Mexico exudes a rich culture of time-honored traditions and beliefs which incorporate music and dance to showcase these elements. The corrido or ballad is one such genre of music where melodies have inundated the country for over a century, yet in a distorted version, continues to remain popular today. Moreover, these corridos have allowed migrants and individuals possessing the Mexican ethnicity to connect to their heritage from abroad by sharing the music unique to a culture (Madrid 2013, 92). The tones of the songs remain marginally unchanged; however, the musical lyrics, have continually evolved alongside the embracing culture.
The traditional Mexican corrido was a culmination of styles which migrated to the Latin nation. Particularly,
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Moreover, author Alejandro Madrid demonstrates the strength to this point, through a personal story involving his proud norteno grandfather who admires Pancho Villa. Madrid wants to impress his grandfather and buys the elder a banda style record about Pancho Villa. In turn, the grandfather responds that he has no place for banda music in his house (Madrid 2013, 92). Even though the regional identity remains strong, both brands of corrido were able to adjust according to the crowd. With banda, each state could add their own identifiable trait to the music to provide for their musical taste. Likewise, nortena bands were likely to adopted polka songs as part of their fashion, thus appealing to a wider audience (Madrid 2013, 81, 92). While the music was flexible to popular trends and grew the appeal by audiences, the song lyrics also played a major role in increasing …show more content…
Civil discourse spread across the Latin American nation, leading to significant bloodshed from plenty of hard fought battles. Emerging as the top figurehead of the revolution, northern revolutionary General Francisco “Pancho” Villa, was a primary advocate of bringing change to Mexico by attempting to redistribute the nation’s land from the country’s elitists. With factions of men by his side, Pancho Villa rode across the countryside winning many great victories. Stories of his triumphs and his reputation of being invincible quickly spread across the northern region of Mexico where Villa had lived, generating a sense of pride amongst the people (Katz and Marak 2000, 605). Over time, songs began to materialize from the northern Mexican states, touting the conquests and glory of Pancho Villa. Many of these songs were in the style of