Spanish-Language Tunes to Elevate your Language Acquisition (and Your Mood)

Exploring & Learning
Written By Ramona Field
Best of Spanish-Language Music
 

Music is a universal language, much like math and science, and is arguably the most emblematic and transcending feature of language and culture. While having some cultural context or linguistic background can be helpful, you don’t need to pull out Google Translate to be able to enjoy tunes in a different language. Listening to music in the language that you are learning is an excellent tool for improving your fluency as well as for expanding your inherent understanding of the cultural and linguistic variation within that language.

Spanish-language music encompasses everything from regional folk and classic Caribbean rhythms all the way to modern club hits and electronic beats. Use this non-exhaustive compilation of genres and artists as a broad introduction to the widely diversified range of Spanish-language music. Start with a genre that you are familiar with or enjoy already and then try out a genre that might be new to you - with variety as wide as this, there is sure to be something for everyone!

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Regional Mexican

Just as it sounds, this genre encompasses various sub-genres that are all local to the regions of Mexico and the southwestern and midwestern United States. It’s what you might hear when scrolling through FM radio stations and find a Spanish-language channel. Some of the most common sub-genres include banda, duranguense, cumbia, tejano, norteño, and mariachi. Many of these sub-genres share in the themes of emotion-filled lyrics and use of instruments such as brass horns, drum sets, guitars, violins, and accordions. The best part about this music is how it connects the United States and Mexico. Many of the artists and hit songs are the same in Mexico as in the U.S. - hearing the same music on the radio cross-border has a way of welcoming and grounding travelers going from Mexico to the U.S. and vice versa.

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Cumbia

Cumbia is best known for its heavy percussion variety that keeps the dancing beat along with keyboards, horns, synthesizers for added harmonies and melodies, and layered sounds. This unique, yet widespread, genre has intertwining roots from Africa, Amerindia, and Spanish cultures beginning in Colombia in the 17th century. At its inception, cumbia music, with its iconic double beat, was used as a backdrop to sensual courtship dancing. Cumbia gained Pan-American popularity in the 20th century with nearly every region of the Spanish-speaking Americas adapting their own style of cumbia. Modern cumbia has been integrated into many other genres and heard all over the world. Sharing many similarities to South American salsa and samba music, cumbia is, arguably, most familiar to Mexican artists in its present form.

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Bolero

Bolero music is mild, easy listening with slow-moving beats and lyrics heavy with nostalgia and romance. With roots originating in Cuba in the late 19th century, bolero dancing is a fusion of Latin ballroom dances and shares many similarities with waltz and tango. Bolero instruments, at a minimum, consist of guitars and vocals, but oftentimes are far more ornate with accompaniments from piano and even full symphonic orchestras. This genre quickly became popular throughout Latin America, particularly in Puerto Rico and Mexico, and is often included under the umbrella of regional Mexican music. While the songs of this genre often seem, well, “classic”, with their nostalgic sound, there are many contemporary artists giving bolero a modern reinvention.

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Salsa, Merengue, Bachata

These genres are often recognized together as they originate in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and feature many of the same stylistic elements and instruments. Salsa and merengue songs are characterized by a heavy percussion section used to create the dance beat (bongos, claves, güiras, timbales, maracas, and cowbells), accessorized with trumpets, saxophones, accordion, and piano. Both Salsa and merengue have jazz-style elements that influence the overall feel, and both genres are often improvised live in true jazz fashion. Differing from these lively, quick-paced genres is slow and sensual bachata with its romantic lyrics, guitars, hand drums, and accessory percussion instruments that maintain the dance beat. Like reggaetón, bachata is shaped with heavy African and Caribbean island beats and has syncopated rhythms, minor tonalities, and a dedicated dance step in common with salsa and merengue.

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Tango

Tango is a melting pot of various European dance influences. Its telltale bandoneón accompanies violins, flutes, and piano, while other instruments may include guitars and percussion. Because of its many borrowed styles, one can easily listen to instrumental tango and hear familiar beats such as those from flamenco and polka, along with general classical undertones. It originated in areas of Argentina and Uruguay among African and European populations in the early 1900s. While tango’s golden age was mid-century, its popularity spanned the decades to produce modern-day subgenres including electro-tango and neotango, both of which offer fresh and relevant variations.

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Andean Folk

Andean folk music originates from the indigenous peoples of the Andes region in South America (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile, and some parts of Argentina). The instruments that characterize Andean folk music consist of different panpipes, flutes, drums, and stringed instruments, many of them with ancient origins that create unique sounds rarely heard in mainstream music today. Andean folk music is usually heavily or entirely instrumental with few vocals, though when vocals are present, they are often in indigenous languages, such as Quechua and Aymara. The sounds and instruments of traditional Andean folk music gave inspiration to the “Nueva Canción” movement, a pro-democracy musical genre that was the soundtrack to many social and political upheavals of the 1960s and 70s throughout Latin America.

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Pop, Rock, Alternative

Spanish-language rock was introduced to Mexico in the sixties alongside the height of rock and roll in the United States. Many popular English-language rock songs were covered and remixed into Spanish versions, and thus served as a springboard for fanatic musicians to grow and shape the genre with Latin influences. Similar to English, Spanish-language rock is known for heavy drums, electric guitars, fast tempos and intense vocals. Spanish-language pop and alternative genres often have electric and/or synthesized melodies, progressive lyrics, and varying musical structures. As the number of Spanish-speakers increases in the United States, so does the popularity of Spanish-language music. Many well-known English-speaking artists have collaborated with Spanish-language singers and songwriters in related genres to create chart-topping hits (Justin Beiber and Luis Fonsi, Shakira and Wyclef Jean, J Balvin and Beyonce, to name a few).

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Singer-Songwriter

Spanish-language singer-songwriters are plentiful, especially considering the many different genres and styles from which they hail. Rich in vocal lyricism, instrumental talents, and thoughtfully penned lines, singer-songwriters showcase the complexities of composing, and Spanish-language singer-songwriters accomplish this while also bringing forth their rich regional music traditions.

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Latin Urban Music

Latin Urban Music is an overarching genre including reggaetón, trap, rap, and hip hop, among other popular influences. Reggaetón is a unique style that saw its beginnings when Jamaican immigrants made their way to South America for work and brought reggae beats with them. A few decades and several different artist interpretations later, we have the ever-popular genre quickly enamored listeners from all walks of life. Almost all reggaetón music is carried by the “dembow” beat, a syncopated 3-part and quick moving beat characteristic of many types of island music. Contemporary Latin Urban Music has seen the evolution of reggaetón, incorporating many other genres, including rap, hip hop, and latin trap (a subgenre of southern hip hop originating in Puerto Rico). This fusion of so many influential genres grants Latin Urban Music global popularity and creates a familiar and universal language for many through its beats, movement, and language.

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Electronic Dance Music (EDM)

Electronic Dance Music, regardless of language, will have strong drum beats and bass lines accompanied by synthesizers and keyboards. Vocals in the genre are often curated hybrids from various other styles and genres. Music festivals and the party scene on the island of Ibiza in the 1980s sparked the electronic movement in Spain with visitors from all over the world bringing their music tastes and influences with them and popularizing EDM worldwide. While you might think of “house” and “techno”, EDM is a gigantic umbrella of genres and constantly forming subgenres, where artists from all walks of life collaborate and create. Latinx DJs, producers, and singers are often creative masterminds or muses for many of today’s top dance hits and inventive grooves.

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With inspiration pulling from all corners of the world, it is no wonder that Spanish-language music draws in such a diverse array of listeners. Unique instruments such as the pan flute or bandoneón, or the collection of percussion accessories, make certain genres easily identifiable, while other genres are recognizable by their corresponding dance steps. Whether your preference is easy-going instrumentals or modern dance-inspiring club beats, there is surely a match for you under the gigantic and colorful umbrella of Spanish-language music. Whether passively listening for enjoyment or actively listening to learn, music is one of the best (and most fun) ways to create an immersion-based learning experience from just about anywhere (explore more info on best practices for immersion learning from home). When you find a genre or song that speaks to you, be sure to pull up a copy of the lyrics and sing along with the artists to help with pronunciation and speech patterns.

No matter where you are in your language-learning journey, listening to music in that language is an excellent supplement to other learning methods and materials. Not only can rhythm and lyrics improve your linguistic knowledge, but music itself can provide a deeper cultural connection and understanding, leading to even more opportunities for you to build authentic relationships in the learning process. But enough reading already…open up your favorite streaming app and let the listening begin!







Ramona Field
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