Los Plebes Del Rancho

Desfile de Éxitos 4/9/16

los titanes

NorteñoBlog returned from Easter break to a special treat — and no, I’m not talking about the controversial, NSPT “Fuiste Mia” video where Gerardo Ortiz catches his mujer with another dude, shoots the dude, helps said mujer into the trunk of his car, and then lights the car on fire. If you’re thinking, “That sounds like a 15-year-old Eminem song” — you’re right! It’s basically the plot of “Kim” (and, to a lesser extent, “Stan”), only none of that drama actually occurs in the lyrics of “Fuiste Mia,” itself an anodyne but pretty obsession anthem. This video raises complex moral questions. Is depicting femicide in a music video more arbitrary, and therefore less defensible, than depicting the same crime in song? Is the “Fuiste Mia” video less hypocritical, and therefore more defensible, than that Séptima video where the singer sells his cheating mujer into slavery, only to end with a Muy Especial message against “la trata de blancas”? NorteñoBlog will consult with our team of ethicists and get back to you approximately, oh, never.

You see, I’m too excited about this other treat: Billboard has expanded its website’s Hot Latin Songs chart from 25 songs to 50 songs! (I’m pretty sure it’s always 50 songs long in the magazine.) It’s too soon to tell whether this is a one-week oversight, a permanent change, or a joyful seasonal rite meant to commemorate the 50 days of Eastertide feasting. One thing I can tell: you’re not as excited as I am. Here’s why you should be.

1. More songs! Continue reading “Desfile de Éxitos 4/9/16” →

April 4, 2016 3

Desfile de Éxitos 3/26/16

intocable

As NorteñoBlog mentioned last time, Sierreño fever is currently spreading across the land like walkingdead-itis. This is largely thanks to the late Ariel Camacho, whose namesake guitar-tuba trio Los Plebes Del Rancho de Ariel Camacho just debuted at #1 on Billboard‘s Latin Albums chart with their first album since Camacho died a year ago. This fever has also led to a possibly unprecedented scenario on the Hot Latin Songs chart, where for the second week in a row, five of the top 25 songs are by Sierreño trios. Sure, that’s less representation than reggaeton bangers or banda ballads, but it’s still a sizable voting bloc. Think of Sierreño as the Bernie Sanders to banda’s Hillary Clinton and reggaeton’s Donald Trump. (Ted Cruz can be bachata and John Kasich can be Jesse & Joy.) Yes, think of that; and then weep.

Four of those songs are by Los Plebes themselves, enjoying(?) a long, rolling death bump that’s taking place mostly on the internet. Billboard reports that some of Los Plebes’ new videos are logging around a million streams a week, most of them on YouTube, and that Camacho himself just scored his 10th Hot Latin single since his death. (“Yo Quisiera Entrar” debuted at #41.) There’s precedent for this: Jenni Rivera, for instance, has scored eight Hot Latin hits since her death in 2012. Although most of them were minor hits,“La Misma Gran Señora” got all the way up to #9. Rivera, though, doesn’t have a banda that continues to make music in her name, so who knows how long Los Plebes can keep this going or when they’ll lay claim to their own identity.

Aside from “DEL Negociante,” the new Los Plebes singles haven’t grabbed me like Camacho’s best songs. Continue reading “Desfile de Éxitos 3/26/16” →

March 18, 2016 1

Odes to Music Executives and Other Criminals

beto tiger

Ladies and gentlemen, our nation is in the grip of a Sierreño fever, and it´s mostly because — on the charts, at least — the dead are walking the earth. Or at least one dead man. For the second week in a row, Billboard‘s Hot Latin top 25 is 20 percent acoustic trio music, the signature Sierreño style of the late Ariel Camacho. His bandmates Los Plebes Del Rancho just released their first album since Sr. Camacho died, and they occupy four of those slots, one of them (the deathless “Hablemos”) with Camacho himself. The fifth trio spot belongs to Los Del Arroyo, backing up pretty boy gangster Adriel Favela. Had Camacho not died a year ago, it’s unlikely that he and his band would be clogging up the chart to this extent. The Arroyos might have still had their hit — after all, “Tomen Nota” is a really good song and Favela’s an established hitmaker — but it’s equally likely that Camacho’s post-mortem singles have whetted listeners’ appetites for rippling guitars and lurching basslines.

But the old sound of Sierreño is having a moment off the charts, too. NorteñoBlog has already noted the fine new album from Los Migueles “La Voz Original,” who were Sierreño when Sierreño wasn’t cool. Now we’ve got a new tuba trio album from the young guitarist and singer Virlán García. His Y Cambió Mi Suerte (self-released) is a noble attempt to strike while the fever’s hot. (Please do not actually strike feverish people, except with leeches.) García is maybe the millionth person to record an ode to El Chapo Guzmán’s son “Iván Archivaldo,” but to his credit, the song demonstrates what a monster García’s lead guitarist is. This trio tries for different effects than the consistently hypnotic Los Plebes — “El Serio” contains some studied group fills, almost like a pop song arrangement, though the main riff just barely hangs together. In other words, they’re still a little rough, but they’ve got their sites set on bigger things.

I’m pretty sure all of García’s efforts thus far — two self-released albums, an active Youtube channel — constitute a savvy bid for the attention of DEL Records. After all, DEL’s charismatic CEO Angel Del Villar is known for signing musicians (including Ariel Camacho) based on their Youtube presences. García no doubt reads Triunfo magazine interviews about industry hiring practices, so last year he wrote and recorded Del Villar his very own corrido, guilelessly titled “Angel Del Villar,” as part of the self-released album Pobre o Criminal. If you think this sounds familiar, you’re right. Los Plebes recorded a different ode to Del Villar, “DEL Negociante,” that’s currently sitting at #15 Hot Latin. Short story: “Angel Del Villar” is no “DEL Negociante,” but I’m sure the CEO noticed the effort, and that he appreciated it more than he would a giltter-bombed resumé. Continue reading “Odes to Music Executives and Other Criminals” →

March 16, 2016 6

¡Nuevo! (starring Los Plebes, Los Tucanes, y más)

cuisillos

It is the longstanding position of NorteñoBlog that the puro sax styles of Chihuahua and Zacatecas would improve with the addition of more terrible “sax” puns in the titles. The Zacatecan-I-think quintet Luis Ruiz y la Embarcacion de la Musica Norteña has just released their second album Pura Rienda Suelta (Goma) (alternate title: Cuidado Con La Bestia Saxy), and on first listen it stands out from the puro sax pack. Por ejemplo, accordion and sax hang out on a repetitive minor-chord riff in their single “Me Enamoré” (sequel title: “Tuvimos Saxo”). In a subgenre that’s almost oppressively chipper, minor chords count for plenty. But even on chipper tunes like Regulo Caro’s oft-covered “La Buchona” (alternate title: “Labios Saxys”), Ruiz’s clarion voice sells the songs. He’s got a way of making the most heartfelt pleas sound tossed-off. Thumbs up indeed, Sr. Ruiz.

Improbably (and not at all saxily), Los Plebes Del Rancho de Ariel Camacho are climbing closer to the Hot Latin top 10 with their single “DEL Negociante,” written by their DEL Records labelmates Revolver Cannabis. Like “Me Enamoré,” “DEL” boasts a memorable minor-key riff. Unlike “Me Enamoré,” it features the teenaged José Manuel Lopez Castro pinch hitting for previous lead singer Ariel Camacho, who died a year ago, and he’s singing a song about their label boss, Angel Del Villar. This is both crass and wonderful. After Jimi Hendrix died, imagine his rhythm section renamed themselves “Experience Hendrix,” hired the fresh-faced Neil Young as a frontman, and scored a hit with “Lonely at the Top (Reprise),” written by Randy Newman in honor of Reprise Records boss Frank Sinatra. And then they recorded a whole album! While we’ll never know the results of that particular thought experiment, we can hear Recuerden Mi Estilo (DEL), which sounds pretty good. Lopez Castro lacks the immediate charisma of his predecessor, but tubist Omar Burgos has more than enough to share. Continue reading “¡Nuevo! (starring Los Plebes, Los Tucanes, y más)” →

March 7, 2016 5

The John Mayers We’ve Been Looking For (Desfile de Éxitos 2/20/16)

roberto tapia

Tomen nota: Regional Mexican’s hot streak in the top 25 wanes this week, with Recodo, Séptima, Chuy Lizarraga, and Ariel Camacho‘s “Te Metiste” dropping off the Hot Latin chart. Banda and norteño acts hold down less than half the chart with 11 of the top 25 spots. The nuevo-Sierreño strums of Los Plebes del Rancho occupy two of those with a couple unlikely hits: a love song from 2014 and a new corrido about the head of their record label. If you’re keeping track at home, this extends Ariel Camacho’s death bump to almost a year.

But Los Plebes aren’t the only guitar heroes to chart this week. “Tomen Nota,” the duet between honey-voiced Adriel Favela and photogenic Sierreño badasses Los Del Arroyo, is threatening to take both acts into new territory: the Hot Latin top 20. This is partly thanks to the eye-catching video, in which our watch-enthusiast anti-heroes use their pistols to turn an everyday game of billiards into BUMPER POOL. On the other hand, said video came out last May, which gave it plenty of time to stream its way onto Hot Latin. I’m guessing the previous Pick to Click is hitting now because its increased radio presence, currently #9 on the Regional Mexican airplay chart, is in turn driving even more streams. ¡Sinergia! Continue reading “The John Mayers We’ve Been Looking For (Desfile de Éxitos 2/20/16)” →

February 10, 2016 1

Desfile de Éxitos 2/6/16 (Wristwatch Porn and White Slavery)

adriel arroyo

From the NorteñoBlog Department of Corrections (no, it’s not a Larry Hernández update): Last week when we were looking at the charts from 2004, I speculated that era’s airplay-only Hot Latin chart “placed five RegMex songs inside the Hot Latin top 10, a percentage we never see today.” Well color me morado — this week Banda MS, Ariel Camacho, La Adictiva, Gerardo Ortiz, and Arrolladora have all crashed the Hot Latin top 10 at the same time. Ding ding ding and cigars all around! In all, more than half the top 25 is made up of our guys. And yes, they’re all guys — where are Alicia Villarreal and Los Horóscopos when you need ’em?

What’s new? This week we say adios to one spritely tune by La Séptima Banda and hola to another. “Me Empezó A Valer” is your typical bouncy ode to a treacherous mujer and the cuckold who’s finally mustering the courage to show her the door. Its video, though, is Muy Especial. Turns out the woman was cheating with a good-looking guy at the gym, portrayed by Séptima’s lead singer. When he takes her “home” to “meet his family,” she discovers to her horror that home is a strip club and his family is a cabal of human traffickers. They lock her in a closet — I’m not making any of this up — and put her to work and she winds up half naked and sobbing on the concrete, mascara everywhere. When she texts the dude she cheated on — like, she can’t call the police? — he’s celebrating a promotion or something with his new girlfriend, so he just dismisses her texts. LESSON LEARNED, AMIRITE? Apparently not, because the final frames display the stark message, “LA SEPTIMA BANDA ESTÁ EN CONTRA DE LA TRATA DE BLANCAS.” You know, in case the video didn’t make that clear. Continue reading “Desfile de Éxitos 2/6/16 (Wristwatch Porn and White Slavery)” →

January 27, 2016 7

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

Desfile de Éxitos 11/7/15

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.

In what is possibly an elaborate Day of the Dead scheme, there’s more Camacho chart action bubbling debajo. Continue reading “Desfile de Éxitos 11/7/15” →

October 30, 2015 6