Music & Films for
Common People
100 Best Mexican Contemporary songs
70
Silver Rose
Sueños De Amor
Carla Sariñana (yes, that last name again) is better known for being the bassist of only women rock band Ruido Rosa, but she soon wanted to have her own project, and it was a surprise when she presented her dense tracks infused with shoegaze, a style that hasn't been developed very much in Mexico. Sueños de Amor is a noisy and delicate song about love (and maybe also some lust) at first sight, with clear influences from The Jesus and Mary Chain and Slowdive, Carla constructs an ethereal atmosphere from very dirty sounds that goes developing the tension slowly and explodes it at the same moment that she narrates this brief encounter where "There you are, so close; and there I am, wanting more, wanting more", a seductive redhead siren that wants us to look at her and don't be able to think in nobody else, and damn, she just gave us an EP and is being very successful at that. We really like what she is doing with Ruido Rosa, but if this track says something of things to come, Carla Sariñana must make Silver Rose her main project.
(Indie Rock, 2016)
69
Jumbo
Rockstar
Rockstar is a song that follows a (fictional?) one-hit wonder musician that keeps living from his past glories. We are not sure if Jumbo was thinking of someone in specific, but it certainly can apply for hundreds of bands that have come and disappeared, but that keep thinking of that one time when they got some fame (or at least that one time when they where in the line-up of the Vive Latino Festival). This track is ironic and fun, it certainly win points for wit when they say to this little big rockstar "I bring you a Tootsie Pop so you can stop crying", it posses the charm and the energy from Weezer, and the distorted guitars clashing with the catchy lyrics certainly had a great effect on the audience, who still gets excited and sing-along to this when the band play it live. Oddly enough, after this album the band lost two of their original members and they never reached the same success or the same musical level that they had in their first two albums, so even with six more under their belt, there's some irony on them still playing this track as one of their biggest hits.
(Rock, 2001)
68
Eugenia León
Mi Principio
The film Quemar las Naves is one of the most underrated ones in Mexican Contemporary Cinema, it's an intimate drama of two siblings in a small town in Mexico that are forced to rethink their lives after the death of their mother, who was also the center of their world. The original tracks were composed by Joselo Rangel from the rock band Café Tacvba, and for one of them, he approached bolero, one of the most classic folk styles in Latin America. Rangel has always been in touch with the folk roots of Mexican music, since his band blends this style with rock, ska and other contemporary styles, but here, we are very surprised to see that he can create a traditional song with a full orchestra that feels authentic and monumental. It's sung by Eugenia León, who possess one of the most extraordinary voices and that imprints the track with dramatism, making feel the lyrics, about letting go of something/somebody that we love in order to start something new, much more passionate. There's a version of the same track by Julieta Venegas in the ending credits in a more pop-rock style, but it feels flattened and uninspired compared to the colossal bolero by León.
(Folk, 2007)
(Electronic, 2012)
67
Los Macuanos
Sangre, Bandera, cruz
The government of Mexican president Felipe Calderón, from 2006 to 2012, was notorious mostly because it started the so-called "War on Drugs", a civil war that, up to this moment, has costed more than 150,000 deaths. The state of terror that was caused in the whole country, and specially in the northern states generated many reactions, and artists from diverse disciplines made statements again the failed state that had terror governing the streets. Los Macuanos, an electronic trio from Tijuana, sampled some of the speeches from Calderón and mixed them with dark tribal rhythms that are a reflection of the apocalyptic deserted panorama that the extreme violence left. The track starts with an eerie trumpet, as if it's the war call of a death battalion, and then the beats that take cues from northern Mexican folklore go to the darkest place of electronic music, with the repetition of "Sangre, Bandera, Cruz" (Blood, Flag, Cross), elements that are heavy related to this era, feels heavy on us, so if we dance, we do it to a macabre rhythm. At one point, the ex-president states that "In spite of it all, Mexico is standing on its feet", but then he is mixed so it sounds like the question that the world kept asking him: "Is it standing on its feet?".
66
(Rock, 2003)
Austin TV
Ella No Me Conoce
In Ray Bradbury's short story "The Last Night of the World" a married couple has a vision of the apocalypse occuring the following day, however they carry on with their daily routine. Post-rock band Austin TV decided to made a conceptual album around that story (but overall about the science fiction in"The Illustrated Man", the book that contains said story), and even if it's hard to separate the parts of the whole piece, Ella No Me Conoce (She Doesn't Know Me) captures better than no other track the paradoxes of the possibility of a last night on Earth. The use of proto-futuristic synths that emulate how people in the 50's thought the music of the future was going to sound like is combined with a very nostalgic melody executed by the rest of the instruments, results in a dense feeling of hopelessness, this idea of knowing we are going to die but don't really know what else we could do but carry on with our routine, just like a postmodern Myth of Sysiphus. On top, the only spoken words are the cliched romantic dialogues of a 50s Mexican movie, just to put emphasis on how unoriginal and trivial is the human kind. Austin TV definitely knows how to take us on a trip of hopelessness.
65
Mario Domm
Tú Tienes Un Lugar
Music success is a matter of timing, and Mario Domm's solo effort is a proof of that. Tú Tienes Un Lugar (You Have a Place) might have topped the charts in the present days since it's a R&B ballad not that far from what singers like The Weeknd or Drake are doing right now, but back in 2002 there was just not a market for him, he was too experimental for pop fans and way too soppy for people who liked alternative music; but in here we're facing slight hints of drum and bass and a tropicalized R&B that takes the sexy intimacy of D'Angelo applying to it some latin heat with a Spanish guitar. The lyrics are very straight-forward but they are still very far from the corny common-places that he uses again and again with his very succesful pop group Camila. In any case, it's not until recent days that some Latin American artists decided to jump into the 90's R&B revival, but Mario Domm's career inspires a lot of "what if"; is it possible that if he had found success with his solo project, Mexican pop would have evolved in a different and much more interesting way?
(R&B, 2002)
64
Ultrasónicas
Qué Grosero
The riot grrrl movement had an unequal development in the Latin world, countries like Spain and Brazil had several bands that took this anarchic musical movement as their political flag, but in others like Argentina and Mexico, the few sporadic efforts weren't very successful, and in Mexico it wasn't until the 2000's that finally emerged a worthy representation of the movement with Ultrasónicas and Le Butcherettes. Qué Grosero (How rude!) caused great stir because of the direct language it used, the fact that it cursed and talked about a very open female sexuality was very divisive, but it opened a door for female musicians to express things that were thought that weren't correct for them (another of their singles translates as Cum in my Mouth). The sound it's totally DIY, very rough, very unpolished, but it couldn't have been any other way to fully be a disruptive song with a feminist agenda. Other things that stand out from the track is the heavy influence of rockabilly surf and the clever lyrics that come to state "It's not that I'm not a whore, it's that you are at risk that I can actually like you". Female sexual empowerment at its best.
(Punk Rock, 2002)
63
(Indie Rock, 2008)
Zoé
Nada
Being the only Mexican rock band that achieved the status of "music legend" during the 00s, the expectations for Zoé's fourth album were very high, and in Reptilectric we see the darkest side of this band. From that album, Nada is the best achieved piece, it's space psychedelic rock heavy on drums and synths, and even when it holds a total connection with Zoé's style and narrative, somehow it's something that we could have fit in one of the albums of Soda Stereo (arguably the best Latin American band ever), because, apart of structures and styles, it inherits the fantastic confidence of Gustavo Ceratti's band to take the audience into a collective trip through rock music. The cryptic lyrics are about the endless possibilities of oneself as a human being, "There's nothing that I can't be" sings León Larregui in his very particular hoarse voice, being almost an existentialist that recalls Sartre's existence preceding essence, but then he brings us back to his magic cosmic universe with beautifully poetic images like "Transfusion of pure magic to the heart" and "gulps of light to brighten up life". At that moment in their career, Zoé felt infinite, a band that kept their core while expanding their sound, a band that could draw milliards of people to frenzy with great rock music.
62
(Rock, 2003)
Molotov
Frijolero
The hatred towards Mexican migrants in the U.S. might have intensified in the age of Trump, but it's nothing new, and Molotov, at its politic side (the one that is not prepubescent jokes about sex and insulting women and homosexuals), tackled the issue in a very poignant way. Combining rock with norteño music (that accordion almost sounding as a polka) and the usual rapping, they fake American Spanish accents to question the stereotype of Mexicans as, in Trump's words, "bad hombres". Even if, at times, they get a bit lost in the swearing, they make some good argumentations, like when they recall that "the drug we plant is the one that you consume", but it gets to the core of the migrant drama when they recall that everyone who crosses the border has left family, culture and traditions behind and has dared to embark in a dangerous crusade that very well might have costed their life. This racist hate is the one that sets the paradox of Mexicans being both too lazy and stealing jobs at the same time. This track is still very relevant in a time were nationalisms (American nationalism mostly, but also Mexican nationalism) keep people fighting and judging each other just because they are "gringos" and "beaners", not human beings.
61
Little Jesus
Mala Onda
It was a great pleasure seeing that the hype that Little Jesus generated with their first album was followed by newest experimentations that broadened the sonic possibilities for the band, and even when it was the song La Magia the one that brought them big success in radio stations, it is Mala Onda the one that best defines the new paths that the band is exploring. The lyrics keep this narrative voice of the boy-next-door, using a common language that is shown in the title of the track, being "mala onda" this very Mexican phrase that could be translated as "bad vibes" and is used to tell somebody that is being mean. But voice and lyrics go to a second level when the dialogue stablished by the instruments is so interesting and complex; the fragmented battery, the 70's keyboard, the frenetic futuristic guitar, everything is in real connection, establishing that they are no longer the Mexican Vampire Weekend, that they are ready to show us their own sound and it is the psychedelic vortex created by the guitar and the keyboard near the end of the song what turns this track from something really good to something outstanding that makes us impatient to hear what will Little Jesus bring us in the future.