Allison. Zoé. Motel. Panda. Novel:
The newest trend in Mexican music is dominated by young bands with one-word names and a style reminiscent of Anglo pop-punk and alternative rock. Major labels are adapting to a movement fueled by video and the Internet to a degree not seen before in Mexico.
Unlike Mexican rock pioneers Maná and Café Tacuba, which incorporate Latin elements in their music, the new groups are young enough to have grown up on and still be in the target audience of MTV. Borrowing from Anglo groups is not new in Mexico, but this time the sound is heavily influenced by pop-punk bands like Blink-182 and Green Day.
One band, EMI's Zoé, also draws on British groups that would land on alternative rock stations in the United States, like the Cure. "I guess the statement of doing music with some Mexican element, it went away," says Camilo Lara, managing director of EMI Music Mexico.
Four of the nominees in the breakthrough artist category at this year's Premios MTV Latinoamérica—Allison, Zoé, Motel and Panda—are in the new Mexican rock genre. Another leader in the style, Universal's División Minúscula, is nominated in the alternative artist category. All five of those bands have had top 10 albums on the Mexican charts.
"They're very video-driven," says José Tillán, senior VP of music and talent for MTV Networks Latin America and MTV Tr3s, the bilingual U.S. channel which launched Sept. 25. "It's kind of funny for them to see themselves on the channel they actually watch as a reference point for music."
A few of the Mexican bands have fans in other Latin countries, but the movement "is in the infancy stage," Tillán says. "The strategy for a lot of labels is you first have to blow it up in your territory before you start to get your record launched in other places." Though acts enjoy radio support in Mexico, sites like MySpace and MTV's LaZona.com are allowing Mexican bands to absorb outside influences and get their sound out in a new way.
Sony BMG U.S. Latin VP/ GM Ruben Leyva, whose label roster includes Allison, is counting on the band's MySpace popularity to flow stateside, too. "They have a huge MySpace following in Mexico, and [it's] starting to develop here as well," Leyva says. (Allison has more than 24,000 "friends" linked to its profile.)
Mexican radio stations whose signals reach into U.S. border towns can provide some early exposure, but "I'm waiting for these bands to become a little more crossover," says Nestor Rocha, VP of programming for Entravision, which operates the Super Estrella top 40 network in the States.
Even with MTV Tr3s, mun2 and online buzz, radio and touring will still have to play their parts in establishing a fan base in the United States. For now, Allison is gearing up for a possible run of shows in Texas and the West Coast.
There's also the question of whether young Latinos in the United States who have already heard a lot of power-pop in English will want to hear it again in Spanish. "I venture to say that a kid who has a Molotov record or a Café Tacuba record will probably also have a record by Rage Against the Machine or Beck," Tillán says. "So maybe based on that philosophy, the kid who has a Blink-182 [album] might buy an Allison record if they discover it.
I think it's really about how you are reaching this audience and having a conduit to expose new talent and new music."
