100 Best Mexican Contemporary Songs (20-11)

100 Best Mexican Contemporary songs

20

Clubz

Épocas

It's funny how some music trends come and go and after several years they revive thanks to the nostalgic feeling of "the good old times". Indie rock in the 2000s got back the energy of punk and new wave, but the new trends of the 10's have brought back the synth as the star element of the post-millennial music. Coco Santos and Orlando Fernández are well aware of how this musical cycle works so they decide to name their tribute to the 80's synthpop and 90's soul-pop as Épocas (Times). If 10 years ago somebody would have told us that the best alternative bands would be taking A-Ha, OMD or Aaliyah as their top references, we would have laughed, but that's exactly what Clubz blended with an unapologetic retro attitude to give us a perfect pop track (with included rhythmic handclaps) that is envolved in layers of infinite synth nostalgia for those days that we idealized as kids and decided to revive with an ironic make-over. The lyrics reflect the dramas of superficial Web 3.0 relationships that get diluted in tropical Instagram filters; a total avant-garde meta-comment on the pleasures and voids of the digital times.

(Synthpop, 2015)

19

(Electronic, 2002)

Kinky

Más

The approach of Kinky to leave a real imprint on latin music was to be unable to totally fit a single label, and Más (More) is the perfect example of it. It's electronic, but not quite; rock, but not entirely; folk, but not really. They are all over the place, after a few esoteric murmurs, they start playing with some deep chords that are like the warning signal that some danger is about to unleash, but then some tropical drums serve as the introduction to some urban beats, almost hip-hop, but that give the track an industrial texture, before Gil Cerezo starts repeating "We are wanting more and more", increasing his frenetic ecstasy with every "more" that he pronounces. But as industrial and dense as the song is, it has a virtue in the pauses and transitions it take, so when the latin psychedelic guitar riff kicks in, it all feels natural, as if it was a well thought collaboration between The Prodigy, Santana and Beastie Boys, where all the layers have their space and their time to shine without suffocating one another, but rather reinvigorating this desire for more. With those percussions and those guitars, it's clear that it's a Mexican band, but the amazing use of the electronic elements is what turns this track into a world class experimentation.

18 Eres

Café Tacvba

This one is THE Mexican rock love song. Uncontested. If Café Tacvba are the so-called Latin Beatles, this one is their Something. An statement on how to perform romantic (even corny) love verses with elegance and skill, and avoiding the safe route. Lyrics like "You are what I love most in this world, that's what you are" in hands of any ballad singer would have been a disaster, a pure cliché, but in Café Tacvba's voice, being some sort of speakers for the middle-low rebellious youth, they feel utterly sincere, when they promise "I would be the one who would provide livelihood every day to you" they are targeting to that working class that has to break their ass working two turns of manual jobs to offer their family the minimum means of survival, opposed to Luis Miguel or Cristian Castro, who enchant girls with a vision of long weekends in a yacht in Acapulco. This is pure 70's rock, a masterful bass line, a beautiful Spanish guitar and a battery that accentuates the right points of the track; it's minimal but strong and accurate on representing a feeling that disregards age, nationality or social status. Eres is a universal love declaration.

(Rock, 2003)

17

Porter

Espiral

Love them or hate them, Porter was one of those bands that really polarized the public's opinion. At their best, they are a cult band that mystified themselves with a glam style and avant-garde sound; at their worst, they are hysteric eccentric that only recycled styles for a public of teenagers with a poor musical background. In any case, they were entirely different to all the rock bands that existed in that moment in Mexico, and they ventured with risky moves in their sound and their aesthetics. Espiral was the instant boom that draw attention to them, a well structured post-rock track that found Juan Son, their lead singer, at his most calmed, less eccentric point (no grunts, onomatopoeias, or shrieks), just taking us into the descent to madness caused by a romantic loss that make him accept the help of a group of doctors from Tijuana to clone the ex-lover. But forgetting that Juan Son is a weird hybrid between Bowie and Rockdrigo González, the music in espiral is a solid take in experimental post-rock with some new-wave hints, a mathematic melancholy that creates apocalyptic textures by mixing cyborg-like synths with dramatic violins. It takes time to digest everything that happens in this track, but no doubt, it's stimulating and forces you to take a side.

(Indie Rock, 2005)

16

Plastilina Mosh

Human Disco Ball

The year 2000 could have been seen as the year that house music went global. The success of Daft Punk's Discovery opened a lot of gates for musicians offering electronic beats to be taken seriously. In Mexico, it allowed eclectic duo Plastilina Mosh to make an album that was very different from their hit debut, Aquamosh; in Juan Manuel they no longer try to be the classroom-clowns at the expense of politicians or fallen cinema divas, their approach to a mix of electro-rap feels more constructed even if every song on that album is very different from the rest. In Human Disco Ball they convert themselves in Love Machines 2.0, they overcome the "it's almost certain that you'll screw your song if you use vocoder", and deliver on explorations of the new millennium love, predicting the future mix of virtuality and sexuality in a time when Skype sex and Tinder where not even thought about. But above all, Human Disco Ball is a great electronic banger, with beats and transitions that will have you dancing in no time, taking cues from Daft Punk's Around the World, but making sure it sounds like their own, with that irreverent nasty tone that it's very characteristic of them.

(Electronic, 2000)

15

(Punk Rock, 2010)

Le Butcherettes

Henry Don't Got Love

Teri Gender Bender is a feminist with a literature background. Everything in her is a political statement, from the name election to her stage persona dressed in a beautiful housewife dress covered in blood. And in Henry Don't Got Love she tackles one of the most repudiated writers by feminists: Henry Miller. But rather than making accusations and condemnations, she goes into an analysis of how much men have the urge of call women "bitches" and "cunts" when they can't control them. But just like Miller, Teri is very open about talking about the flesh and the violence to the point of discomfort. Her sound is also raw and confrontational, possessing the disruptive fury of The Clash and the provocative attitude of early Blondie. Kicking off with a catchy but dissonant riff, followed by the dirty garage rage of guitar and drums while Teri calls the source of sexist hatred: "You are afraid to love me, you are afraid to even know me". The road of this track is rocky and unexpected, with Teri going from seductive to aggressive, from tender to furious. It's intelligent and political, the enlightened daughter of the rriot girl! movement, Teri has learned from her multiple feminist referents (from Sylvia Plath to Kathleen Hanna) and has started her own fight in the very macho latin society.

14

(Synthpop, 2011)

Neon Indian

Polish Girl

The lead single of Alan Palomo's sophomore album finds him longing for a lost love. After being part of the artists that shaped what now we know as chillwave, along with Washed Out and Toro y Moi, with all the good and bad things that come along with the "creation" of a subgenre, Neon Indian decided to move a step forward and don't let the tags tie him to a specific style. In Polish Girl, the DIY production is left behind to make space to better arranges in the psychedelic synths and a more disco vibe that is less dreamy, but that still holds the ethereal qualities even when the edges are more like laser rays rather than nebulous clouds. Palomo still creates good contrast within his tracks, if tracks like Deadbeat Summer were joyous irreverent lyrics wrapped in diffuse textures, in Polish Girl there is thoughtful nostalgic lyrics floating among sharp synths. This change of path was probably the wisest decision of Palomo, he might have seen that chillwave was more a fading trend rather than a broad genre to explore, and unlike Washed Out who is now regarded as the emblema of the music of a specific year, Neon Indian escaped the caducity and is still regarded as an original and inventive musician in contemporary synthpop.

13

(Rap, 2000)

Control Machete Feat. Ely Guerra

De Perros Amores

A Spanish guitar will mostly be associated with a romantic serenade or a passionate flamenco dance, but rappers Control Machete take this instrument to unsuspected levels of gloom and desolation in one of the tracks inspired by the film Amores Perros, probably one of the finest that Mexico has ever produced, and the one that launched Alejandro González Iñárritu's career. The hopeless urban decadence of the film can be clearly felt through the entire track, that could be described as pure suffocation in a vortex of hopelessness. Pato Machete and Fermin IV start their rapping by stating that "We have enough with the problems of a single day to start worrying about the future", and the idea of life as a senseless and futile routine falls heavy on us, a weight that even gets them to ask: "How many times has the sun stopped midday just because he doesn't want lo live any more sunsets". It's also the last track that the band recorded with the original line-up since Fermín IV's conversion to extreme Christianity caused a definitive split-up, and the existential crisis he went through is pretty visible in this track that never got to be played live by the full band; it's a unique departure from the usual social themes of the band to something totally philosophical.

12

(Rock, 2000)

Julieta Venegas

Sería Feliz

To talk about Julieta Venegas is necessary to talk about contrast, about the sudden change in her music that took her out from the underground rock scene to the mainstream stage of pop stardom. It's a change more subtle than the one Shakira experienced, but both of them share this path of great singer-songwriters that sold their talent for a bigger fame. But before all the Grammys and number 1 hits in the charts, Venegas was a woman that constantly challenged the place of women in rock music, and that offered creative lyrics that embodied her pessimist point of view. In Sería Feliz (I'd be Happy) she goes analyzing different ways in which her life would have been better, and is gloomy at comparing herself with people that seems to have it all, she sings "If only I had the color of those who seem to enjoy (...) then I'd be happy", and if at that time the dark atmospheres of her keyboard and acoustic guitar seemed like an irony on reflecting how much we could never reach total happiness, now it's seems like a true wish of an artist that felt the need to lose her essential qualities in order to reach a more content inoffensive life that fits in the cover of celebrity magazines.

11

(Electronic, 2010)

Nortec Collective Feat. Kylee Swenson

I Count The Ways

There's a love-hate relationship with every Mexican and the United States, even if we despise the racism and the feeling of superiority that reigns over that country that claimed the name of an entire continent as their own, we can't help being fascinated by their high technology and Holywood stars. That feeling is even deeper in the border cities, like Tijuana, where the American dream is so close but so far at the same time. Bostich and Fussible, the most successful members of the Nortec Collective play with this idea in their album Bulevar 2000, named after a highway that was supposed to bring modernity to the city of Tijuana, and in I Count the Ways, we experience this idea of a trapped life below the border where the drugdealers are kings and the poverty is high, and the liberation that comes along with a day trip to San Diego (there in less than an hour), Los Angeles or even San Francisco. I Count the Ways is also the poppiest moment of the band, with dancehall synths and accentuated brass instruments accompanying a female voice, as if this mix of norteño and house music could be a symbol of the broken northern Mexican identity, thorn between their national pride and their desire of a better life.