Latin music
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"A current example of postmodern pop is offered by Señor Coconut, a Caucasian German who reprises electronic music from bands of the 1980s, including Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra, using sampled samba and salsa beats and Latin instrumentation."--Music, Sound and Multimedia: From the Live to the Virtual (2007) by Jamie Sexton |
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Latin music (Musica latina in Spanish and Portuguese) is a musical category encompassing any music in Spanish from anywhere around the world regardless of genre mainly from Latin America and Spain.
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History
1940s–1950s
The term "Latin music" originated from the United States due to the growing influence of Latino Americans in the American music market, including pioneers Xavier Cugat (1940s) and Tito Puente (1950s) and accelerating in later decades. As one author explained the rising popularity from the 1940s: "Latin America, the one part of the world not engulfed in World War II, became a favorite topic for songs and films for Americans who wanted momentarily to forget about the conflagration." Wartime propaganda for America's "Good Neighbor Policy" further enhanced the cultural impact. Pérez Prado composed such famous pieces as "Mambo No. 5" and "Mambo No. 8". At the height of the mambo movement in 1955, Pérez hit number one on the American charts with a cha-cha-chá version of "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White". El manisero, known in English as The Peanut Vendor, is a Cuban son-pregón composed by Moisés Simons. Together with "Guantanamera", it is arguably the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician. "The Peanut Vendor" has been recorded more than 160 times, sold over a million copies of sheet music, and was the first million-selling 78 rpm single of Cuban music.
1960s
The Brazilian bossa nova became widespread in Latin America and later became an international trend, led especially by Antônio Carlos Jobim. Rock en español became popular with the younger generation of Latinos in Latin America, for example the Argentine band Almendra. Mexican-American Latin rock guitarist Carlos Santana began decades of popularity. By the late 60s, the boogaloo boom was coming, and boogaloo musicians such as Pérez Prado, Tito Rodríguez and Tito Puente released boogaloo singles and albums. Most of the other groups were young musicians such as Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers and Joe Bataan.
Early examples of boogaloo were 1966 music by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz. The biggest boogaloo hit of the '60s was "Bang Bang" by the Joe Cuba Sextet in 1966. Hits by other groups included Johnny Colón's "Boogaloo Blues", Pete Rodríguez's "I Like It like That"(1967).
1970s
Salsa music became the dominant genre of tropical music in the 1970s. Fania Records was credited for popularizing salsa music, with acts such as Rubén Blades, Héctor Lavoe, and Celia Cruz expanding the audience. In the late 1970s, an influx of balladeers from Spain such as Julio Iglesias, Camilo Sesto, and Raphael established their presence on the music charts both in Latin America and the US Latin market. In 1972, OTI Festival was established by the Organización de Telecomunicaciones de Iberoamérica as a songwriting contest to interconnect the Ibero-American countries (Latin America, Spain, and Portugal). Ramiro Burr of Billboard remarked that the contest was considered to be the "largest and most prestigious songwriting festival in the Latin music world".Template:Sfn
1980s
In the 1980s, the Latin ballad continued to be the main form of Latin pop music, with Juan Gabriel, José José, Julio Iglesias, Roberto Carlos, and José Luis Rodríguez dominating the charts. Salsa music lost some traction, and its rhythm slowed with more emphasis on romantic lyrics. This became known as the salsa romantica era.
1990s
In the Regional Mexican field, Tejano music became the most prominent genre and one of the fastest-growing music genres in the United States.Template:Sfn On January 10, 1990, EMI Latin bought Bob Grever's Cara Records, beginning the golden age of Tejano music.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Tejano music's growth exploded,Template:Sfn as journalist Ramiro Burr put it "a stubborn brushfire spread over the horizon", the genre converted radio stations to play Tejano music.Template:Sfn This garnered the attention of record labels across the United States who were eager to expand their rosters.Template:Sfn In 1991, Warner Nashville created Warner Discos specifically for Tejano artists crossing over into country music while Arista Nashville erected Artista Texas with the same objective.Template:Sfn Other labels such as PolyGram Latino and WEA Latina began deliberations to exclusively sign Tejano acts, while Fonovisa began signing Tejano musicians.Template:Sfn These incentives helped expand performers' fanbases beyond Texas and the southwest.Template:Sfn It also brought the genre to territories unfamiliar with the genre.Template:Sfn The golden age is generally considered by journalists to have ended on March 31, 1995, when Selena was shot and killed.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Tejano music set five consecutive years of sales and concert attendance records from 1990 to 1995.Template:Sfn Mario Tarradell of The Dallas Morning News wrote that the singles from Amor Prohibido elevated Selena to success on Latin radio whose promoters had not previously taken the singer seriously.Template:Sfn By 1994, Tejano acts were effortless selling 100,000 units of their albums, while La Mafia and Selena were the two most commercially successful Tejano artists.Template:Sfn Selena's music led the genre's 1990s revival and made it marketable for the first time.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Tejano music is believed by Jose Behar to have hit Mexico "like an atomic bomb" by 1994.Template:Sfn While Tejano singer Emilio Navaira decided on a crossover into American country music, preparations began for Selena's crossover into American pop music.Template:Sfn The singer was fatally wounded after a confrontation with Yolanda Saldivar, a friend and former associate of the singer's fan club, and boutiques.Template:Sfn Her unfinished crossover album, Dreaming of You (1995), became the first mostly-Spanish album to debut and peak at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart.Template:Sfn Tejano music suffered and its popularity waned following Selena's death, and record labels began abandoning their Tejano artists while radio stations in the United States switched from Tejano to Regional Mexican music.Template:Sfn
[[File:Mon Laferte en el Museo de la Ciudad de México.jpg|thumb|right|Mon Laferte at her solo exhibition in Mexico City]] [[File:Alejandro Sanz - Concierto en Buenos Aires.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Alejandro Sanz has won 22 Latin Grammy Awards.]] By the mid-1990s, Tejano music was replaced by Latin pop as the dominant Latin music genre in the United States.Template:Sfn Gloria and her husband Emilio Estefan are considered to have "open[ed] the door" to a number of artists throughout the 1990s decade. Their production is believed to have provided Mexican singer Thalía with her first platinum award for En éxtasis (1995).Template:SfnTemplate:Verify source Colombian pop rock singer Shakira released her international debut album Pies Descalzos (1995). She worked closely with the Estefans for her album Dónde Están Los Ladrones? (1998), which topped the US Billboard Top Latin Albums chart.Template:Sfn The album's success and production by the Estefans, provided Shakira with a lucrative formula that she used for her English-language crossover which was released in 2001.Template:Sfn Enrique Iglesias, the son of Spanish singer-songwriter Julio Iglesias, released two albums; his self-titled album released in 1995, and Vivir (1997), that concentrated on pop ballads and rhythms.Template:Sfn With improvements in his songwriting on Vivir, Enrique was able to successfully convey "his innermost thoughts and feelings". Critics found Vivir to be superior to Enrique's contemporaries and reportedly sold over five million copies in Asia, Europe, and South and Central America within a week of its release, the first Latin album to do so.Template:Sfn Ricky Martin's hip-shaking dance moves were compared to those of Elvis Presley among American music critics seeking to find an artist who resembled Martin's dance moves and their effect on the United States pop market.Template:Sfn In 1998, music and ticket sales of Martin grossed $106 million, which was the equivalent of the total exports of Puerto Rico to Mexico in 1996.Template:Sfn His 1998 album Vuelve contained "La Copa de la Vida", which became the official 1998 FIFA World Cup song. This provided Martin with worldwide visibility, though it was his performance of the recording at the 1999 Grammy Awards that brought Martin attention from American audiences.Template:Sfn In 1999, he released his self-titled album which contained the English-language number-one song "Livin' la Vida Loca".Template:Sfn Following the commercial and critical success of the film Selena (1997), Jennifer Lopez catapulted to fame in the title role.Template:Sfn Lopez entered the music market following a string of films and released her debut recording On the 6 (1999), which she described as a Latin soul album.Template:Sfn
Bolero music saw a resurgence of popularity with the younger audience. Mexican singer Luis Miguel was credited for the renewed interest with the success of his album, Romance (1991), a collection of classics covered by the artist. Around the same time, artists from Italy such as Eros Ramazzotti, Laura Pausini, and Nek successfully crossed over to the Latin music field by recording Spanish-language versions of their songs. In the tropical music field, merengue, which had gained attention in the 1980s, rivaled salsa in popularity.
2000s
In the mid-2000s, reggaeton became popular in the mainstream market, with Héctor el Father Tego Calderón, Daddy Yankee, Don Omar, and Wisin & Yandel considered to be the frontiers of the genre. In the tropical music scene, bachata music became popular in the field, with artists such as Monchy & Alexandra and Aventura finding success in the urban areas of Latin America. Banda was the dominant genre in the Regional Mexican music field.
2010s
By the turn of the decade, the Latin music field was dominated by up-tempo rhythms, including electropop, reggaeton, urbano, banda and contemporary bachata music, as Latin ballads and crooners fell out of favor among U.S. Latin radio programmers. Streaming has become the dominant form of revenue in the Latin music industry in the United States, Latin America and Spain. Latin trap gained mainstream attention in the mid-2010s with artists such as Ozuna, Bad Bunny, and Anuel AA.
See also
