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Dva
Just imagine all that shit dumped in your mind. You were a kid who had little to no interest in music until the late '90s, when you started to care about music videos. They gave you new stuff to watch when you get tired of cartoons or kid oriented live action. They got you much to think about. And then all of a sudden you have an English music influx, that you were not privy about due to how often local radio and your MTV opted not to play them.

You may ask yourself at this point why I don't get that much music in Spanish, but it is not that I have some complex against my native language. It is just that too often Latin America does not give a fuck about those genres I care about. Most of their Post-punk bands came and went with the '80s. Some changed their direction with the '90s to appeal to their young fans who were more into Alternative Rock than the dated sound Post-punk brought you.

I can't think about any noteworthy New Wave artist. We might have a couple of songs that are made with the style but no artists into that genre. I often wonder how the hell did our kids in the late '70s and '80s coped with their scenes. Your record stores only carried the known and ever liked classic rock and heavy metal albums. What about punk? I often wonder how they even got into those when your niche was limited if you cared about English music.

They had your work cut out for you if you liked English music, that is all "rock." You might have met a person who liked other genres like jazz or rap but good luck finding any in Latin America where the emphasis is pop and rock. Don't get me started in electronic music. It may have had a better chance with being stocked, but you may as well special order it where your record store gave you weird looks if you asked for anything that is not very huge.

That is why I feel we are lucky to have grown up in the '90s, when it comes to any English music that got outside the pop / rock binary. Bands like Nirvana and Depeche Mode made the record stores carry more niche genres. You may have been able to stock Depeche Mode in our record stores if they are lucky enough to reach your country or be heard in the radio, but punk inspired artists like Nirvana were few and far in between outside the local post-punk artists we had.

Spain was much lucky in this regard since the late '70s. They not only had local post-punk and new wave artists which were more than ours, they could also import many in English and other languages if they felt inclined. As being close to other European countries who were into this kind of music made it easier. Perhaps this is exactly why almost all the Spanish music in my files are from Spain. I don't care much for Latin American post-punk and every other imitation.

The only Latin American band I feel strongly about is Moenia. They are from Mexico but the impact they had in the '90s electronic scene in their country is well known. I dare anyone to name another Synthpop band from Latin America that are popular in the '90s. Go on, what else is there? Even the few electronic bands from Spain that reached Latin America in sold out concerts and albums were more New Wave and Pop than Synthpop. Mecano were fairly known in my country.

But they were only Synthpop and New Romantic until 1985. Their old style of music is never well liked in Latin America. We prefer shitty pop and rock groups, that rip off ideas from English speaking artists because as long as they don't sing in Spanish, they are not going to be good enough for the general public. This not only apply to English music but as well as Portuguese music which no doubt stayed behind in Brazil, because you can't for the life of you name any.

Do I look like I can name a Bossa Nova or Tropicalia artist? I would have to look the name up online to give you an answer. It is shit like this that reminds me what it was like for the Eastern Bloc to get any western music in the years of the Iron Curtain. Except we have only ourselves to blame at being closed minded prissy bitches, rather than the mean higher ups in charge who had an embargo going. I have only myself to blame as well, because I was closed minded once.

What was the first Spanish CD I bought? It was "¿Dónde Jugarán las Niñas?". As a child the novelty value of a band that had explicit lyrics was too hard to pass up. Molotov were all too smart to beat several Latin American bands to the idea of making them. If they are not the first, they are the most well known. Wrap your head around that for now. The very idea of explicit lyrics in music was new to Latin America, when other continents have done this shit for many years.

That is how short handed Latin America was for new ideas between the '70s and '80s. It was not until a foul mouthed Mexican band became popular, that we grasped the very concept you could swear in music and make it sell to easily to kids and adults who enjoyed hearing bad words in their own language. You have to give them credit where it is due, it not only got our people more open minded, but their old songs are catchy as hell. I don't like them now but they were unique.

Their first album was filled with lavish art in the lyrics booklet. They were a band which made you proud to pay about $12 in your currency to own their album. Their videos were new to me because they were among the first videos I saw, that used the medium to tell a story or give you a concept, rather than watch the band play. I used to think back then that any song in their album had their own video. Not only for this band but each band. I found out the truth the hard way.

Another thing that I admire about this band is that they also included a few English songs in their debut album. I don't know if this is carried on to the second album, which I also bought at that time, but it was a bold move. I did not like the English ones as much being unable to follow them. But now that I'm older I realize how odd it was to include any when the band sold first on the emphasis in lyrics. Maybe having an American born member in the band was the main reason.

I don't regret owning this as my first Spanish album, but I think it opened some doors and closed others at the same time with my growing taste. Molotov were not just the only Latin American band I took seriously as a kid, but the only music in Spanish that I would listen to for many years to come. I could have perhaps given a chance to Moenia when their videos were shown often in MTV. It is hard on me to come by their albums where I live and I would like to own my favorites.

"Adición" is the best record natively in Spanish. If I had to pick only one album to prove that not all music in my native language is shit, it would be just that one. It would take me many years to think and even remember Moenia. I did not give their music a chance until 2012 or so when I started to play their songs in Turntable fm. It would also take an extra year for me to warm up to my native language. I had a love / hate relationship with it due to being bullied in school.