| | |  Entertainment | October 2009 
Outlaw Ballads Hitting Target with Latino Fans
 Leila Cobo - Reuters
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October 05, 2009
| | Mexican singers Hernan Hernandez (L) and Jorge Hernandez of folk band Los Tigres del Norte perform during "The Concert For The Children" organized for the Latin American aid organization ALAS (Latin American in Solidarity Action) at the Zocalo main plaza in Mexico City May 17, 2008. (Reuters/Tomas Bravo) | |
Corridos - songs that tell the stories of notorious characters - have gained new prevalence among mainstream followers of regional Mexican music thanks to artists that are daring to sing in the bluntest of terms and radio's new willingness to play the racy songs.
Corridos have traditionally tackled many subjects in many ways. For the last three decades, a popular subgenre has been narcocorridos, for example, which tell tales of drug dealers and their exploits.
Until recently, however, songs that got too explicit were rarely, if ever, played on radio. That is no longer the case, with acts like Larry Hernandez, El Compa Chuy and El Potro de Sinaloa rising on the charts with tracks like "El Katch," "El Piloto Canavis" (The Cannabis Pilot) and "El Sr. de la Hummer" (The Guy With the Hummer).
"What's very interesting is that radio is increasingly playing more corridos," says Gustavo Lopez, president of the Disa and Fonovisa labels. "And stations that do so are successful and have younger listeners. So, it's not only about the movement itself but about the acceptance at radio."
For example, iconic norteno group Los Tigres del Norte debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Top Latin Albums chart with their new album, "La Granja," at the same time the single of the same name hit No. 1 on the regional Mexican airplay chart. This is the first time a corrido hit No. 1 on that chart since Los Tigres' "La Reina del Sur" did so in 2003.
Los Tigres pioneered the commercial corrido, singing about drug trafficking long before it was acceptable to radio. But unlike today's crop of acts, which bluntly spell out drug usage and violence, Los Tigres' style is far more subtle.
"What happens around us is the same," says Jorge Hernandez, lead singer of Los Tigres. The way things are told, however, is different. "Our proposal, like (those of journalists), lies in providing information that people have actually experienced. But our reality doesn't rise to this level of fiction."
Songs like the legendary "Camelia la Tejana," for example, tell - in beautiful prose - the story of drug-trafficking lovers Camelia and Emilio, with Camelia shooting Emilio after their successful heist when he confesses he loves someone else. The current hit "La Granja," in turn, is a parable that compares corrupt government to animals in a farm (and yes, it has been compared to George Orwell's "Animal Farm").
In contrast to Los Tigres del Norte, the new crop of acts leaves nothing to the imagination. The players in their songs traffic drugs, they get high, and they make money, as evidenced in the hit "El Katch," performed by both El Compa Chuy and El Potro de Sinaloa ("Armani, Dolce y Gabbana, Land Rover to cruise/With dollars in my bag and Buchanan's to drink.")
Popular corridos include Larry Hernandez's "El Baleado," which reached No. 14 on the regional Mexican airplay chart in July, and El Compa Chuy's "El Katch," which is essentially a party song and went to No. 2 the same month.
Few of these hardcore narcocorridos have entered the top 10 of the regional Mexican airplay chart. However, Jose Santos, president of Santos Latin Media, which consults many radio stations nationwide, says this is a function of certain songs being popular only in specific areas. Because corridos are essentially stories, they often refer to specific regions in Mexico and appeal to pockets of the population that identify with those regions.
A factor in radio programing, Santos says, is that fans - especially those from Mexico - request specific songs. In addition, popularity on the Internet, where many acts have garnered hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube and MySpace, spurs radio interest.
Larry Hernandez, for example, has been putting out albums since 1999 but only gained radio airplay after he signed with Fonovisa. (Hernandez was shifted to Fonovisa after his original label, Machete Music, was acquired by Universal.)
"I don't think this would have been possible without a big label," he says. "Getting onto radio is hard, but when people request the song, nothing is hard. 'El Baleado' started climbing. There were radio stations that didn't want to air it but they finally programed it. Anything is possible when people want to listen to something."
"El Baleado" is a track from Hernandez's new album, "16 Narco Corridos," which is No. 7 on the Top Latin Albums chart. The song is a day in the life of a hard-drinking, card-playing drug dealer, and the video plays out as an ode to the lifestyle.
However, Hernandez says he in no way seeks to glorify that way of life. While some of the appeal may lie simply in its shock value, composer/singer Hernandez says he sings about what he knows. "I lived violence as a child," says Hernandez, who's also an avid reader of books about drug cartels and the drug trade. "I was born in Los Angeles but was raised in Mexico, and as a boy, I saw how this person or the other was killed. They are my experiences."
But while this may be the reality in Mexico, it isn't the same in the United States. This fact, producer Adolfo Valenzuela says, makes the songs harmless - and appealing - in the United States. "Here, it would be almost impossible for (young people) to go around toting guns," says Valenzuela, whose company, Twiins Enterprises, has signed several new acts like El Kommander. "I think they merely see it as something forbidden and cool. They see it as a new trend."
(Editing by DGoodman at Reuters) |
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