were labeled “Tejano,” but our music is more traditional Mexicano.

Traditional Mexicanos Grupo Exterminador return with the ominously titled Es Tiempo de Exterminador (Independent). But these guys have lighter hearts than their name and scowls let on; imagine the Raid bottle with a smiley-skull logo. In a 2011 Spin magazine, Chuck Eddy wrote:

When the tempos pick up, this norteño novelty act is a hoot: Exterminador’s hookiest hits apparently concern a deer (“El Venao”) and a shark (“El Tiburon”), and the former’s video demonstrated an antler dance to match. There’s also an interpretation of “Wiggle It,” 2 in a Room’s 1990 hip-house hit, complete with hamboning accordions and call-andresponse kids.

We’ll see whether Tiempo produces anything so entertaining, but the video for romantic ballad “Como Una Bala” is set at a lovely waterfront locale and everyone seems in good spirits, even (especially?) when they’re rejecting the singer’s advances.

In cumbia releases that may or may not be compilations, we have Gerardo Morán’s El Más Querido (Meta/ Music Service). OK, Morán is from Ecuador, as is D’Franklin Band, in whose videos he appears. But what is cumbia if not a spirited rebuff to international boundaries? Both those D’Franklin Band songs appear on Querido without apparent “featuring” credits, so I am officially Confused, but listening to them has also renewed my zeal for life. Go figure.

Other albums:
Banda La Mentira – 20 Cumbias… Reventon Lagunero (Discos Cristal)
Luis y Julian – 16 Exitos De… Vol. 1-3 (Discos Roble)
Javier Solís – He Sabido Que Te Amaba (RHI)
Grupo Miramar – Fundadores de un Estilo Unico (Music Art Productions Inc.)
And the vault scrapers at AJR Discos/Select-O-Hits have released a whole bunch of hits compilations for some nth-tier acts, including Los Invasores de Nuevo Leon and Chayito Valdéz.

Singles!

Espinoza Paz goes mariachi and (I’m guessing) muy censura with “Perdí La Pose” (Anval/Don Corazound). His writing career may be solid, but the solo career seems adrift.

Adrift is one thing, ramshackle is something else. I could listen to Alfredo Rios El Komander play his loosey goose corridos all day, and “Detras Del Miedo” (Twiins) won’t break the streak.

Possibly from an upcoming album, Calibre 50’s “Aunque Ahora Estes Con El” (Disa) returns them to the wilderness of thin and uninspiring ballads.

And finally, two indie bands with saxophones are competent but not much else:
Pokar – “Sí Me Tenias” (?)
Conjunto Conste – “Como Le Digo” (??)

January 28, 2015 3

¡Nuevo! (starring Trakalosa and Alfredo Olivas)

We’ll start with esta semana’s pick to click, and it’s a weeper. It turns out Edwin Luna, lead singer of La Trakalosa de Monterrey, is very convincing portraying un “Adicto a la Tristeza.” It helps that his voice chimes like a throaty bell. Luna’s labelmate and guest singer, Pancho Uresti from Banda Tierra Sagrada, is somewhat less convincing because his voice is scratchy. When the woman in the video spurns his advances, he’ll feel nothing and should be able to pick up pretty easily with someone else. I myself am addicted to the urgency of their chorus melody, and a quarter-million Youtube viewers in the past two days seem to agree.

Other newish singles include Hijos de Barrón’s “Mis Quimeras” (LNG/Hyphy), featuring cool bass work and a syncopated groove;

“Así Es el Juego,” an underwhelming cover of Colmillo Norteño‘s profane kiss-off (in a couple senses), by Luis y Julián Jr. ft. Naty Chávez. It’s available in both obscene and family-friendly versions!;

and I’m not sure if this counts, but Graciela Beltrán throws herself into a new ballad, “Qué Tal Se Siente,” and it’s good to hear her voice.

The big new album this week is Alfredo Olivas’s El Privilegio (Sahuaro/Sony), which originally seemed to have come out late last year but maybe it was leaked. Olivas is an alumnus of several labels, including Fonovisa and the aforementioned Hyphy, here making his Sony debut. He’s also written songs for big names, so maybe Sony sees in his boyish grin the next Gerardo Ortiz?

The quintet Los Ramones de Nuevo Leon’s Con La Rienda Suelta (Grupo RMS) exists, as does a new retrospective from hyphy floggers (and Hyphy alums) Los Amos de Nuevo Leon, 20 Éxitos (Mar).

And I’m confused about Hyphy alums Los Rodriguez de Sinaloa — didn’t they just put out an album? Well, there’s another one out there called Entre El Rancho y La Ciudad (Independent), which so far seems more energetic than Sr. Olivas’s album.

What’s that? — you’re worried Hyphy music is under represented? — very well, the trio Los Kompitaz released 12 Corridos y Canciones at the end of 2014.

Accordionist, singer, businessman, and crier of single tears Fidel Rueda releases Música del Pueblo on his own Rueda label. His latest single “No Te Vayas” has stuttering accordion and horn lines that sound like they’re fighting to squeeze through his tear ducts.

Feeling romantic and/or cash-starved, Fonovisa has released it’s annual Bandas Románticas de América comp, which last year sucked. As companion pieces, they’ve compiled 20 Kilates Románticos for a bunch of groups, including Recodo, Primavera, Bryndis, Bukis — you know, groups who have never been compiled before.

January 21, 2015 3

¡Nuevo! (ft. Patrulla 81, Rosendo Robles)

Two tiny and somewhat exciting finds this week:

The first, Patrulla 81’s A Tamborazo, aka Puro Tamborazo Duranguense No Chin%$^@%$…, is unrepentant duranguense with a couple ballads thrown in — because when you’re dancing like you’ve got chewing gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe, sometimes you need to take a break. A decade ago, when duranguense was surging and plagues of scorpions stalked Chicago’s streets, I didn’t much keep up with Patrulla. Like genre leaders Grupo Montéz, they always seemed polite and overthought, without the cool synth tuba lines and tambora blasts of their peers in Alacranes Musical. I’m not sure what’s happened to them, but they sound leaner and tougher now, with fewer cheesy synth leads, more assertive vocals, and lots of tambora. Truth in advertising! This probably means my memory’s lousy and I should revisit their older stuff. A Tamborazo came out December 17 on the BMC label, which doesn’t seem to be the same BMC Records that operates a website.

Even better is a self-released single by Rosendo Robles, “Alterado de Corazon,” a banda waltz of furious excitement and possibly sharp brass sections. Possibly tuned sharp, I should say, although the jagged horn rhythms certainly feel like whirling blades of death, the kind of things you’d contort your shoulders trying to avoid in the upper reaches of a video game. Robles is a graduate of the TV talent show Tengo Talento, Mucho Talento (TTMT), and since he apparently burns with white hot charisma I’m not sure why he’s releasing his own music, except Brave New Music Economy etc.
VALE LA PENA

Also out recently:

Juan Gabriel – Mis 40 En Bellas Artes Partes 1 & 2 (Fonovisa)

Various – Lo Mejor de lo Mejor 2014 (Sony), a general “Latin” compilation of interest for its Gerardo Ortiz tokenism — he’s the only regional Mexican performer included, further moving into that Jenni Rivera role. (They’ve both judged on TTMT, too.)

Los Cadetes De Linares & Los Invasores De Nuevo Leon – Mano a Mano (BMC), one of those split CDs that appear frequently in this genre, here confirming that the BMC label does actually exist.

Los Inquietos Del Norte – “No Dudes De Mi”, lachrymose violin balladry from a band that can be much more hyphy, even if they refuse the term. (There’ll be a hyphy thinkpiece up here soon, promise.)

January 15, 2015 1

It’s the first week of the year and pickings are slimmer than the mota supply in Wisconsin. El Komander’s up to a million views of his tossed-off kiss-off “Malditas Ganas” (Twiins), his sprechtstimme loose as he casually mentions “Soy De Rancho,” reminding the woman he can’t forget that nobody can forget him these days either. (At least I think that’s what’s going on.)

At the other end of the chart count spectrum, Los Elegantes de la Banda have broken 100 views with “El Corrido del Jr.” (self-released), a solid three verse banda corrido about (I’m guessing) someone whose Dad doesn’t pay much income tax. The tuba player adroitly executes a triplet line against the horn tutti; a pity the arranger made everyone execute that part the exact same way over and over.

MultiMusic has recently released two albums that I record here for future reference: a self-titled album by Carlos Y José, and a three-disc retrospective, Súper Flamazos, by the corrido group Los Flamers. Both acts have catalogs a mile long, but only Los Flamers have three different albums called Súper Flamazos.

And then there’s Fonovisa, summing up last year with four albums of #1’s 2014: one each for corridos, norteño, banda, and Latin, the last of which doesn’t really concern us except insofar as it contains a song written by Horacio Palencia. (Also Iggy Azalea’s “Problem” with guest star J. Balvin, Juanes’s fine “La Luz,” and everybody’s “Bailando.” It’s Billboard’s favorite Latin song of the year! Puzzling!) Palencia’s all over the banda disc, too, with four songs to his credit — more than even our friend Luciano Luna — including “Aqui Estoy Yo,” which Palencia sings. (And not very well!) The best of his lot is probably Banda Rancho Viejo’s “Una Entre Un Millón” from their 2013 album of the same name. The corridos disc, containing three of Calibre 50’s speedier efforts, looks like a keeper.

January 6, 2015 2