Bloque

Bloque

Thoroughly Mixed Mezcla

Latin music changed radically in the 1990s. After decades of tame attempts at pop assimilation—see the Miami Sound Machine et al.—there came a generation of artists raised intent on mezcla, the ad hoc mixing sounds and styles inspired by American hip-hop. These musicians had deep traditional roots (Bloque's core members backed Colombian pop vallenato star Carlos Vives) and wide musical curiosities, and, while proud of their heritages, they were selective about showing it. Many felt let down by previous generations: Bloque leader Ivan Benavides once explained that Bloque grew out of "the immense black hole that was created by the media revolution in the '60s, when Colombian people forgot to create their own modern music while they were busy trying to learn how to dance to the sound of the . . . Beach Boys."

The eight-piece Bloque was among the most ambitious of this rogue wave, which included bands like Colombia's Aterciopelados and Mexico's Los de Abajo and others grouped under the classification "rock en español." On this high-octane international debut, Bloque definitely rocks, in a rainbow of ways—sometimes its pulse has a heavily Brazilian feel, and sometimes the beat is looser and more psychedelic, like Santana on a mushroom high. The songs are real songs, not repetitive vamps, and many reach a peak when guitarist Ernesto Ocampo, a student of heavy metal, steps up to solo. Moods change radically from song to song: The album offers jolly limbo-line dances, sultry son montuno rhythms, and solemn chants that suggest a super-secret midnight tribal ritual. Crucially, this approach to mezcla is totally organic. While the commercial rock en español bands parade their crudely pasted-together influences, Bloque blows right past gratuitous grabbing, with a global pastiche that's celebratory, and visionary.

Genre: World, Columbia
Released: 1998, Luaka Bop
Key Tracks: "Nena," "Sin lagrimas," "Ay donde andara"
Next Stop: Aterciopelados: La pipa de la paz
After That: Los Amigos Invisibles: Arepa 3000
Book Page: 100

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About 1,000 Recordings

Celebrate the joy, the revelation, the mystery, the fun, the sheer shivers-up-the-spine pleasure of great music.

Essential operas. Milestone rock albums. An education in the blues. The world of world. Classical from Bach to Bartók to Beethoven to Brahms. And dozens of unexpected gems, surprising discoveries, and long-lost masterpieces.

This is an online version of the list (published alphabetically in the book). The entries in the book break down genre bias and broaden every listener’s horizons—think Miles Davis to Claude Debussy to the melodic story-songs of The Decemberists. And the writing is passionate, informed, opinionated.

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