'There's a guide to k-pop, so why not do one for latin pop?', that's my reasoning to do this post. Also I did the same format for the title, I hope it doesn't bother you u/raicicle.

The good thing about the music on this world is that there are so many genres per ethnic, so many instruments and so many types of voices that is complicated to not like any. One of the genres, between the thousands that exist, is the latin pop (or latin music in general). A type characterized for how traditional it is: the tastes go from generation on generation, always keeping a base but flowing due to the rest of the world. There's a lot of instruments that were almost appropiated by us: guitarra española, castañuelas, flauta de pan, maracas or gongos. But also, the diversity of genres through time: from zarzuelas, a kind of opera with spoken parts, to the new chilean wave, trying to mix the best of the world synthesizers with analogic, typical instruments.

Of all those styles, I'm going to talk about one especially: the latin pop, through a short time (2000's - today) and expanding a bit to pop-rock and rap. Not too much though, this is r/popheads, not r/indieheads or r/hiphopheads. I'm going to set an artist (and one or more albums) that is the best on it's wave, comparing it to some international artists and showing some local, more indie artists that also can represent that wave. Let's dive in.

Los Planetas.

IYL: Radiohead, Weezer, Joy Division.

The most rock-y group, but a classic. The group that got a lot of people into indie music through the ends of the 90's. With their emotional lyrics and the mix of flamenco and guitars they helped through the hangover that the last century was. They've been compared to Joy Division and later with the more rock-ish Weezer, and even some Radiohead.

They rode they indie wave that made a lot of people start to dive into the most underground part of the music. Nowadays they are rated as one of the most iconic bands here in Spain thanks to mark a point in recent history getting a lot of praise from general public yet having indie stans. Maybe now they sound a bit outdated, but still have that magic that surprise many people.

An album? Una semana en el interior de un autobús.

A song? La Guerra de las Galaxias. Six minutes of pure pain that contain what makes them so great. On point melodies, on point lyrics, on point instrumentals. Everything is on point.

Similar artists? La Habitación Roja, Lori Meyers.

Gepe.

IYL: Sufjan Stevens. Basically the 'Illinoise' Sufjan Stevens, yes.

After being in a group with Javiera Mena (we'll talk about her later), he starts his solo career. He makes a point in Chile where there's a new round of indie artists, with him being the head of it. Being a multi-intrumentalist has helped a lot because he could do all by himself and consequently being more indie and enforcing the idea of DIY. Although his sound changes every album, his general style consists of rescuing 'la canción chilena', based on acoustic pop, and mixing it with more electronic sounds. Maybe if it wasn't because of him, our next artist wouldn't even have her characteristic sound, so that says it all.

An album? GP.

A song? En la Naturaleza. A explosion of innocent pop seasoned with chilean folk.

Similar artists? Javiera Mena, Pedropiedra.

Javiera Mena.

IYL: CHVRCHES, the brightest Grimes, but especially the E•MO•TION Carly Rae Jepsen.

Influenced by Radio AM, a dial based in progeessive pop, she started to sing in the church's choir. Influenced by Gepe, she's also a multi-intrumentalist but especialized in synthesizers. She started in some rock bands but later she moved to a electro-pop band, Prissa. While Gepe leaded the more traditional and centered-in-folk-and-punk part of the indie wave she was much more avant-garde and tried to bring the more artificial sound to Chile.

After all her work put on making music, she became a boom in the country and finally became a maninstream popstar. Her last album, Otra Era, was her opera prima and finally made a solid, synthpop like sound.

An album? Otra Era.

A song? Espada. An explosion of synthesizers full of sexual and lesbian references.

Similar artists? Francisca Valenzuela, Camila Moreno, El Guincho.

Zahara.

IYL: soft, full of instruments pop, the voice of Joanna Newsom and Christine and the Queens.

Here's a story that shows that what you study doesn't have anything in common with what you do: learning jazz since she was a kid, Zahara composed her first song when she was twelve years old. She did her own movie based in one of her songs in 2011, El Leñador y la mujer América.

Moving from folk to rock and then to pop, Zahara's popularity is irregular: she was indie, then mainstream, then indie again, and now she's in that limb where you are enough popular to not be indie yet she isn't popular enough to be commercially successful. A celeb between the underground community, she had to create her own label to release her last album to date, Santa.

An album? Santa.

A song? La Gracia/Crash. The strength on these songs is the contrast: heaven instrumentation/hell guitars, singing about becoming religious/about the pleasures of the body...

Manel.

IYL: Passion Pit with some tropical vibes.

And here's story about how the dreams you have with your friends can become reality. The whole group was formed in school, and the group started at a local contest where they won. With the prize they costed the recording of their first album a year later, in 2008. They became silent after the release but they did a comeback in 2011, releasing an album at 2013 and one this year.

With a particular pop that is constantly changed with folk, rock and synth-pop, the group has shown that you can sing in catalan, a minoritary language in Spain, yet be successful.

An album? Jo Competeixo.

A song? Sabotatge. Pop with tropical vibes that sings about being yourself.

Similar artists? Els Amics de las Arts, Grises.

Triángulo de Amor Bizarro.

IYL: the lightest part of Death Grips, Yeezus, hit the gym with fucking chainsaw sounds.

The worst. Literally. From the four initial members now there are just two. With a painful work routine where the drummer can get to 220BPM, you can expect people to quit. But after all what makes TAB such a great band is that they make energy music, being eclectic as fuck. Renovating their sound every album Rodrigo and Isa, the couple that make the skeleton of the album, have gone from rock, to noisepop, to dreampop, all mixed with a maximalistic instrumentation full of the most strange sounds (I wasn't joking when I meant chainsaws).

All on them is a bomb about to explode: their sound, their production, their (pretty political) lyrics. And let's talk about ideologies: coming from a very left-y band in a country that suffered from a extreme-right dictator, you would expect political bombs.

An album? Salve Discordia/Año Santo.

A song? Baila Sumeria.

Similar artists? Nope. The best of TAB is that there isn't absolutely nothing like them.

El Guincho.

IYL: Kanye West, Animal Collective.

From being drummer in a indie group to work with Björk and being reviewed by Pitchfork in less than 3 years, that's a stellar career. El Guincho became known for his maximalistic pop, full of summer vibes, and his race to make a perfect tropical-pop album ended in 2010 with Pop Negro. The name of this album was chosen wisely, being a word-game with Pop Negro meaning well, dark pop, and Pop Negro meaning black octopus.

6 years later, he comes back with Hiper-Asia, changing totally his style: not pop anymore, but electronic hip-hop. He can be compared to Ye in this aspect because Pop Negro has connections in its maximalism with MBDTF and Hiper-Asia being compared to TLOP.

An album? Pop Negro.

A song? Bombay. A musical experience full of summer memories. Very NSFW video too.

Similar artists? Astro, Helado Negro.

C. Tangana.

IYL: Drake, PND, the OVO sound.

I was about to not put him here and choose Choclock, a R&B singer, but thinking it twice yes, he deserves to stay here. To understand why most of the pop in Spain has moved to a more hip-hop feeling music I think C. Tangana and many other rappers are culpable of this. Rap here has had a revival circa 2005, growing from being underground music, showing your mixtapes in the street the Fridays at afternoon and having your primal public at (a then revolutiomary) YouTube to get crowds at stadiums and selling all you tickets in 20 minutes.

In the style of C. Tangana the comparisions with Drake are obvious, especially since his last mxitape 10/15, where he gets some very IYRTITL bases and freestyles over them. Hell, even his icon is Lacoste's crocodile drawn in OVO style. This gets even more real after his last single, 'Antes de morirme', where him and Rosalía (fantastic R&B singer) play with a Drake-Rihanna chemistry.

An album? LO🔻E's.

A song? Antes de morirme.

Similar artists? AGORAZEIN (his collective), Nach.

So, I think that's all folks! I hope someone of you have discovered a artist that now is in love with or a fantastic song. Thanks for reading.