Popular Latin tracks.
website- We have compiled a playlist of songs that will definitely warm your soul and give you a warm mood. Our selection includes the most popular performers and groups who have firmly established themselves on the musical Olympus. Often their songs become hits and are played continuously for weeks and even months on all radio stations. Let's remember what songs our idea of hot Latin America consists of.
Julio Iglesias is a Spanish singer who has sold more than 300 million records and became the most commercially successful Spanish-language artist of all time. He recorded most of his songs in his native Spanish, then in English and French.
Sweet-voiced Enrique Iglesias began his career under the pseudonym “Enrique Martinez” so that his father’s fame could not prevent him from developing as an individual performer. Today, Enrique is the most famous representative of Latin American music in the world, and his collection includes many Grammy and American Music Awards statuettes.
Mark Anthony- a popular salsa singer. Anthony is popular both in Latin America and beyond. Known for his lyrical songs and marriage to Jennifer Lopez.
By the way, on our list J-Lo holds a special place, as it does in the hearts of many of her fans around the world. In addition to awards, Lopez was awarded the title of one of the most successful singers of her generation.
Shakira is a Colombian singer and amazing dancer who captivated everyone with her unusual choreography. Widely recognized as the most successful Latin American artist, achieving success in both the Spanish-language and English-language music markets by the early 2000s.
Although Selena Marie Gomez Born in Texas, her roots make themselves felt. She gained popularity by singing songs in English, and hit songs - the girl sings in Spanish.
Puerto Rican pop musician Ricky Martin gave us a real holiday from the TV screens - this is how a resident of a Latin American country can light up and enjoy life.
Gaby Moreno is a singer and songwriter originally from Guatemala. In our playlist she will perform the famous composition Quizás, Quizás, Quizás. The song was written by Cuban songwriter Oswaldo Farres. The first wave of popularity came to the song in 1947.
Juanes is a Colombian pop singer who until 1998 performed as part of the heavy rock band Ekhymosis. The worldwide success of Spanish-language artists such as Shakira and Enrique Iglesias inspired him to record his debut solo album, which in 2000 received three Latin Grammy Awards. In 2005 he conquered all the charts in Europe with the hit “La Camisa Negra”.
Don Omar- performer of songs in the style of reggaeton, winner of the Grammy Award in the Latin American Music category. Don Omar's rise to fame began with the release of his first studio album, The Last Don. Both the studio version and its live release were certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Aventura- a musical group from the Bronx of Dominican origin, performing music in the style of bachata. Aventura is the first group of “bachata boys”, as well as the first group that managed to intertwine styles such as bachata and R&B, hip-hop and pop; The first bachata group performing in English, Spanish and a mixture of these languages.
Natalia Oreiro- Uruguayan actress and singer. She gained fame thanks to her leading female roles in the Argentine TV series “Rich and Famous” and “Wild Angel”.
Alejandro Sanz- Spanish-language singer and composer, winner of 19 Grammy Awards, 3 of which are regular Grammy Awards, and 16 are Latin Grammy Awards.
On November 15, 1989, millions of Soviet people got out of bed and reached for the TV, drawn by magical music. It was Lambada. Old-timers claim that the “Morning” program showed not even a clip in which cheerful people dance fervently on the island of Tagomago, but fresh European fashion. This is not surprising for two reasons: fashion shows are always accompanied by the latest music, and the band Kaoma is French.
“Let the one for whom I cried then cry, let him regret to death the love he trampled underfoot...” What is it? Shorabutsefo. The Portuguese language was a rare bird in Soviet schools, and even now. Therefore, the songs in Portuguese and Spanish that will be discussed are perceived by the average citizen as the language of birds. Perhaps this is why they penetrate the body and soul, bypassing the brain. “Lambada” became the first wave of the Latin music epidemic in the USSR and one of the most powerful. Later it hit us harder and harder, but we are sure: as soon as you hear these songs, your butt starts to shake. Either to the beat, or due to sound vibrations.
In Russia they like to re-sing and remake songs in unknown languages. In the case of “Lambada” - Sveta Svetikova, who did it in 2010 and apparently forgot the details: the cover is very far from the original. And virtuoso guitarist Igor Presnyakov, performing "Lambada", even dressed up in a shirt that matched the look (he always does this) and grew a mustache (he always does this too).
“Lambada” is not an original melody and not the first re-cover. It was first performed by the Bolivians Los Kjarkas on strange pipes in 1981, and over the next eight years it was picked up by 16 different groups.
“Lambada” is a vivid example of the so-called dance fever: simple recognizable movements to certain music make us more united (until that guy from Tambov asks the DJ to play Gangnam Style for the fifteenth time).
Los del Rio - Macarena (1995)
In 1995, two respectable men appeared on television, accompanied by a crowd of young girls in bright clothes, muttering the word “Macarena” into a microphone. And again the dance fever, only the movements are even simpler.
The lyrics are also simple: the song is about a girl named Macarena, who loves to party and loves to dance. The evil genius of Sergei Minaev immediately released a mocking cover - a unique combination of the number of stupid faces in the video and the random enumeration of Spanish words familiar to the Russian ear, which somehow miraculously formed an idiotic plot. The matter did not stop there; someone unknown released a parody of a parody - a composition about Grandma Lena, who had a “knee-deep horseradish” growing in her garden.
Carrapicho - Tic Tic Tac (1996)
No matter how hard honored Latin singers try, no matter how they popularize their culture and origin, groups of the same song still remain in muscle memory. Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias, Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Christina Aguilera - all are good in their own way, but not all of them! Even DJ Mendez, Aventura, Daddy Yankee, Juanes and Papi Sanches came closer to the magical or satanic influence of Tic Tic Tac.
Bellini - Samba de Janeiro (1997)
If you ask Brazilians about this track, they will be very surprised and will say that it has nothing to do with either samba or Rio de Janeiro. And this is not surprising: Bellini are Germans. Do you know who else is Bellini? Ideraldo Luis Bellini, twice world champion in football with the Brazilian national team. Now everything comes together.
Lou Bega - Mambo No. 5 (1999)
This corrosive melody composed by Cuban Damaso Perez Prado in those days when mambos were still numbered - in 1949. Lou Bega simply added the names of all his classmates - and it was a hit!
The dark-skinned macho man with a mustache is, by the way, a German citizen of Italian-Ugandan origin.
Natalia Oreiro - Cambio Dolor (1999)
Unlike Lou Bega, the brave Argentine girl (you have to have some courage to move from Uruguay to Argentina at the age of 16) initially had no radio airplay. It’s just that every day the song “I’m exchanging pain for freedom” was played on RTR twice. Do you remember how you, without stopping, watched the screensaver where our heroine in a translucent white dress wriggles on the linoleum? That's it!
Las Ketchup - Las Ketchup Song (2002)
Song of tomato sauce, better known in our latitudes as “Acereje”. By the way, don’t you make such movements with your hands now: first with scissors, then with your thumbs behind your back, as if pointing at someone, and then with your hands up, opening your armpits, and with your hips like that - ooops? If so, the diagnosis is clear: dance fever. Relapse!
So here it is. This is a song about how the king of parties, Diego, enters a club and the DJ immediately plays his favorite song. And the corrosive chorus of “acereje” is not in Spanish at all. Do you remember “shorabutsefo” and “azigungarunge”? Spaniards can also afford to hear the English words of the 1979 song Rapper's Delight gang The Sugarhill Gang something of their own and sing as they hear. In original:
I said a hip, hop, the hippie to the hippie
The hip-hip-hop, and you don't stop
The rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie
To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat
And back in 2002, there were rumors that the song contained hints of Satanism, and bright-eyed fanatics found a lot of evidence of this. Ridiculous, of course, but the aftertaste remained. This song, like Tic Tic Tac, was sung by Murat Nasyrov. “And the sea, he, ha, ehe, is worried, I know that your wish is about to come true.” Here, perhaps, you can look for signs of Satanism.
Michel Teló - Ai Se Eu Te Pego (2012)
Latin American music took a break for ten long years. And then, destroying everything in its path, Ai Se Eu Te Pego appeared. A song about how a guy at a party liked a girl and he hit on her in an original way. Unfortunately, the Russian translation of this most ingenious pickup line sounds so stupid that it’s even embarrassing to say out loud: “If I could catch you, oh, if I could catch you!”
As usual, Michel did not write himself, but only popularized the 2008 song by authors with typically Brazilian names: Sharon Asioli and Antonio Diggs. As usual, Russian recaps appeared, only now, unlike in previous years, we had broadband Internet, cameras in our phones that take good pictures, and a boundless sense of our own talent. Don’t even look for Russian cover versions on YouTube: you will immediately come across original rhymes (nose, nose, diarrhea pills) and other obscenities.
Following “Nossa”, two more waves swept across Russia, weaker: Flavel and Neto with the composition Eu quero tchu, Eu quero tcha and Munhoz and Mariano - Camaro Amarelo with a song about how expensive beautiful cars help attract the attention of women. However, since then everything has calmed down.
But you need to be vigilant. Right now, program directors of popular radio stations, collaborators of world pop music, are trying to catch a new summer hit that will stick in your head, and it will not be knocked out by anything other than the anti-sanction “Oh God, what a man!”
Of the thirty tracks with the most views on YouTube in the last 24 hours, sixteen are in Spanish. Let's figure out what's going on.
The wild success of “Despacito,” the video for which became the most viewed video in history, turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. Throughout this year, 13 Spanish-language songs have already managed to break into the Billboard Hot 100. For comparison, in 2016, five songs managed to do this, and in 2015, only two.
Latin American music is becoming more and more popular. Why?
Story
What in Russian we call “Latin American music” is actually a shorthand designation for the entire set of musical genres that arose and gained great popularity in the countries of Latin America, Spain and, to a lesser extent, Portugal.
Mambo, rumba, merengue, cumbia, salsa, bossa nova, bachata, candombe - this is not a complete list of trends that have emerged in Latin America and combine European, Indian and African musical cultures in varying proportions.
Although certain genres, artists and compositions have managed to gain popularity in the past (think tango, Julio Iglesias or the Macarena), the first wave of mass success came to Spanish-language music at the turn of the millennium - with Shakira, Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias, Paulina Rubio, Alejandro Sansom and Natalia Oreiro.
Despacito effect
The biggest song of 2017 spent 16 weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, tying the record of Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men's "One Sweet Day." The music video collected 4 billion 431 million views in 11 months ( At the time of publication, the clip already had about 433 million views. - approx. ed.), becoming the most viewed video in history.
It seems that the success of “Despacito” has broken through the wall: this year, 13 compositions in Spanish were able to enter the Hot 100 - two years ago there were two such songs. J Balvin's hit "Mi Gente" reached number three (the last time two non-English songs were simultaneously in the top 10 was 1963). In the summer of 2017, 7 Latin American songs were included in the top thirty most popular tracks of the summer on Spotify, which has never happened before.
Neither Luis Fonsi nor Daddy Yankee can be described as “breakthrough”: both recorded their first albums back in the nineties. The popularity of “Despacito” is explained not only by the purely musical features of the track, but also by a number of objective factors.
Spanish is the fourth most spoken language in the world
Language is an important factor shaping markets.
In terms of the number of native speakers, Spanish (436 million) ranks second after Chinese (897 million). In total, 527 million Spanish speakers are the fourth highest number after Chinese, English and Hindi. This number is constantly growing and the market is gradually expanding.
Who, if not Spanish-speaking musicians, should try to challenge the hegemony of the English language? India and China are clearly not ready yet.
Latin Americanization of the USA
However, perhaps more important is the fact that the Hispanic population is increasing in the United States, the center of world popular culture.
While Donald Trump is trying to fence himself off from Mexico with a wall, interest in Latin American culture is growing within his country - not least because more than 40 million Spanish speakers (12-13% of the population) already live in the United States. 47% of New Mexico residents call Spanish their native language, in California and Texas the figure reaches 38%.
Moreover, there is a region within the United States where more than 90% speak Spanish - Puerto Rico. This is a unique point where Latin American culture is combined with direct access to the North American market. This is where Ricky Martin and this year's heroes Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee come from.
A 2015 study found that the typical Hispanic person in the United States spends $135 on music (going to concerts, buying albums) annually, which is 30% more than the national average. These numbers are gearing the music business toward the Spanish-speaking market.
Globalization and streaming services
In a world where music was distributed on records, "Despacito" would never have become a worldwide hit. However, in the world of the Internet, the listener gets instant access to new releases through social networks, YouTube and streaming services.
The president of Universal Music Latin America says the company has released at least four global hits in Spanish since the early 2000s, including Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina" and Enrique Iglesias' "Bailando." None of them had the opportunity to spread around the world at the speed of “Despacito” or “Mi Gente”: the point is precisely in streaming resources.
The share of Internet users in Latin American countries has increased from 36 to 55 percent over 6 years and continues to grow. Mexico and Brazil are in the top 4 for total streams on Spotify. Playlist "Baila Reggaeton"("Dance Reggaeton") ranks third in global plays, and in July, genre veteran Daddy Yankee became the most streamed artist on Spotify (44.7 million monthly listeners), overtaking Ed Sheeran.
Globalization is causing world music trends to become increasingly synchronized. Reggaeton is listened to not only in San Juan, Madrid and Miami, but also in Berlin, Singapore, and Moscow. Of the thirty tracks with the most views on YouTube in the last 24 hours, sixteen are in Spanish.
Future
If earlier Ricky Martin or Enrique Iglesias were forced to sing in English in order to enter the international market, now Justin Bieber is trying to switch to Spanish (it’s not working out well live yet), and Ed Sheeran releases the original “Shape of You” on the same day as a special "Latin American" version from Zion & Lennox.
As American artists race to record a feature with a Spanish speaker, listeners are wondering which song will be the next "Despacito."
