Rock music in Mexico
Mexican rock music, often referred to in Mexico as rock nacional and Regional Mexican ("national rock"), originated in the 1950s. Standards by The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers, Nancy Sinatra, and Chuck Berry were soon covered by bands such as Los Apson, Los Teen Tops, Los Twisters, Los Hitters, Los Nómadas, Los Rockets, Los Rebeldes del Rock, Los Locos del Ritmo, Los Crazy Boys, and Javier Bátiz, which later led to original compositions, often in English. The group "Los Nómadas" was the first racially integrated band of the 1950s. Their lead guitarist, Bill Aken (adopted son of Lupe Mayorga, effectively making Aken the cousin of Ritchie Valens), wrote most of their original material, including the raucous Donde-Donde, and co-wrote the material for their Sounds Of The Barrio album, which is still being sold. Their 1954 recording of She's My Babe was the first top 40 R&B recording by a Latino band. In the southwestern United States, Spanish guitar rhythms and Mexican musical influences may have inspired some of the music of American musicians Ritchie Valens, Danny Flores (of The Champs), Sam the Sham, Roy Orbison, and later, Herb Alpert. Initially, the public exhibited only moderate interest in them, because the media attention was focused on La Ola Inglesa (British Invasion).
However, after the substantial success of Mexican-American guitarist Carlos Santana in the United States in the late 1960s, along with the successful development of Mexico's own counterculture movement called La Onda (The Wave), many bands sprang up. Most of these bands sang in both Spanish and English, keeping foreign commercial exposure in mind. Mexican and Chicano rock have crossed into other Hispanic groups like José Feliciano and Lourdes Rodriguez, of Puerto Rican descent.
Rock activity in Mexico in the 1950s took place either in Mexico City and the surrounding area or in northern cities such as Mexicali, Monterrey, Nuevo Laredo, Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana, whose proximity to the United States gave them more exposure to American sounds.
Rock & roll music was introduced to Mexico in the mid 1950s, as musicians like Elvis Presley and Bill Haley were at the peak of their popularity in the US, and their music began to be broadcast in Mexico and covered by Mexican bands.
Except for Tijuana and Los Tj's.[1] In those early years, the first acts that performed and recorded rock & roll in the country were not rock "bands", but rather orchestras that combined jazz sounds with the new genre. Gloria Ríos, an American-born actress and lounge singer, is often credited with introducing rock & roll music in Mexico. Born in Texas in 1928, Ríos arrived in Mexico in 1944 and began recording in 1955 with many musicians (and their orchestras), such as Héctor Hallal, Jorge Ortega, Pablo Beltrán Ruiz, and most importantly, with Mario Patrón and his Estrellas del Ritmo. Many of her recordings were covers of songs by Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, but with Las Estrellas del Ritmo she also recorded "La mecedora" in 1956, a song composed by Mario Patrón, which was said to be the first original song of Mexican rock & roll. Ríos became very popular at the time due to her starring roles in films like "Las locuras del rock and roll" (1956) and "La rebelión de los adolescentes" (1957), but she later married Mario Patrón and in 1960 she went with him to Europe, where they stayed for many years.
This caused Ríos to be quickly forgotten in Mexico, as the new golden age of rock & roll was starting there and new bands claimed to be the ones who had introduced the genre in Mexico. Ríos died in 2002 at the age of 74 years old.
These orchestras soon started to lose popularity as new rock bands appeared, formed by young musicians who mostly covered American and British songs. Los Lunáticos, founded in 1956, are considered by many to be the first Mexican rock and roll band, and later other bands like Los Locos del Ritmo, Los Rebeldes del Rock, Los Teen Tops, etc. became popular. Las Mary Jets, formed in 1959, were the first all-female rock band in Mexico. Rock, as elsewhere, became tied with the youth revolt of the 1960s.
Many songs are credited as being the first original Mexican rock & roll songs, amongst them:
Bands of the 1950s and, to a lesser degree, were often associated with the middle-class youth of Mexico. Fearing a "Moral Crisis," the PRI-controlled government imposed restrictions on rock music and films, in an effort to protect the "Buenas Costumbres," or proper family values, by "avoid[ing] noxious or disturbing influences on the harmonious development of children and youth." These guides caused any particularly "rebellious" media, including movies and rock, to conform to the PRI's Buenas Costumbres to get their work officially published. In addition, both to protect Mexico's record industry, and simultaneously discourage foreign-inspired challenges to the status quo, heavy tariffs were placed upon imported records. This combination of factors created the "Refrito" movement of the 1950s and early 1960s, where Mexican rock musicians reworked foreign songs to fit in with into the restrictions on music. One of the most popular examples is the song "La Plaga" by Los Teen Tops, a refrito cover of the Little Richard song "Good Golly Miss Molly," where lyrics featuring elements of scandal and rebellion were toned down or altered by Los Teen Tops for the Mexican market.[3][4]
While many musicians of the refrito era saw success, both domestically and internationally, their music was often criticized by those on the left as "imperialist in nature," and by those on the right for still being too "rebellious," both of which would carry on into the La Onda era of the late 1960s,[3] particularly as the Mexican youth, particularly those associated with rock, became increasingly frustrated with the government and more progressive-leaning.[5]
Punk and Underground Rock[edit]
After various government crackdowns and restrictions on rock, particularly after the 1971 Festival Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro, the bands that remained together or formed during this time moved into an underground scene, centered around Mexico City, where the rock and its subgenres finally started to see adoption among the lower classes of Mexican society. This created an entirely new movement, with musicians and fans of their music formed "bandas." Many in these bands created names based on their imposed lower position, such as Mierdas Punk, Manchados, and Punks Not Dead. After the Catholic Church began disparaging these bandas on the basis of assumed Satanism, new bandas formed with names based on this supposed tie to Satanism, such as Abadón, Lucifer, and Blasfemia.[3][12]
As most rock musicians, particularly anti-establishment ones, had great difficulty finding gigs at proper venues, the 1970s saw many bands performing in "Hoyos Fonquis," literally "funky holes," which were quite unsafe for the performers, as both audience members and police raids could prove harmful. Because of this, many bandas formed cultures of mutual self-defense, a trend that has continued into the modern day. In the 1980s, however, the PRI loosened their restrictions on rock performances, and the bands that had been playing in the Hoyos Fonquis now had access to larger, more legitimate audiences, particularly at the Tianguis del Chopo, a large open-air market in Mexico city, which became a hotspot for fans and practitioners of a variety of genres to come together and trade records, as well as attend live performances. Bands such as El Tri saw their earliest rise to success in this environment.[3][12][4]
Spanish Invasion and Response[edit]
Concurrent to the second wave British Invasion in the U.S., the Mexican rock scene in the early 1980s immediately fell prey to a “European Invasion” of its own with various artists from Spain taking over the radio. Influential Spanish rock bands like Hombres G, Mecano, Radio Futura and La Unión took over the spotlight with their experimental sounds and melancholic lyrics. Mexico’s music culture saw a newly inspired generation of rock bands emerge in response such Caifanes, Maná, Ritmo Peligroso, Botellita de Jeréz, El Tri and the Micro Chips.
Mexican pop music on the other hand (a genre known for its trademark ballads) saw an unexpected explosion of success by incorporating early synths into an overall more pop rock based production with bands such as Timbiriche, Pandora, and Flans dominating the charts alongside Spanish pop bands like Olé-Olé.
Indigenous Rock[edit]
Indigenous musicians have been a part of Mexican rock movements since at least the 1970s, but recently have seen an increase in popularity in recent decades, with artists from a myriad of backgrounds adding their distinct flair and sound to rock. Bands such as Sak Tzevul, Hamac Caziim, and Los Cogelones have been some of the most prevalent in the modern Indigenous rock scene, with each bringing their own distinct style through their cultural dress and language.[14] Hamac Caziim in particular are invested in using the platform of music in order to more popularize and support the Comcaac language and community they are a part of.[14]
Indigenous musicians have unfortunately always faced discrimination and undue criticism, with some critics deriding Indigenous rock as "inauthentic", due to their western influence. Tzotzil band Sak Tzevul responded to this line of criticism by stating "There are things so deeply rooted that neither Coca-Cola nor anyone else can take away from us."[14]