El Señor / El Senor

If more country fans learned to speak Spanish fluently, a lot of them would likely become regional Mexican fans as well. God knows, country and música mexicana certainly have a lot in common. Prominent honky tonk themes (heartbreak, unrequited love, betrayal, romantic disillusionment, loneliness, drinking, and drinking to forget) are also prominent ranchera themes, and corridos (especially narcocorridos) are often full of the sort of outlaw imagery that one finds in outlaw country classics such as Marty Robbins' "Big Iron," Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," and Merle Haggard's "Mama Tried" (as well as in some of the ballsy alternative country that you never hear on commercial country radio but can find on some college stations). Indeed, a corrido album like El Señor could easily appeal to a Waylon Jennings, Dwight Yoakam, or Johnny Paycheck fan if he/she understood español. All ten of the songs that los Incomparables de Tijuana perform on this 2009 release are corridos, and those corridos — like outlaw country tunes — have no problem being edgy and folksy at the same time. Some people would say that "Jorge Lugo," "Negocio Coajado," "Nieve de Sabores," and other corridos on this 34-minute norteño CD sound quaint; call them quaint if you want, but lyrically, these outlaw tales have plenty of substance. Of course, a band needn't have a norteño orientation in order to play corridos; mariachi, banda, duranguense, sierreño, and tierra caliente bands can play them just as well. But norteño is the orientation of los Incomparables de Tijuana, and that orientation makes for a solid corrido experience on El Señor.