Music

As Café Tacvba’s Re marks its 30th anniversary, the album stands as a cornerstone of Latin American rock. Released on July 22, 1994, this trailblazing work goes beyond being a mere collection of 20 tracks, boldly reimagining Latin music’s possibilities. By blending traditional folklore with modern rock rhythms and infusing styles like boleros, ska, punk, metal, son jarocho, polka, and bossa nova, their second studio album broke new ground, venturing into uncharted musical territory.

Under the creative helm of Rubén Albarrán, Emmanuel del Real, Joselo, and Enrique Rangel, the album became a pivotal force in pan-Latin rock. Each track showcases the band’s unique approach to storytelling, weaving narratives about everyday life in Mexico City with themes ranging from romance and betrayal (“Esa Noche”) to philosophical musings (“El Ciclón”), environmental awareness (“Trópico de Cáncer”), and vibrant street culture (“El Metro”).

Initially met with mixed reactions in its release year, 1994, in Mexico, Re gradually gained traction across Latin America, especially in Chile and Argentina, eventually gaining widespread acceptance and acclaim back in its home country. To date, it has received accolades from major media outlets like The New York Times, BBC Music, Rolling Stone, and AllMusic, and was ranked No. 3 on the “Los 600 de Latinoamérica” list compiled by a collective of music journalists earlier this decade, highlighting the top 600 Latin American albums from 1920-2022.

Three decades later, Re continues to be celebrated as a groundbreaking and enduring work, inspiring listeners worldwide to delve into their cultural roots. In this “as told to” narrative, frontman Albarrán reflects on the album’s creation, its cultural impact, and its lasting influence on Latin music and beyond.

From our first album [Café Tacvba, 1992], we were deliberately searching for elements that resonated with our Mexican identity so that through them, we could create music. Maybe not different music, but the kind that we needed to hear. Music that incorporated all those elements of our rich culture. We come from a multicultural country. There isn’t just one Mexico; there are many diverse and contrasting Mexicos. Probably by our second album, Re, we had matured that concept. Our intention was to portray our society and our surroundings through music, and to make music for us as a cultural community. That’s the musical diversity that is experienced every day in Mexico.

If you go out on the street, get on public transportation, the bus driver might be playing norteño music on full blast. Then you get off and at the taco stand they’re playing cumbia; maybe further down at a clothing stall, they’re playing rock, punk or ska. All of that was what we wanted to reflect as mestizos. We’re not a pure society, but one that came about through mixing. It’s about reclaiming the mix, and saying, “I am a mix and I can’t try to be or do something pure.” My art is going to be a blend, because those are the ingredients I was created with.

Our historical process as Latin Americans, not just as Mexicans, is deeply connected due to historical reasons. We are united by the mix of cultural elements that arrived in America five centuries ago from different parts of the world. Our peoples embraced these cultures and made them their own to renew their identity. All of this is Re.

We had five initial songs that shaped what Re would become. These were “El Puñal y el Corazón,” “Las Flores” and “El Baile y el Salón” — and I can’t remember the other two. When we realized that these songs were stylistically very diverse, we saw that this diversity was reflected within us. We listened to a lot of music; everyone in the band is a music lover. Each person brought their influences, and that’s how Re began to take shape.

We concluded that Re was a good name because, being the second note of the musical scale — re (or D major) — it was our second album. We also realized that there was a recurring theme of return and coming back. We were talking about recycling, revisiting, all these ideas.

As we started performing live as a new band and began to draw attention, people would approach us and share their social concerns, struggles and causes. This exposure sensitized me personally to these issues, and so it became important to convey these emerging social needs that were, in some way, being expressed to us. As artists, we are, in a way, a megaphone for voices that aren’t heard.

[“Trópico de Cáncer”] was a song that emerged very naturally. At that time, I met an engineer who discussed the extensive damage to nature carried out in the name of supposed progress. I’ve always been a lover of nature, and it’s always pained me to see how humans have abused it; nature doesn’t have a voice. Obviously, people love songs about love, but for us, it was important to be able to talk about things like this.

[“La Ingrata”] is a very cheerful song with a contagious rhythm, fun and great for parties. I think norteño music resonates with all Mexicans. It’s a style that has spread across the entire nation and into Latin America. Now, with corridos and everything else, norteño music has gone global. It’s a genre that Mexicans love, beyond our borders.

“El Aparato” is a song set in a 6/8 meter. It’s a huapango, but it features lyrics on a theme you’d normally never find in a huapango, son jarocho, or any son for that matter — it talks about an alien encounter. When José [Rangel] and I started forming the band, we didn’t just talk about music; we often discussed other topics. One topic we both found fascinating was the UFO phenomenon, which captivated us as teenagers. On one hand, there was the son and the jaranas, on the other the UFOs, and also spirituality. We invited an American chant group, Cielo y Tierra, whose vocals can be heard at the end of the song.

The graphic concept for which I chose the snail as the main element of the cover — and it’s a snail that is not outside its shell, but inside — represents turning inward, looking at oneself with all the cultural richness we carry. Behind the snail, there is a geometric pattern that in the Nahuatl world is called “atl tlachinolli,” which means burnt water. It is a symbol that could somehow be said to be akin to a type of Yin-Yang.

Back in those days, getting into a studio was something few could achieve. It’s not like now, where everyone has their home studio. The first album took us a bit by surprise; we didn’t like the sonic result because our natural sound was transformed. But on the second one, with a bit more experience, we were able to do some experiments that we really liked the outcome of. Gustavo [Santaolalla] was a producer who understood our artistic vision very well. He catapulted it, gave it strength. In a way, we also matured with Gustavo. We did some daring things, but they were very interesting.

In our early albums, we didn’t have a drummer, because that was part of our band’s concept. We used a programmed drum machine because we were big fans of Kraftwerk and the whole techno scene from back then, like Soft Cell and Heaven 17 — they were all about drum machines and processors. We wanted to do that, but also mix in some of our own cultural flavor.

A lot of what we did [lyrically] came from joking around, from wanting to challenge the audience with references. We wanted to connect with people who got those references. But it was all in good fun. We were never a band out for accolades or to boast about success. When we released Re in Mexico, no one got it — nobody. And everyone was like, “Café Tacvba has lost it, they had a good first album, but the second one is trash.”

It took about a year for people to start getting the hang of it, and it was in Chile where they first started liking the album. Then it caught on in Argentina and later Colombia. Eventually, back in Mexico, it started to pick up. From there, it spread to the U.S. through all the migrants and everyone moving that way. It was only years later that it began to gain recognition, but we never stopped to dwell on that recognition; we kept on with our creative journey. We could have made a second Re, but we didn’t want to, because we weren’t about repeating the same formulas. We were more interested in continuing to explore.

Back then, our thing was to poke fun at more traditional rock bands like Héroes del Silencio. They’re Spanish, European, they come from a different culture — but actually, we weren’t really mocking them, but their Mexican fans. We’d say: “That rock is old, it’s just recycled rock from my uncles’ era.” Personally, in high school, I didn’t listen to The Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd. I mean, I hated those bands, because I thought, “That’s old people’s music.” Of course, I later came to appreciate and love those bands — but back then, that was my form of rebellion.

I think we, as Mexicans and Latin Americans, are really fortunate because our culture provides us with a super solid, rich, and beautiful foundation to build on. There’s no need to borrow from other cultures when you have your own, which is like a treasure chest. As Latinos, as Mexicans, we carry this treasure within us wherever we go, anywhere in the world. We have all our music — norteño, boleros, cumbia — but we also have rock, bossa nova, and jazz. We are free and can walk through the world with pride.

That’s the love we were feeling and wanted to convey: love for our culture, our music, for freedom, for breaking down mental barriers and unleashing creativity within our Mexican identity, hoping that people would receive that message.