The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Mariachi in Modern Music

Mariachi’s cultural influence, musical fusions, and missteps

PART ONE: MI HISTORIA

It was a New Music Friday like any other. You know the drill: mindlessly scrolling through the list until something catches your attention. Father John Misty released Greatish Hits: I Followed My Dreams and My Dreams Said to Crawl on July 31. I hadn’t listened to FJM in earnest before. Looking back, I’m not sure how I missed him. I am a huge Fleet Foxes fan and was otherwise neck-deep in the sound of the era: Band of Horses, Manchester Orchestra, etc. That moment was as good as ever to find out what FJM was about. Before I knew it, I was dancing in my kitchen. “Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins)” came on and it felt like I was hearing my new favorite song for the first time. I stopped what I was doing, closed my eyes, and went to my happy place.

At the end of my first listen, I asked the universe to deliver me a love that sounds and feels like this: quirky, fun, earnest, honest, filled with mariachis, and like a slow-trotting summer day.

Some of my best memories are at family parties in my hometown, with cousins running around while our parents and uncles drank and told stories about their own youthful adventures. Oftentimes, the soundtrack of the night was old school hip-hop or rancheras. I still laugh when I think about my college graduation party date beating out my other cousin’s date because my party booked mariachis! 

In an interview with GQ FJM’s wife Emma questioned his desire to add mariachis to “Chateau Lobby”. She didn’t specify why she thought it was a bad idea, but my best guess was she was trying to save her man from embarrassing himself. In a separate interview with Grantland, Father John Misty says, “‘Chateau Lobby’ is about Emma and I running around L.A. when we first met. This mariachi band [on the song] is part of the atmosphere here in L.A. You just hear it in the air.” While I didn’t grow up in Los Angeles, the city was never too far away, nor was the storied connection LA has with Mexican-American culture and mariachi specifically. I felt personally connected to FJM’s relationship with the city and why he felt compelled to include mariachi in this song.

Father John Misty is but one of a long line of non-Mexican men including mariachi in their work. For musicians and artists like FJM, this inclusion is perceived as “cool”, “cultured”, “edgy”, even “funny.” For Mexican listeners, more often than not, it ends up being the musical equivalent of “my culture is not your costume.”

PART TWO: LO BUENO, LO MALO, Y LO FEO

Lo Bueno: The Good

Mariachi music originated in west-central Mexico in the late 1700s or early 1800s, though its exact history and the etymology of the word are unclear. Contemporary mariachi features instruments like the vihuela, guitarrón, acoustic guitar, violins, and trumpets, with vocal performances becoming common over time. Much of mariachi is in the 3/4 or 6/8 time signatures, uncommon in pop music. Maybe that’s why, even when the songs are sad, I can’t help but head bang and dance to them.

Let’s start with the King of Ranchera, Vicente Fernández, and his legendary “Volver Volver.” It’s required listening in Mexican households.

He kicks off the song with an iconic grito, and you can hear how down bad this man is. Text painting is effectively used through the word "volver," meaning "to return." The music composition mirrors the cyclical nature of the word and the theme of returning in both a physical and emotional sense. Mariachi is a treasure for its theatrical emotional expressions. You can hear his pain and desperation in every note.

Linda Ronstadt in both her live and recorded performances of “La Charreada” demonstrates the core vocal characteristics of the genre: sustained vibratos, theatrical expressions particularly on specific words, and an ever-impressive ability to project and sing to the back of the room and over the ensemble behind her.

While mariachi, as a specific subcategory of the ranchera genre, is known for mostly romantic lyrics and sentiments, the music’s diversity extends to party anthems like “Mariachi Loco”. Dare you not to dance.

Like “Volver Volver,” this song repeats its lines—“The crazy mariachi wants to dance; the crazy mariachi wants to sing”—but instead of deep emotion, it’s all about creating a chant everyone can sing — even the no sabo kids among us.

Lo Malo: the Bad

Linda Ronstadt and no sabo kids share that feeling of being “not Mexican enough for the Mexicans, not American enough for the Americans,” as oft quoted in Selena (1997). But she embraced it, blending genres across her career, from pop to country to mariachi. Her album Canciones de Mi Padre (1987) was described as “an education, as songs span genres from huapangos to sones huastecos, corridos to rancheras, feminine confessions to macho boasts” but all generally within the parent genre of “Regional Mexican.” Modern artists paying tribute to their Mexican heritage (or admiration for it) are similarly unrestrained by their primary genre, blending traditional and modern sounds in unique ways.

The “bad” here isn’t truly bad—it’s just not traditional. The next few tracks showcase how artists have used mariachi as inspiration to push their visions forward:

Even if it’s not your usual vibe, you can feel the appreciation throughout these tracks. Whether it be honoring a band member’s heritage or building upon an already genre-bending catalog, they each use the horns to great effect and keep the heart-pumping tempos and emotionality. 

Lo Feo: the Ugly

One of the worst offenders of using culture as a costume, Elvis Presley, butchered the beloved mariachi classic “Guadalajara” in the controversial Fun in Acapulco (1963). Not even getting into the foul things he said about Mexicans, I’m mostly drawing attention to all the things he couldn’t say — not a single bit of the lyrics.

Then we have Train, leaders of the “songs you’ll hear every day if you go to Hell” club. Not only did they gift us with “Hey, Soul Sister,” but they also gave us “50 Ways to Say Goodbye.” One of which being the obvious “Adios MF”.

Finally, “War” by ArrDee presented without comment.

IN CONCLUSION

Artists across genres incorporate mariachi sounds into their music, whether as homage or for its aesthetic. While this can expose the tradition to new audiences, it's essential to respect its deep cultural significance. Mariachi is a centuries-old art form, carrying emotional weight and identity for Mexican and Mexican-American communities.

At first, this started as a cute little playlist to deep dive into one of my favorite genres. I rediscovered old gems, found some new music, and uncovered some incredibly bad songs along the way. The playlist is chunked and organized in three parts:

1. What mariachi is supposed to sound like (classics and newer releases)

2. What mariachi could sound like when blended well with other genres

3. The offenders