exodus hmmm there’s a lot to be said about Luis Miguel, he’s an extremely iconic figure and one of the biggest artists in latin-american pop music, but I don’t know if I would recommend listening to him other than to be familair with such an important figure of mexican and latin american music, because when it comes to boleros and pop music there’s a lot of better artists.
He has some extremely popular catchy pop tunes and romantic ballads. His most popular song has almost half a billion views on youtube and its a cover of this song, in fact most of his popular tracks are just covers!
Most of his lyrics and the image that he was selling in the 80’s and 90’s are very problematic, deeply sexist and entangled with machismo, the thing that makes him perfect for vaporwave though (other than his cheesy pop music of his teenage years) is that he was the original “mirrey”.
I was going to explain what mirrey means but I’ll just quote an article that I just found
"The term mirrey — literally “my king” — originated as a common greeting in the wealthy Mexican Lebanese community, but emerged in the late 2000s as a distinct stereotype: rich boys, typified by conspicuous consumption, entitled attitudes, alcoholism, and an acute lack of awareness of their privilege relative to the rest of society. They dress similarly, in white shirts unbuttoned halfway down, expensive loafers, and pricy accessories like sunglasses and watches. They can be thought of as the extreme of the fresa world.
Again, mirreyes use a specific lexicon, with suffixes like -uki (peduki, lobuki), -irri (Acapulquirri) and words like paps, papá, lord, and the word mirrey itself. This speaking style is easily parodied in memes and on-screen personalities, making the mirrey a popular archetype of Mexican comedy writers"
(to that I would just add that they tend to be mostly caucassian)
And in the 80’s and 90’s media companies such as Televisa used Luis Miguel to sell that kind of privileged consumption-based sexist lifestyle as aspirational to young people (I mean I think there are equivalents to that in most countries) before he shifted his career towards boleros and romantic ballads as he got older.
All of that and his ubiquity in mexican pop culture made him the perfect target for vaporwave music, especially with vaporwave being about anti-consumption and nostalgia rooted in (as bifo calls it) “the slow cancellation of the future”.
That being said if you want to know what luis miguel sounds like I would say this album represents his pop/romantic ballad sound and this album his bolero sound.
exodus Also… maybe we should make a list of mexican vaporwave folks over here (specifically those that use latin american source music too)
esper i also would be down for any mexican vaporwave!! i’m big into macross 88-92 lately and would love to explore the space.
Latinwave Records is a label from ecuador created to promote hispanic vaporwave artists and they have two large compilations which are great to get started, some of the songs do sample latin american music and some are more future funk and there are some great artists on both compilations.
As for my personal recomendations starting with artists that sample hispanic music:
My personal favorite in high school was Sentidos Apuestos from Monterrey, Mexico. I would describe them as being more on the fun side rather than being very atmospheric; they tracks tend to be quite simple in that they just slow down the songs and don’t add a lot but they are still amazing.
(my favorite song from this album is /Çπɑ̃Я£iɛ ЅμФ✝п/)
// P E N T I U M 2 // ダニ froim Guayaquil, Ecuador is similar to Sentidos Apuestos but moodier an more contemplative, they started the Latinwave Recrods label. I love this album as well.
索里亞納公司 Soriana Corp from Mexico makes some really good cumbiawave
Joselito Lokote from Chihuahua has an album that I would consider the doom metal of mexican vaporwave. The reverb is heavy with this one.
As for latin american vaporwave artists that don’t sample as heavily and lean more towards future funk:
A recent album by BABEFAKE from Lima, Peru, This album is a bit more jazzy and it is excellent
From Hermosillo, Mexico this is a funky lofi synthwave album that’s really good.
Skule Toyama from Guadalajara, Jalisco, made one of the greatest dance future funk albums that I have heard, this album is just simply amazing. I used to talk to him a lot back in high school, we were kind of online friends but I lost contact with him, he is the same age as me and we would talk a lot about music. He was in a totally different level than me music-making-wise though, his stuff is just so good!