The music of Mexico is highly diverse, featuring a wide range of musical genres and performance styles. It has been influenced by a variety of cultures, primarily deriving from Europeans, Indigenous, and Africans. Music became an expression of Mexican nationalism starting in the nineteenth century.
Mexican rock music, often referred to in Mexico as rock nacional, 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, 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, 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.
Luzbel is a heavy metal band from Mexico founded in 1982 by Raul Fernandez Greñas, Antonio "la Rana" Morante, Jorge Cabrera (vocals), Hugo Tames (drums) and Fernando Landeros (guitar). They were signed to Warner Music in 1985. Luzbel is best known during the 1980s and 1990s for songs like Holocausto, 2pm ,'Por piedad, La Gran Ciudad, Pasaporte Al Infierno, Paradoxa, Juegos De Pasion, Utopia, Souvenir, Plegaria De Un Loco, Te Posereé, El Tiempo De Odio, Del Infierno, El Errante, El Loco, Íncubo and the metalhead hymn Advertencia.
Saúl Alfonso Hernández Estrada, is a Mexican musician, writer, poet, songwriter and the lead singer of Jaguares and Caifanes, two prominent Mexican rock en español bands.
César Roel Schreurs, best known as César Costa, is a Mexican actor and rock-and-roll singer.
Transmetal is an extreme metal band formed in Ciudad Azteca, Ecatepec, Mexico in 1987 by brothers Javier, Juan, and Lorenzo Partida. They are known as one of the most important metal bands in Latin America. Their most well known song is "Killers" from the Desear un Funeral EP (1989), which is a cover of French band Killers.
Los Flamers are a Mexican Cumbia band, formed in the mid-1960s by Roberto Eugenio Bueno Campos. They are known for their hits such as "El Chicle", "El Tizón","Juana La Cubana", "Atol de Elote", "Juana La Bailadora", "Viva El Amor", "Mira Mira Mira", "Flamazo Navideño" and "Camarón Pelao". Members of the group include Roberto Bueno, Armando Vazquez, Paco Valerio, Fernando Lopez, Manny Dominguez, Salvador Iglesias, Jose Pacheco, Yoc Pacheco, Sammy Sánchez and David Roman.
Armando Manzanero Canché was a Mexican musician, singer, composer, actor and music producer, widely considered the premier Mexican romantic composer of the postwar era and one of the most successful composers of Latin America. He received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in the United States in 2014. He was the president of the Mexican Society of Authors and Composers.
La Revolución de Emiliano Zapata is a Mexican rock band that broke sales records in Europe and Mexico with their hit song "Nasty Sex" at the height of the counterculture era of the early 1970s. Breaking ties with their original concept as the hippie era waned worldwide by the mid-1970s, they continued actively interpreting romantic ballads with considerable success. In 2009, they returned as a rock act.
The Festival Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro was a historic Mexican rock festival held on September 11–12, 1971, on the shores of Lake Avándaro near the Avándaro Golf Club, in a hamlet called Tenantongo, near the town of Valle de Bravo in the central State of Mexico. The festival, organized by brothers Eduardo and Alfonso Lopez Negrete's company Promotora Go, McCann Erickson executive and sports promoter Justino Compean and Telesistema Mexicano producer Luis de Llano Macedo, took place at the height of La Onda and celebrated life, youth, ecology, music, peace and free love, has been compared to the American Woodstock festival for its psychedelic music, counterculture imagery and artwork, and open drug use. A milestone in the history of Mexican rock music, the festival has drawn anywhere from an estimated 100,000 to 500,000 concertgoers.
Los Horóscopos de Durango were a regional Mexican band. In their first years, they were a grupero band, but they eventually changed to the duranguense style when the genre was becoming mainstream. They eventually switched to banda. In their last years, their live performances were a mixture of the latter two styles.
Los Freddy's were a Mexican musical group, founded in 1962 in Guadalajara, Jalisco.
Los Tucanes De Tijuana are a Mexican norteño band led by Mario Quintero Lara. The band was founded in Tijuana, Baja California in 1987. They, along with Los Tigres del Norte, were pioneers in playing their music in a rougher manner as opposed to the traditional norteño music of northeastern Mexico, subsequently influencing many other norteño artists from Mexico’s pacific states and giving that region of the country its signature norteño sound. During their career, Los Tucanes de Tijuana have garnered several awards and recognitions, including a Latin Grammy in 2012 for the album 365 días, five Grammy Award nominations, nine Lo Nuestro Awards nominations and multiple BMI Awards for Quintero as a composer. They are the first norteño music band to obtain an international film award by winning the Un Certain Regard Angel Film award at the Monaco International Film Festival for their participation in the documentary Los ilegales. In 2008, the group received a star on the Las Vegas Walk of Fame.
Gerardo Horacio López von Linden, known professionally as Cachorro López, is an Argentine record producer, musician and songwriter. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he enrolled in various musical ensembles, including Zas and Los Abuelos de la Nada. López has worked with several artists producing their albums, including Caifanes, Stephanie Salas, Andrés Calamaro, Paulina Rubio, Diego Torres and Miranda!. López also was the executive producer of the tribute album for the English band Queen in 1997. His work has been recognized with two Latin Grammy Awards for Producer of the Year in 2006 and 2009, out of four consecutive nominations, and a Grammy Award for producing Limón y Sal by Julieta Venegas.
Gonzalo de la Torre, better known as "Gonzalo", is a Mexican-American singer, songwriter, director and producer. Gonzalo received singer-songwriter of the year at the 2010 Los Angeles Music Awards and Billboard World Song Contest Honorable Mention.
José Ariel Camacho Barraza was a Mexican musician and singer-songwriter. He predominantly performed regional Mexican music, mainly corridos. He was the lead singer and lead guitarist of his group, Ariel Camacho y Los Plebes del Rancho. In 2013 Ariel Camacho y Los Plebes del Rancho signed to JG Records where they frequently played in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. In 2014 they signed with DEL Records, which allowed them to play their music in the United States.
Jorge Verdin, known professionally as Clorofila, is one of the pioneers of the Nortec (norteño-techno) musical style that originated in Tijuana, Mexico. Clorofila first came to prominence as a member of Tijuana-based music project Nortec Collective, a group formed by various individual producers and performers. He participated on both Nortec Collective albums under his Nortec identity Clorofila. After the break-up of the collective, Verdin recorded and released two solo albums as Clorofila and two as Tremolo Audio, and co-wrote and co-produced an album of atmospheric post-rock with Jose Luis Martin under the name Observador. Verdin has also created music for theatre and sound design under his name.
Psychedelic rock in Latin America is the psychedelic rock music scene in Latin America.
Kenny y los Eléctricos is a rock band founded in 1980 by the singer and band leader Kenny Aviles, who has been called "the mother of Mexican rock". The band started in Los Angeles, where they made their first public appearances under the name Kenny and The Electrics, playing in venues like Whisky a Go Go. They moved back to Mexico in 1980 and went on to be considered an internationally important Mexican rock band, emblematic of Mexican rock in the 1980s.
Mario Quintero Lara is a Mexican musician and philanthropist who is the leader and primary songwriter of the Regional Mexican band Los Tucanes de Tijuana. During his career, he has achieved more than thirty BMI awards, including a Songwriter of the Year award in 1999 and a BMI Presidential Award in 2019.
