Breaking Down
Regional
Mexican
Music
The overarching term includes dozens of wide-ranging musical subgenres that originated across Mexico and in the Southwestern United States. We look at the artists who helped define an entire region’s sound.
Read more about the resurgence of conjunto music in the Rio Grande Valley 
By Cat Cardenas
Regional Mexican music is in the midst of a renaissance. While reggaeton has been the dominant force driving Latin music trends for the last decade, over the last few years, Mexican and Mexican-American acts like Peso Pluma, Christian Nodal, Yahritza y Su Esencia, and the Rio Grande Valley’s own Grupo Frontera have infiltrated the mainstream, broken streaming records, and performed on global stages, ushering in the “Regional Mexican Boom.” But what exactly is regional Mexican music?
The term acts as a catch-all for the dozens of wide-ranging musical subgenres that originated across Mexico and into the United States. It includes long-standing styles like corridos, rancheras, and boleros, as well as the fusion-heavy subgenres that originated in Mexican-American communities, like Tejano and conjunto. In this new era of Latin music, chart-topping songs might feature charchetas (alto horn), tololoches (double bass), accordion, or guitarrón—instruments that have been a part of Mexican music for more than a century. Today’s artists are continuing these musical traditions, introducing them to new generations, and making them their own.
Banda
Bolero
Conjunto
Corridos
Norteño
Ranchera
Tejano
Banda
Taking a cue from the popularity of military brass bands and the polka music of Mexico’s German immigrants, musicians in the mid-19th century developed their own “bandas” with wind, brass, and percussion instruments. Though the arrangements varied slightly from state to state, by the 1890s, Sinaloa’s brass bandas began to dominate the genre, popularizing a setup that featured clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and sousaphone or tuba players. For decades, Sinaloa’s signature genre spread throughout neighboring states, before exploding in popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s. With its upbeat melodies and boisterous brass sound, banda music has remained a fixture of Mexican celebrations and festivals.
Eras of popularity
1950s, 1990s-2000s
Signature instruments
Trumpet, charcheta, trombone, tuba
Region of Origin
Sinaloa, Mexico
Banda el Recodo
“Y Llegaste Tú”
Te Presumo
Watch on YouTube
Originally established in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, in 1938, Banda el Recodo is recognized as “The Mother of All Bandas” due to their role in popularizing the genre. The 17-piece ensemble is currently under the direction of Luis Alfonso Lizárraga, the son of founding bandleader Cruz Lizárraga.
Jenni Rivera
“Mariposa de Barrio”
Mi Vida Loca
Watch on YouTube
Known as “La Diva de la Banda,” Jenni Rivera won over audiences with her formidable vocals and confessional songwriting, becoming the highest-earning banda singer of all time with more than 15 million records sold worldwide.
Bolero
Originating in Santiago de Cuba, the first bolero was credited to songwriter José “Pepe” Sánchez for his 1883 composition, “Tristezas.” The song style is characterized by tender lyrics about love and heartbreak, dulcet harmonies, and the accompaniment of acoustic guitars. Popularized by traveling musicians, the bolero spread from Cuba throughout the Caribbean and into Mexico’s Yucatán in the 1920s. There, musicians began introducing instruments more closely associated with mariachi, namely the requinto guitar, along with trumpets and trombones. Thanks in part to the bolero’s use in films during Mexico’s Golden Age of Cinema, it dominated radio from the ’30s into the ’50s, spreading to other Latin American countries and into the U.S.
Eras of popularity
1930s-1950s, 1990s
Signature instruments
Requinto guitar
Region of Origin
Cuba
Pedro Infante
“Cien Años”
15 Inmortales
Watch on YouTube
An icon of the screen at the height of Mexico’s Golden Age of Cinema, Pedro Infante also recorded more than 350 songs throughout his life before his untimely death in a plane crash in 1957.
Paquita la del Barrio
“Rata De Dos Patas”
Taco Placero
Watch on YouTube
Though she was also known for singing rancheras, Paquita la del Barrio (Paquita “from the neighborhood”) broke barriers for women in Mexican music, becoming popular with songs that took on the country’s sexist, machista attitudes. One of her best-known songs, “Rata de dos patas” compares an ex to a rat, among other types of vermin.
Conjunto
A product of the Texas-Mexico borderlands, the term “conjunto” literally translates to a small ensemble, or a band. Borrowing from long-established styles like rancheras, polkas, and corridos, conjunto is characterized by its trademark combination of the bajo sexto and the accordion — the “star” of conjunto arrangements. During its rise to fame in the 1940s, conjunto was seen as the antithesis of orquesta (orchestra) music, which catered to high-society. In the book The Texas-Mexican Conjunto: History of a Working-Class Music by Manuel Peña, Narciso Martínez, the “father” of the genre, is quoted as saying, “Conjunto era pa’ la gente pobre, la gente de rancho.” (Conjunto was for poor people, rural people.)
Era of popularity
1940s-1980s
Signature instruments
Accordion, bajo sexto
Region of Origin
South Texas
