By the Zonagirante.com team @spinning zone

Cover art by Zonagirante Studio 

Editor's Note: Several circumstances have led us to republish this article, originally published in May 2020. Today, there's a cold going around the office, and the half of our brain that's still functioning has suggested we pay tribute, in our own unique way, to Latino immigrants in the United States. Instead of shedding tears in front of our phone cameras and posting it on TikTok, we wanted to use a more upbeat approach. We know our audience is always changing, and those who read this article five years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, won't complain. This playlist is full of celebration for anyone who listens to it. We must fight fascism with joy, whenever possible. Welcome!

We all slip up at some point in our lives under the influence of tequila during some intense nighttime of bad love affairs, and we star, at least for a few minutes, in unfortunate lines worthy of soap operas. All the men on the continent fell into the trap of thinking they were very macho after a few drinks and singing, perhaps in the worst possible voice, The King, And we made José Alfredo Jiménez's tomb tremble, or the gray hairs of poor Vicente Fernández. Surely more than one rocker has the charro costume they wore to celebrate the Day of the Dead as a child tucked away in their closet., And, without admitting it, he longed to own the best hat at his fictitious Cinco de Mayo parties. No matter how much Rolling Stones, AC/DC, Hendrix or Metallica resides in their hearts, they'll have a CD of ranchera hits tucked away under their bed for Mother's Day parties, and on some Sunday afternoon they'll have turned on a nostalgic TV channel and, as if by chance, They must have started watching the old movies of the unforgettable Pedro Infante, going so far as to say that those times of beautiful black and white were perhaps better than the multicolored ones we live in.

One afternoon, after staring out the window and hearing our neighbor listening to some of Jorge Negrete's greatest hits, we remembered that scene in which A band in Los Angeles, with Ozzy Osbourne himself in front of them, performed Paranoid and they were applauded by the British figure, who confessed to feeling honored by the tribute. We like that relationship, with its good-humored development, that exists between mariachis and rock music of all eras. We like it when These tributes break with the solemnity sought by some boring extremists, who believe in the inviolability of musical genres. We are pleased when the purists of the day take offense, believing that their anthems are museum pieces that cannot be listened to freely or interpreted from other worlds.

For the enjoyment of our audience, We bring you ten wonderful examples of how, with guitars, violins and other acoustic instruments, you can pay homage to the electricity of pop, rock and blues and leave happy with the experience. Among the songs we turned to, we repeated Nobody knows you when You're down and out, a memorable song sung by Bessie Smith, Nina Simone and Sam Cooke, among others, this time in the hands of Saint Cecilia, and, more conventionally, interpreted by Alejandro Fernandez, in the company of the great crooner Scottish Rod Stewart. We also bring covers of Morrisey, Pharrell, Soda Stereo, Queen, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin and, ironically, to the very Santana and its classic Hey, how's it going?. 

In short, it's about changing the atmosphere of quarantine at home for a while, getting you dancing and laughing as you deserve. Take the opportunity to open that bottle of mezcal you've been saving for the perfect occasion., to lean out onto their balconies, with their stereos blasting, and smile at their neighbors with these tunes.