NorteñoBlog

¡Nuevo-ish! (doing DEL Records due diligence)

los amos del terror

When we last met the rambunctious corrido quintet Grupo Fernández last June, NorteñoBlog was praising their Regulo Caro and Ariel Camacho feature “La Fuga Del Dorian,” a real barnburner of a corrido. In fact the charisma of the two stars overshadowed Los Fernández themselves, kind of like Nicki and Weezy guesting on a Tyga song, or Jagger and Hendrix sitting in with a slaphappy but faceless British garage band. The band’s runaway rhythm section regularly achieves that sublime rolling feel you find in many of the best new corrido bands, but it’s hard to buy lead singer Elton Aispuro unless he’s singing high and fast. When they attempt a slow song like Camacho’s “Te Metiste,” rhythm and singer sound like they’re wearing lead boots. Unfortunately their new album Las Pacas (DEL) has too many slow ones — actually, too many songs period. 17! Who do these guys think they are, Revolver Cannabis? But they still know how to burn down the barn — witness this week’s Pick to Click “El Pariente De La O,” featuring the high, Keith Richards-worthy backing vocals of bajo sexto player Juan García:

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January 26, 2016 3

Archivos de 2004 (starring Grupo Climax, Alicia Villarreal, y más)

Grupo_Climax

Sometimes when you’re feeling whimsical/bored/done with dishes, you just decide to research the chart statistics of Grupo Climax. Or I do — I may be atypical. One thing leads to another, za za za, and so here are Billboard‘s top 10 Regional Mexican airplay songs from July 17, 2004, the week Climax’s only notable hit enjoyed its highest chart placement. Hot Latin chart placement is in parentheses.

Note that in 2004, the Hot Latin charts were still strictly based on airplay: “A panel of 99 stations (40 Latin Pop, 16 Tropical, 51 Regional Mexican) are electronically monitored 24 hrs. a day, 7 days a week.” (Today they also incorporate sales and streams, but there remain breakout charts like Regional Mexican that measure only airplay.) This accounting method placed five RegMex songs inside the Hot Latin top 10, a percentage we never see today; but it also meant the Hot Latin top 25 contained 10 regional Mexican songs, pretty typical by today’s standards.

1. “Qué de Raro Tiene” – Los Temerarios (#2 Hot Latin)
Trembly-eyebrowed synth-pop grupero brothers go nostalgic with an album of ranchera covers, including this Vicente Fernández cover that would top the Hot Latin chart. Gustavo Angel unleashes his throat and sounds right at home in this style. (Be sure to check out their AllMusic bio for a fascinating look at how the brothers started their own label and challenged Fonovisa, only to eventually be swallowed by the giant.)

2. “Dos Locos” – Los Horóscopos de Durango (#5 Hot Latin)
“The Durango Gang Busts Out of Chicago,” read the Billboard headline on June 12, shortly after this song had topped the Regional Mexican chart. Los Horóscopos had been a working banda for 30 years before their enterprising leader Armando Terrazas decided to put his daughters, the multi-instrumentalists Vicky and Marisol, up front. This sad polka cover of Monchy & Alexandra was cut from the same bachata cloth as their cover of Aventura’s “Obsesion,” and it hits one of duranguense’s sweet spots — floaty heartache over nonstop oompahs. (The other sweet spot is clattery barely-constrained synth-tuba chaos, but that didn’t chart as much.) Continue reading “Archivos de 2004 (starring Grupo Climax, Alicia Villarreal, y más)” →

January 22, 2016 4

Who’s On the Mexican Radio? 1/19/16

iniciativa

Thanks to an extremely geeky background playing in concert bands, where mixed meters and overlapping rhythms kept my mind off the pain of my sputtering lips, NorteñoBlog will always dig bands doing proggy rhythm stuff in non-prog settings. This week’s 15th most played norteño/banda song on Mexican radio comes from the young tuba quintet La Iniciativa de Angostura Sinaloa, or simply “La Iniciativa” to their madres. “El Loquito del Rancho” (PCol) is a quick waltz, but singer Ariel Inzunza’s inventive melody throws in all these quintuplets, giving the first half of each line a crowded five-against-three feel. (You can play along at home! Tap your chest “ONE two three/ ONE two three” over and over again, and then start saying “onetwothreefourfive/ ONE two” so that the “one”s in your voice line up with the “one”s in your tapping. Got that? Now balance a ball on your nose!) Add to that a great chorus hook and a tubist (Rigoberto Cruz) who keeps messing with everyone, plus some hot accordion work from leader and co-singer Martín López, and you’ve got yourself a Pick to Click.

López is a triple threat who used to play tuba in Calibre 50; he and drummer Agusto Guido left that superstar band about two years ago to form La Iniciativa and possibly the PCol label, which seems to promote no other acts. NorteñoBlog slept on their 2015 album Ya Estás Olvidada. Among other things, it includes a beefed-up cover of the late Ariel Camacho’s “Hablemos” that doesn’t cut the original, but does demonstrate that they are caballeros of good taste. Continue reading “Who’s On the Mexican Radio? 1/19/16” →

January 20, 2016 5

¡Nuevo! (starring Banda La Contagiosa, Beatriz Adriana, y más)

contagiosa hernandez

Banda Los Recoditos has made a career of wild party songs fueled by alcohol and sex. We should all be so lucky. Now the Remex label has gotten in on the act with a new-ish band of merrymakers, Banda La Contagiosa, whose album La Fiesta Perfecta rang in el año nuevo. Founded in 2012, their Facebook page describes them as “Banda 100% sinaloense de musicos experimentados,” but I don’t hear the experimentation. They make everything go down so easy. The title singleis pleasantly quick, as is the duet with ex-Tigre del Norte and current mustache consultant Raúl Hernández. There’s also a cover of Codigo FN’s(and Recodo’s, and MS’s, and Ariel Camacho’s…) “Me Gustas Mucho,” and the whole thing ends with a token big dumb cumbia. “Efectos de Alcohol” — the main effect is that Banda La Contagiosa gets laid — is this week’s Pick to Click on the strength of some dramatic octave leaps in the chorus and a video that celebrates the visual glory of creation. Like most hangovers, este album es VALE LA PENA.

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January 18, 2016 0

Desfile de Éxitos 1/23/16

While NorteñoBlog was away from the charts over Christmas, something unexpected happened. The listening public, perhaps because they were feeling unusually decent, STOPPED LISTENING TO “PROPUESTA INDECENTE.” Or at least they listened to it less. And because King Romeo’s ballad had spent more than one year on the Hot Latin chart, and because it had lately dropped to #5, and because Billboard writes you off the Hot Latin chart after a year if you drop below #5 — OUR LONG NATIONAL INDECENCY IS OVER!!!!! “Propuesta Indecente” ended its record 125-week chart run the week of January 2. We extend a hearty congratulations to King Romeo and all those who have swooned in his name.

(Alternate lead: “Propuesta Indecente” was destroyed January 2 when a small band of resistance fighters blew up its thermal oscillator, destabilizing the star-killing juggernaut and exiling King Romeo to his recording studio. In a prepared statement the King said, “Don’t worry, I’ll build another one,” and then chuckled with craven glee.)

Maybe coincidentally, the week of January 2 saw an enormous number of Regional Mexican songs climbing the Hot Latin chart: 14 out of the top 25, to be exact. (Usually the top 25 contains around 10 or 11.) Since that week the number has dropped to 13, many of which are holdovers from last year, but there are a few interesting things happening. Continue reading “Desfile de Éxitos 1/23/16” →

January 13, 2016 1

El Corrido del Chapo y Sean Penn

Sean Penn interviewed El Chapo. Or so NorteñoBlog has been told. I haven’t actually made it to the part of the article where Penn talks to Chapo, because I’m still wading through Penn’s introduction, which spends 2,300 words just getting out of New York City and uses most of those words to probe the anguished psyche of its narrator. It’s like The Monster at the End of This Book, only with less editing and more penises. (See below.)

Here are some of the items on Sean Penn’s mind: Sean Penn’s inability to use a laptop or a smart phone; an unspecified period in history “when walls were walls”; El Chapo’s history as a prison escape artist (OK, this inclusion makes sense); the failed history of the drug war (this also makes sense, but maybe he could have summarized it in a couple sentences?); the whole storied history of how Sean Penn landed this interview, which I am assured actually exists; Sean Penn’s limited knowledge of Spanish; and the passage no self-respecting blog can resist quoting, the passage that should grace Sean Penn’s tombstone or at least his Pulitzer, the passage that will howl in my ear the next time I’m writing something for money:

I throw my satchel into the open back of one of the SUVs, and lumber over to the tree line to take a piss. Dick in hand, I do consider it among my body parts vulnerable to the knives of irrational narco types, and take a fond last look, before tucking it back into my pants.

I mean, there’s at least two unnecessary commas in there! Continue reading “El Corrido del Chapo y Sean Penn” →

January 12, 2016 0

100 Regional Mexican Compilations Released in 2015

The hyper-abundant compilation album is one of the more bewildering aspects of the Regional Mexican music industry. There are a LOT of them — witness this Allmusic list of more than 50 Conjunto Primavera comps since 1995, released on eight different record labels. Lately some music-writer friends and acquaintances have observed a dearth of compilation albums in recent years, given listeners’ ability to cherrypick their own songs on streaming sites. NorteñoBlog does not dispute this observation; I’ll only add that the compilation market in Regional Mexican is still going strong. This year saw four new Primavera comps, on two different labels. Who’s buying these things? Don’t they already own all these songs?

Without answering these questions, NorteñoBlog presents this list of 100 single- (or, in the case of Sony’s Frente a Frente series, double-) artist comps released on CD in 2015. It doesn’t include multi-artist comps like Fonovisa’s annual Radio Éxitos: Discos Del Año series. This list is incomplete; I’m pretty sure I could find more by scouring the catalogs of indie labels Select-O-Hits and D&O.

Some items of interest: Continue reading “100 Regional Mexican Compilations Released in 2015” →

January 5, 2016 4

¡Pisteando! (starring El Komander, Chuy Zuñiga, y más)

Forever seeking new ways to ring in the new year, NorteñoBlog first tried watching Chi-Town Rising, Chicago’s inaugural attempt to steal some of New York City’s televised thunder by running a glowing electronic star up the side of the Hyatt Regency. Unfortunately, NBC’s TV coverage was marred by the presence of congenial twit Mario Lopez and new Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Chicago (the horn-rock band) trying to rouse the crowd from their drunken stupor with a poorly mixed performance of “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” (Considering Chi-Town Rising was 30 seconds late with their countdown, I’m gonna say “no.”) Thoroughly depressed, I switched to ABC, only to discover it had been commandeered by hometown scourge The Vampire Strangler:

But in the depths of my despair, a Buchanan’s-soaked hand reached down and encased mine in its sticky grip. Turns out El Komander understands the doldrums afforded by the flipping of the Gregorian calendar, so he released the stopgap album Pisteadera, Vol. 1 (Twiins) on December 30, right when his fans most needed to get pisteando. Continue reading “¡Pisteando! (starring El Komander, Chuy Zuñiga, y más)” →

January 4, 2016 4

¡Feliz 2016! (y ¡Lo Mejor de 2015!)

Regional Mexican music had as good a year in 2015 as any other style of popular music, but you wouldn’t know it from any music magazine’s year-end coverage. This Mexican-American radio format is only one small musical laboratory within the vast complex of U.S. pop; but figured by their percentages, norteño, banda, cumbia, and Tejano bands released as many great, vibrant singles and albums as their peers in other popular music subgenres. Yet good luck finding this music on year-end lists. Even at Billboard, which provides the best English-language coverage of Mexican music, the list of Top 10 Latin Albums contains only one (very good) regional Mexican album, which came out in 2014. None of the magazine’s Top 10 Latin Songs represent Mexican regional styles. (Shoutout to the New York Times’ Ben Ratliff, though, for getting Remmy Valenzuela’s “¿Por Qué Me Ilusionaste?” into the paper of record.) And never mind year-end coverage — this fun, fascinating music rarely gets covered throughout the year in mainstream publications, although NPR and Annie Correal in the Times are notable exceptions. As is The Singles Jukebox, where Josh writes and where the editors and writers share an expansive definition of “pop.”

This is pop music, dammit! MILLIONS OF AMERICANS LISTEN TO IT.

(An appropriate YouTube playlist to accompany that claim.) Continue reading “¡Feliz 2016! (y ¡Lo Mejor de 2015!)” →

January 2, 2016 0