Mexican Pop Music - 1990s

1990s

Beginning the 1990s, iconic pop act of the 80's Timbiriche began to lose popularity mainly to the costant change of bandmembers, while Magneto stood stable in the music scene, however, before the teen bubblegum pop explosion in the US during the late 90's, many pop acts came to light during the mid-90's in Mexico and became successful, almost most of them lasting until the end of the decade: this includes boybands Mercurio, Ragazzi, Tierra Cero and Kairo, female singers Fey, Jeans, Lynda and Irán Castillo, and boy/girl groups Onda Vaselina, Kabah, Sentidos Opuestos and the comeback of Timbiriche in 1998. Minor one-hit wonder acts were successful during this era which were also focused on a teen pop formula.

By the Early to Mid 90's, Selena was also starting to become a big name. Selena was a Grammy Award winning Tejano singer, sang Tejano music and all sorts of Latin genres as well. After bypassing all the Tejano berriors she quickly earned the title "Queen of Tejano Music." Selena became the first Latin artist to have ever had 4 number ones in one year back in 1994. The four were Donde Quiera Que Estés, Amor Prohbido, Bidi Bidi Bom Bom and No Me Queda Mas. After her success in Spanish and even had a Grammy Award on her resume, Selena decided to work on her very first album in English. Unfourtantely, Selena was murdered in March 1995. Selena only recorded 4 songs for her crossover album and was schedule to have 13 songs in English for her album. The crossover album titled Dreaming of You was released in the summer of 1995. It quickly became an International Success. Selena's songs Dreaming of You and I Could Fall In Love quickly became Mainstream hits and the album became among the "Top ten best-selling debuts of all time" along with being the "best-selling debuts for a female artist" and Selena became the first Latin Artist male or female to have ever debuted at No. 1.

It was in the late 1990s, after Ricky Martin's success in Europe with the hit María and the international launch of 1998 World Cup's theme song. The Cup of Life, that an interest for Latin American music started to arise and Mexican pop music started to look attractive for intercontinental markets.

The most successful Mexican singer of the 1990s was Luis Miguel. Best known for his technically skilled and smooth crooning vocals. Luis Miguel super-stardom began since the late 1980s, but in 1991, his career went to even greater heights and earned him the respect of a wider audience with the release of Romance, an album of romantic boleros, most of them from the 1940s and 1950s. Despite singing boleros from years past, Luis Miguel was recognized for reinventing the bolero for modern audiences. The album Romance, which became his most successful material ever, eventually sold 15 million units worldwide. Luis Miguel has performed successfully pop music, bolero, mariachi and romantic ballads. He has won four Latin Grammy Awards, five Grammy Awards, and has sold an estimate of 90 million albums until today. He is known in Latin America and Spain as "El Sol de México" (The Sun of Mexico).

Televisa, had exported media to many countries. This allowed Mexican actors to take advantage of their popularity to launch music careers in countries where Televisa telenovelas were popular. Some examples of these actors are Thalía, Lucía Méndez, Guillermo Capetillo and Verónica Castro. Verónica's son, Cristian Castro, started his career and became popular throughout Latin America.

The most successful singer to combine ranchera, mariachi and pop music was Alejandro Fernández. He originally specialized in traditional, earthy forms of Mexican folk and country music, such as mariachi and ranchera. However, his later work was focused on mainstream pop music.

Singers such as Pepe Aguilar, Paulina Rubio, Gloria Trevi, and Aracely Arámbula have also produced songs that combine traditional Mexican music with popular music. Other Mexican pop singers who have had a considerable success in Mexico and the rest of North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia are Thalía, Fey, Paulina Rubio, and Lucero.

The idea of creating a pop band after a telenovela was first explored in 1991 with the cast of Muñecos de Papel (With Ricky Martin, Angélica Rivera, and former Timbiriche members Sasha Sokol and Erik Rubin). In 1999, the same formula was explored with the telenovela DKDA with Alessandra Rossaldo (then member of Sentidos Opuestos), Patricio Borghetti and Ernesto D'Alessio. This formula would be explored again in 2004 with the creation of the most successful group in Latinamerica RBD.