On Mexican Consciousness: Part II: Music
By now it should be apparent that I love to write about a few things. Beyond the theological frontiers of my service in active ministry, my travels, and my appreciation for new forms of creative expression in other societies and cultures, there are few things I love more than music. One of my criteria for friendship (come on, we all have them...) is how lively a conversation we can have about it. What type of music we enjoy can say a lot about us. Or, if we begin talking about Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, it is pretty clear that music might not be all that important to you...
Perhaps it is for this reason, how near and dear to me the conversation on music is to me, and how many of my friendships have flourished through an exchange of music, that I've delayed my second entry in this personal exploration of Mexican consciousness. In my first treatment of the subject, we looked at the dynamic field of film, which has reached crossover appeal and allowed an international audience to engage in some uniquely Mexican themes on an artistic level. Here we'll continue that conversation as we explore the music scene in Mexico as well as the Mexican-American community, specifically through a few artists that have caught the attention of non-Latino audiophiles, just as Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro have done through their films.
I must offer a firm disclaimer from the outset: I will not offer a comprehensive exploration of the musical styles in Mexico. There are far too many artists, regional scenes, and cultural followings to write a single book, let alone a blog post, about. Instead, I'll use my experience from my childhood through today to illustrate how this music has influenced my own ethnic identity and social consciousness. Sure, there is plenty to write about the curious Polish/German roots of Mexican Norteño music, or the breathtaking sacred music traditions from early Catholic New Spain. However, I'll focus today on the music style that has influenced me since I moved on from listening to Raffi or some other cabrón like him. Yes, I am forever a roquero, forever indebted to Rock en Español.
First, no discussion of Rock en Español, especially Mexican, is complete without doing homage to the titans of Latin Rock, indeed in arena rock around the world: of course, I'm talking about Maná. These guys have come from Tapatío bar-rock roots in their native Guadalajara to eventually draw comparisons to mid-80s Police through frontman Pher's tenor, arpeggiated guitar lines, and reggae-rock snare snaps. Through the years they've performed in concert halls, football arenas, and massive stadiums around the world, earning them a place alongside U2, Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Jackson as the world's most beloved artists by their multinational, multilingual fan base. And when I say fan base, I mean fan base. Their world tours have taken them all across both Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. If you ever get the chance to see these guys live (and I surely hope you do), be prepared for a communal experience. This is the first tribute to their unique Latino heritage that they offer as a group: the entire audience becomes familia, intwined in the emotions, catharsis, and shared burdens of love won and lost. If you see me at a Maná concert, you bet your chonis I'll be singing along to every damn song the whole way through--along with the rest of the audience! True, their music can more often than not have sappy boy-meets-girl fables, but this just confirms the flip-side of Hispanic machismo: ultimately, all the tough guy attitude is a front for a really warm, sentimental heart that revs up for that pretty mujer and flies into a theatrical rage when it all crashes down. You can pretty much trace the arc of a ridiculously idealized relationship through the course of their catalog, often in a single album. Yes, I know Ne-Yo and R.Kelly can croon about this stuff with the best of them, but we find our heroes thanking God for their newfound love in "Bendita Tu Luz," madly claiming the new woman divine in "Eres Mi Religion," and eventually raging in a drunken stupor in "Clavado En Un Bar." These guys aren't exactly subtle. I'll give them credit for a few socially-minded songs like "Selva Negra" and the disarming parable of "En El Muelle de San Blás." Their penchent to allow their guitarist to sing on key tracks like "Me Vale" and "Como Un Perro Enloquecido" show how they, like fellow roqueros Cafe Tacuba, focus on feeling more than technical prowess. But they remain the kings of Latin Rock, and it doesn't look like they plan on stopping any time soon.
Moving up the central Cordillera from Guadalajara into the heights of the central plateau of ancient México, we find the true melting pot of cosmopolitan styles in Mexico City, or D.F., for short. Here a prominent underground genre of music has caught the attention of music journalists from Berlin to Portland: D.F. has become known for its unique Metal Scene. Since Metallica released its 1991 Black Album, a new generation of Mexican bands adopted Thrash Metal as their own, some eventually heading out of D.F. to play in other metal hotspots in Ireland, Scandinavia, and Russia. One of these groups consisted of young guitarists Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero, who found success in Dublin through their metal-influenced fingerwork as applied to the classical and flamenco guitars. Today, Rodrigo Y Gabriela are the foremost fusion virtuosos and a live favorite. Don't mistake them for strict flamenco. Though Gabriela's rhythmic chops are certainly indebted to the rumba style of Andalusian flamenco, Rodrigo's melodic lines verge far into the experimental frontier, with key influences exclusively in the metal genre. I recommend their triumphant collaboration with a Cuban orchestra on the album Area 52, where we see some excellent tributes to their multicultural styles that align them in the best sense with the emerging Mexican ability to cross boundaries and captivate us through creativity. For this reason they are an excellent addition to those artists whose music tells us much about the context they come from.
While Mexico itself has a litany of saints in the hall of roqueros, its influence has followed the burgeoning population of Mexican-Americans here in the States that have allowed their multicultural identity to shape their music since rock music hit the mainstream over 50 years ago. Santana came out of the Mission barrio in San Francisco (in the days before its gentrification, sigh) to infuse his Latin Jazz and Afro-Cuban influences into a signature electric guitar voice that can be instantly recognized to this day. He partnered with fellow San Franciscans like Gregg Rolie and a young Neal Schon (of Journey fame) to achieve rock superstardom at Woodstock. Apart from an embarrassingly lean output in the mid 80s, Santana has continued to spread his style (not to mention his impressive technical chops) into the pop mainstream. Moving down California to L.A., we find no shortage of talent, either. For nearly 20 years the truly Angelino rock outfit Ozomatli has taken Chicano Rap/Rock to the uninhibited places that Dave Matthews took his own blend of Americana. I saw these guys in concert last year and it remains one of the most fun musical experiences I've had. Again, they know that the audience is their familia, and the key ingredient in any appreciation of their music. Still, I'm forever indebted to the biracial duo from El Paso that forms the creative core of At the Drive-In and later, their progressive project The Mars Volta. These guys enchanted me when I first listened to their sophomore effort Frances the Mute as I entered my own sophomore year in high school. Thanks to them, I escaped the interminable playlists of 70s classic rock and entered the 21st century when it comes to guitar driven music. Although singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala's lyrics are almost comically indecipherable "Cabeza de gallo/Tu apellido se cambió...blackmail she fell off every mountain..."the album is a firm concept album. It deals in musical terms what its lyrics dealt with indirectly: the terror of abortion and supporting a child as a teenager, and the child (a survivor or an attempted abortion). This remains a reality for an overwhelming number of Latinas in our country, and shapes the urban landscape of most of our cities today. The narrative unfolds to explore the surviving child's search for identity in the aftermath, a fitting analogy for the reality that many young Latinos may encounter in the face of persistent nativism and racism. The album's frenetic quality, violent dynamics, and ambient transitions provide a captivating, even beautiful depiction of the darkest sides of Mexican consciousness. While it may not be your cup of tea at first listen, you have to admire the creative energy these guys brought from their home studio just miles from the drug-war wasteland of Ciudad Juarez. It rocks.
Perhaps it is for this reason, how near and dear to me the conversation on music is to me, and how many of my friendships have flourished through an exchange of music, that I've delayed my second entry in this personal exploration of Mexican consciousness. In my first treatment of the subject, we looked at the dynamic field of film, which has reached crossover appeal and allowed an international audience to engage in some uniquely Mexican themes on an artistic level. Here we'll continue that conversation as we explore the music scene in Mexico as well as the Mexican-American community, specifically through a few artists that have caught the attention of non-Latino audiophiles, just as Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro have done through their films.
I must offer a firm disclaimer from the outset: I will not offer a comprehensive exploration of the musical styles in Mexico. There are far too many artists, regional scenes, and cultural followings to write a single book, let alone a blog post, about. Instead, I'll use my experience from my childhood through today to illustrate how this music has influenced my own ethnic identity and social consciousness. Sure, there is plenty to write about the curious Polish/German roots of Mexican Norteño music, or the breathtaking sacred music traditions from early Catholic New Spain. However, I'll focus today on the music style that has influenced me since I moved on from listening to Raffi or some other cabrón like him. Yes, I am forever a roquero, forever indebted to Rock en Español.
First, no discussion of Rock en Español, especially Mexican, is complete without doing homage to the titans of Latin Rock, indeed in arena rock around the world: of course, I'm talking about Maná. These guys have come from Tapatío bar-rock roots in their native Guadalajara to eventually draw comparisons to mid-80s Police through frontman Pher's tenor, arpeggiated guitar lines, and reggae-rock snare snaps. Through the years they've performed in concert halls, football arenas, and massive stadiums around the world, earning them a place alongside U2, Bruce Springsteen, and Michael Jackson as the world's most beloved artists by their multinational, multilingual fan base. And when I say fan base, I mean fan base. Their world tours have taken them all across both Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. If you ever get the chance to see these guys live (and I surely hope you do), be prepared for a communal experience. This is the first tribute to their unique Latino heritage that they offer as a group: the entire audience becomes familia, intwined in the emotions, catharsis, and shared burdens of love won and lost. If you see me at a Maná concert, you bet your chonis I'll be singing along to every damn song the whole way through--along with the rest of the audience! True, their music can more often than not have sappy boy-meets-girl fables, but this just confirms the flip-side of Hispanic machismo: ultimately, all the tough guy attitude is a front for a really warm, sentimental heart that revs up for that pretty mujer and flies into a theatrical rage when it all crashes down. You can pretty much trace the arc of a ridiculously idealized relationship through the course of their catalog, often in a single album. Yes, I know Ne-Yo and R.Kelly can croon about this stuff with the best of them, but we find our heroes thanking God for their newfound love in "Bendita Tu Luz," madly claiming the new woman divine in "Eres Mi Religion," and eventually raging in a drunken stupor in "Clavado En Un Bar." These guys aren't exactly subtle. I'll give them credit for a few socially-minded songs like "Selva Negra" and the disarming parable of "En El Muelle de San Blás." Their penchent to allow their guitarist to sing on key tracks like "Me Vale" and "Como Un Perro Enloquecido" show how they, like fellow roqueros Cafe Tacuba, focus on feeling more than technical prowess. But they remain the kings of Latin Rock, and it doesn't look like they plan on stopping any time soon.
Moving up the central Cordillera from Guadalajara into the heights of the central plateau of ancient México, we find the true melting pot of cosmopolitan styles in Mexico City, or D.F., for short. Here a prominent underground genre of music has caught the attention of music journalists from Berlin to Portland: D.F. has become known for its unique Metal Scene. Since Metallica released its 1991 Black Album, a new generation of Mexican bands adopted Thrash Metal as their own, some eventually heading out of D.F. to play in other metal hotspots in Ireland, Scandinavia, and Russia. One of these groups consisted of young guitarists Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero, who found success in Dublin through their metal-influenced fingerwork as applied to the classical and flamenco guitars. Today, Rodrigo Y Gabriela are the foremost fusion virtuosos and a live favorite. Don't mistake them for strict flamenco. Though Gabriela's rhythmic chops are certainly indebted to the rumba style of Andalusian flamenco, Rodrigo's melodic lines verge far into the experimental frontier, with key influences exclusively in the metal genre. I recommend their triumphant collaboration with a Cuban orchestra on the album Area 52, where we see some excellent tributes to their multicultural styles that align them in the best sense with the emerging Mexican ability to cross boundaries and captivate us through creativity. For this reason they are an excellent addition to those artists whose music tells us much about the context they come from.
While Mexico itself has a litany of saints in the hall of roqueros, its influence has followed the burgeoning population of Mexican-Americans here in the States that have allowed their multicultural identity to shape their music since rock music hit the mainstream over 50 years ago. Santana came out of the Mission barrio in San Francisco (in the days before its gentrification, sigh) to infuse his Latin Jazz and Afro-Cuban influences into a signature electric guitar voice that can be instantly recognized to this day. He partnered with fellow San Franciscans like Gregg Rolie and a young Neal Schon (of Journey fame) to achieve rock superstardom at Woodstock. Apart from an embarrassingly lean output in the mid 80s, Santana has continued to spread his style (not to mention his impressive technical chops) into the pop mainstream. Moving down California to L.A., we find no shortage of talent, either. For nearly 20 years the truly Angelino rock outfit Ozomatli has taken Chicano Rap/Rock to the uninhibited places that Dave Matthews took his own blend of Americana. I saw these guys in concert last year and it remains one of the most fun musical experiences I've had. Again, they know that the audience is their familia, and the key ingredient in any appreciation of their music. Still, I'm forever indebted to the biracial duo from El Paso that forms the creative core of At the Drive-In and later, their progressive project The Mars Volta. These guys enchanted me when I first listened to their sophomore effort Frances the Mute as I entered my own sophomore year in high school. Thanks to them, I escaped the interminable playlists of 70s classic rock and entered the 21st century when it comes to guitar driven music. Although singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala's lyrics are almost comically indecipherable "Cabeza de gallo/Tu apellido se cambió...blackmail she fell off every mountain..."the album is a firm concept album. It deals in musical terms what its lyrics dealt with indirectly: the terror of abortion and supporting a child as a teenager, and the child (a survivor or an attempted abortion). This remains a reality for an overwhelming number of Latinas in our country, and shapes the urban landscape of most of our cities today. The narrative unfolds to explore the surviving child's search for identity in the aftermath, a fitting analogy for the reality that many young Latinos may encounter in the face of persistent nativism and racism. The album's frenetic quality, violent dynamics, and ambient transitions provide a captivating, even beautiful depiction of the darkest sides of Mexican consciousness. While it may not be your cup of tea at first listen, you have to admire the creative energy these guys brought from their home studio just miles from the drug-war wasteland of Ciudad Juarez. It rocks.
Good coverage on Mana. I found myself walking down memory lane (metaphorically) and remembering countless hours spent on grandma's couch in Mexico listening to the first time and falling in love with (for the first time) Mexican Rock - all because of Caifanes. Deep, emo before emo, and haunting, these Caifanes/Jaguares have influenced the last tow generations of Mexicanos (in my opinion).
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! Caifanes and Jaguares are probably the biggest roqueros...that I have never really listened to. Even I must admit my limits sometimes. Thanks for the insight!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete