As Café Tacvba's About marks its 30th anniversary, the album is a cornerstone of Latin American rock. Released on July 22, 1994, this ground-breaking project transcends being a simple 20-track collection, boldly reimagining the possibilities of Latin music. Combining traditional folklore with modern rock rhythms and infusing styles such as bolero, ska, punk, metal, son jarocho, polka and bossa nova, their second studio album broke new ground, entering 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 of everyday life in Mexico City with themes ranging from romance and betrayal (“Esa Noche”) to philosophical musings (“El Ciclón”), environmental consciousness ( “Trópico de cáncer”), and vibrant street culture (“El Metro”).
Initially met with mixed reactions in its release year, 1994, About it gradually gained traction throughout Latin America, especially in Chile and Argentina, eventually gaining widespread acceptance and recognition back in Mexico. To date, it has received accolades from major media outlets such as The New York Times, BBC Music, Rolling Stoneand All the musicand was ranked No. 3 on “Los 600 de Latinoamérica” list compiled by a group of music journalists earlier this decadehighlighting the top 600 Latin American albums from 1920-2022.
Three decades later, About continues to be celebrated as a ground-breaking and enduring work, inspiring listeners around the world to dig deeper into their cultural roots. In this 'as you said' account, frontman Albarrán reflects on the making of the album, its cultural impact and its lasting influence on Latin music and beyond.
From our first album [Café Tacvba, 1992], we were purposefully looking for elements that resonated with our Mexican identity to create music from. Maybe not different music, but the kind we needed to hear. Music that incorporated all those elements of our rich culture. We come from a multicultural country. There is not just one Mexico. there are many different and contrasting Mexicos. Probably from our second album, About, we had matured this concept. Our intention was to portray our society and our environment through music and create music for us as a cultural community. This is 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 at full volume. Then you go down and at the taco stand they're playing cumbia. maybe further down on a clothing counter, they're playing rock, punk or ska. All this was what we wanted to reflect as mestizo. We are not a pure society, but a society that arose through mixing. It's about reclaiming the mix and saying, “I'm a mix and I can't try to be or do something pure.” My art will be a mixture, because these are the ingredients I was created with.
Our historical process as Latin Americans, not just Mexicans, is deeply connected for historical reasons. We are united by the mixture 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 this is About.
We had five original songs that formed what About it would happen. 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 very different stylistically, we saw that diversity reflected in us. We listened to a lot of music. everyone in the band is a music lover. Each man brought his influences, and so About began to take shape.
We concluded that About it was a good name because, being the second note of the musical scale— about (or E major) — it was our second album. We also realized that there was a recurring theme of going back and forth. We were talking about recycling, rethinking, all these ideas.
As we started performing live as a new band and started getting attention, people came up to us and shared their social concerns, struggles and causes. This exhibition sensitized me personally to these issues, and that is why it became important to convey these emerging social needs that somehow expressed themselves to us. As artists, we are, in a way, a megaphone for unheard voices.
[“Trópico de Cáncer”] it was a song that came about very naturally. At that time, I met an engineer who discussed the widespread damage to nature done in the name of supposed progress. I have always been a lover of nature and it has always pained me to see how humans have abused it. nature has no voice. Obviously, people love songs about love, but for us it was important to be able to talk about things like that.
[“La Ingrata”] it's a very happy song with an infectious beat, fun and great for parties. I think norteño music resonates with all Mexicans. It is a style that has spread throughout the nation and Latin America. Now, with the corridos and everything else, norteño music has gone global. It is a genre loved by Mexicans, beyond our borders.
“El Aparato” is a song set in 6/8 time. It's a huapango, but it features lyrics about a subject you'd never normally find in a huapango, son jarocho, or any son for that matter – it talks about an alien encounter. When Jose [Rangel] and I started forming the band, we didn't just talk about music. we often discussed other matters. One subject we both found fascinating was the UFO phenomenon, which fascinated us as teenagers. On one side was the son and the jaranas, on the other UFOs and also spirituality. We invited an American group, Cielo y Tierra, whose vocals are heard at the end of the song.
The graphic idea for which I chose the snail as the main element of the cover—and it is a snail that is not outside its shell, but inside—represents turning inward, looking at ourselves with all the cultural wealth we carry. Behind the snail, there is a geometric design that in the Nahuatl world is called “atl tlachinolli”, which means burnt water. It is a symbol that in some ways could be said to resemble a Yin-Yang type.
In those days, getting into a studio was something few could achieve. It's not like now that everyone has their own home studio. The first album surprised us a bit. We didn't like the sound effect because our natural sound was transformed. But in the second one, with a little more experience, we were able to do some experiments that we really liked the result of. Gustavo [Santaolalla] he was a producer who understood our artistic vision very well. He launched it, gave it power. In a way, we also matured with Gustavo. We did some bold things, but they were very interesting.
On our first albums, we didn't have a drummer, because that was part of the concept of our band. 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 — it was 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] it came from jokes, from a desire to provoke the audience with references. We wanted to connect with people who received these reports. But it was all in good fun. We've never been a band for accolades or to brag about success. When we released About in Mexico, no one took it – no one. And everyone said, “Café Tacvba lost it, they had a good first album, but the second one is rubbish”.
It took about a year for people to start picking it up and it was in Chile where they first started liking the album. Then it caught on in Argentina and later in Colombia. Eventually, back in Mexico, it started to grow. From there, it spread to the US through all the immigrants and everyone moving that way. It was only years later that it began to gain recognition, but we never stopped insisting on that recognition. we continued our creative journey. We could do a second one About, but we didn't want to, because we didn't want to repeat the same formulas. We were more interested in continuing to explore.
Back then, our thing was to make fun of more traditional rock bands like Héroes del Silencio. They're Spanish, European, they're from a different culture — but really, we weren't really making fun of them, we were making fun of their Mexican fans. We'd say, “This rock is old, it's just recycled rock from my uncles' time.” Personally, in high school, I didn't listen to the Rolling Stones or Pink Floyd. I mean, I hated those bands, because I thought, “This is old people's music.” Of course, I later came to appreciate and love these bands – but back then, that was my form of rebellion.
I think that we, as Mexicans and Latin Americans, are really lucky because our culture provides us with an extremely strong, rich and beautiful foundation to build on. You don't 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 the world with pride.
This is the love we felt and wanted to transmit: love for our culture, our music, for freedom, for breaking down mental barriers and unleashing creativity in our Mexican identity, hoping that people will receive this message .
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/latin/cafe-tacvba-re-anniversary-ruben-albarran-1235739729/