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Could this work?

Mrtejano

Mrtejano

I just purchased on iTunes an album by Los Palominos. It's named STRAIGHT TEJANO I presume due to having most if not all GEORGE STRAIGHT SONGS.
(Not a huge country fan)

But would these Tejano bands become a little more popular if more of them started singing some songs in English? But came the original Tejano flavor in the songs? I know some Tejano singers like JAY PEREZ, DAVID LEE GARZA and others sing country songs. I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about real TEJANO SONGS IN ENGLISH.
 
I've always wondered this. While I only know enough Spanish to make myself dangerous thanks to living for years in Eagle Pass and Del Rio, Texas where I worked in radio, I saw Tejano become huge. In Eagle Pass, the FM CHR went Tejano at night and Ric was likely 85% English as the jock. Most of the people I knew that became huge Tejano fans were the folks who's Grandparents still spoke Spanish but the parents were bilingual and the typical Tejano listener I knew was more comfortable with English than Spanish, if only slightly. Except for Tejano, they didn't listen to Spanish language music.

Given that at least a decent percentage of Tejano listeners were former mostly English music listeners (ie top 40) and were almost always bilingual, it would seem the lyrics would reflect this with some bands being almost all English and others being almost all Spanish.

I always felt radio had it right with the presentation yet always wondered why lyrics were pretty much exclusively Spanish. Surely if more English lyrics had been the case, it might have been even bigger. I know as a non-Hispanic growing up on Top 40 and album rock, I liked the music. I get the 'respect' concept of utilizing Spanish but you can pull that off without being all Spanish.
 
Like here where I work at a retail business most of my customers are Anglo (White) and I am not saying only white people listen to country but with this Album I purchased on ITunes I have many of my female customers singing the songs and jamming to them while they are being helped . I also purchased some JAVIER MOLINA SONGS like COWBOY CUMBIA, HONKY TONK CUMBIA, LITTLE GIRL,

And Ram Herrera I HAVE A NEVER ENDING LOVE FOR YOU song. I actually purchased them to cater to my customers since all my songs are basically in Spanish except those I have been looking online for other songs but can't seem to find many that are with a Hispanic music background but in English like I said before not country songs but actually tejani and regional Mexicans genre in English
 
b-turner said:
I've always wondered this. While I only know enough Spanish to make myself dangerous thanks to living for years in Eagle Pass and Del Rio, Texas where I worked in radio, I saw Tejano become huge. In Eagle Pass, the FM CHR went Tejano at night and Ric was likely 85% English as the jock. Most of the people I knew that became huge Tejano fans were the folks who's Grandparents still spoke Spanish but the parents were bilingual and the typical Tejano listener I knew was more comfortable with English than Spanish, if only slightly. Except for Tejano, they didn't listen to Spanish language music.

Given that at least a decent percentage of Tejano listeners were former mostly English music listeners (ie top 40) and were almost always bilingual, it would seem the lyrics would reflect this with some bands being almost all English and others being almost all Spanish.

I always felt radio had it right with the presentation yet always wondered why lyrics were pretty much exclusively Spanish. Surely if more English lyrics had been the case, it might have been even bigger. I know as a non-Hispanic growing up on Top 40 and album rock, I liked the music. I get the 'respect' concept of utilizing Spanish but you can pull that off without being all Spanish.
Click to expand...

Good points, all.

The issue today is that there are very few hit current Tejano songs, because the Tejano audience is now quite old. There are no new listeners, and the existing ones are aging.

There is a point that doing more songs in English might have an appeal to the existing listeners, but artists would be considering whether it is worth the risk. And doing music in English is not going to bring younger listeners to the party.
 
Heck I even found a banda song in English but didn't like it cause the singer had a strong accent.

I have found Mariachi Songs in English too.
 
My only thought on this comes from having once met Emilio back in the 90s. At the time, it was thought that country music could broaden its audience by appealing to the Tejano audience. So Capitol Nashville signed Emilio as a country singer, to sing his music in English. He went on several country tours, had a minor Top 30 hit, and then he went back to being the king of Tejano. I'm not sure the experience of singing English helped him at all. It didn't have much effect on country music.
 
It's a bit off topic but when I was working in Eagle Pass, Texas the FM was top 40 dayparted (more AC in the morning, all hit by evening and leaning rock by about 10 pm). Across the river was an FM top 40. We were 100% English, they ran English songs with Spanish language liners and commercials. Folks in Eagle Pass would not listen to the FM in Mexico because it was not purely English. I always thought that was odd and remembered asking on of the jocks at the station across the river why that was. He even said he preferred all English over the station he worked for.

I found most Tejano listeners I knew were about mid-20s to mid-40s when it really took off, generally young families to families with kids in high school. It was viewed as an adult format. Those folks would be over 50 now.
 
TheBigA said:
My only thought on this comes from having once met Emilio back in the 90s. At the time, it was thought that country music could broaden its audience by appealing to the Tejano audience. So Capitol Nashville signed Emilio as a country singer, to sing his music in English. He went on several country tours, had a minor Top 30 hit, and then he went back to being the king of Tejano. I'm not sure the experience of singing English helped him at all. It didn't have much effect on country music.
Click to expand...

Interestingly, the world's premiere Tejano station, KXTN, includes a couple of country gold songs in every hour.
 
b-turner said:
It's a bit off topic but when I was working in Eagle Pass, Texas the FM was top 40 dayparted (more AC in the morning, all hit by evening and leaning rock by about 10 pm). Across the river was an FM top 40. We were 100% English, they ran English songs with Spanish language liners and commercials. Folks in Eagle Pass would not listen to the FM in Mexico because it was not purely English. I always thought that was odd and remembered asking on of the jocks at the station across the river why that was. He even said he preferred all English over the station he worked for.

I found most Tejano listeners I knew were about mid-20s to mid-40s when it really took off, generally young families to families with kids in high school. It was viewed as an adult format. Those folks would be over 50 now.
Click to expand...


I went to Guatemala in the end of March. They had a station playing lots of songs in English.
 
Mrtejano said:
I went to Guatemala in the end of March. They had a station playing lots of songs in English.
Click to expand...

Pop and rock stations in Latin America have been playing English langauge music for decades.

When I did some work in Lima in the early 80's, 18 of 21 FMs only played English... AC, rock, CHR. When I had a Top 40 station in Ecuador in the 60's (first one in South America) we played about 30% music in English.

Today, the principal Latin American Top 40 stations, from Chile to Mexico, play 60% or more songs in English. All the rock stations, except one or two, play mostly English language music. Many AC stations play a blend of English and Spanish.

Last month, Justin Bieber set an attendance record at a venue in Ecuador...
 
Sometime back while visiting Mazatlan there was a classic hits station there (88.9, I believe) that played English language songs exclusively. Enjoyable to listen to!
 
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