Putting the "Rock en Español" subject to rest.

Some people have asked my opinion about the future of Spanish Rock or Rock En Español...
And to me this is such a complex subject, that I'd rather not answer, but I'll try.

The reason I'm reluctant is because few people understand the dynamics of how music genres come to be, how they reach popularity and their life cycle in the market, so when I tell them what I think, they tend to disagree. This fact is mainly due to their infatuation with the songs that helped them get through their times of joy and/or need during their emotional teenage years or even through adulthood. The truth is that by the time the bands that create the music become commercial successes they are mostly tired of the songs that got 'em there and want to create something new that will help push them forward into the next music craze. Still, there are those happy becoming one-hit-wonders, thinking that once they become famous with that one song, they'll be set for life. But the overall sentiment is that most don't want to stop getting attention from the public or support from major labels when they're no longer viable. There's no way around it, people create the demand, the bands respond by supplying it and the machine of commercialism delivers it.

Rock En Español is a byproduct of the public's fascination with Rock N' Roll. Born in the US and popularized during the fifties, people of Hispanic roots in the US were singing covers in English while their Latin American counterparts were making Spanish adaptations of their favorite tunes. A huge hit through the sixties and with the influence of British bands it went through diverse changes. By the late 70's it morphed into the early beginnings of true Spanish Rock, still based directly on the sound found in American and British music and the Rock en Español name was coined. But it was during the mid to late eighties when a great amount of bands from Spain, Argentina and México flooded the market, that the Rock en Español movement grew exponentially, turning it into a mainstream success in Latin America and it soon became widely accepted around the world, establishing itself as a bonafide music genre.

The lot of bands that propelled the true Rock en Español movement have all but disappeared but the very few that remain are able to survive from the gigs they manage to scrounge by still capitalizing on the remains of their success and the faint memory of their time as chart-toppers. Most of them seeing very little to no money from the royalties generated by the copious amounts of re-issues and compilations that get constantly puked out by the major labels and their licensees. Artists like Los Enanitos Verdes, Los Hombres G, Soda Estéreo, Caifánes and Héroes del Silencio have all enjoyed longevity, some in new iterations or as a simple rehashing of what they once were, devised by their singers or once leading front-men, a few others like Cafe Tacvba are fortunate enough to keep putting out new music to loyal fans who still buy it and very few of those, considered them pioneers are plain and simply kept alive by the fans whho think they are worth catching when the next gig comes to town.

The point is that Rock en Español, as it is known today; is what most people use to refer to the music of the late 80's and ealry 90's that had its time and now it is gone. New bands and artists with a new take on the genre surfaced in the mid 90's,  including metal, death metal, goth and so forth and changing the face of the Spanish-speaking music world even more. Today, there are so many artists making their own iterations and derivatives of this kind of music that I've lost count. Not to mention the artists from Spain and other European countries like Italia and England, still making Rock and Pop music in Spanish as well, so I guess there seems to be no end in sight for what Rock en Español represents or where it's going. Many people today still hold on to the memory of the Rock en Español music and the bands from the late 80's or early 90's so much that many night clubs and music venues still play the old songs and new bands fashion their music and themselves after them. But to me, that music is a memory. Who knows what the future holds for Spanish Rock music, but what I do know is that there's a lot of new talent out there and that's what it's all about. Who will be the band to set a new trend or what will the next evolution of Rock en Español sound like? The stage is set and I'm ready to find out.