Spanish Indie Rock & Blogs
Hi, everyone. I was wondering if any of you could recommend a Spanish-language blog about indie music. It would be nice if some of the bands sang in Spanish, but that is not essential. For example, I found Jenesaispop, which is in fact in Spanish, not French, despite the name, and is in the right vein. I tried to subscribe to Rockdelux, but they don't mail their magazines to the US, and while their website is a good start, it doesn't really have a lot of full articles. Is there a Spanish equivalent of Pitchfork (the indie part, not the rap part) or Bowlegs?
Also, as a secondary topic, I am trying to find some music with Spanish lyrics to listen to. I know there have been a lot of threads about music in Spanish and it's easy to find lists of popular bands that sing in Spanish, but when I find the bands in iTunes, they're not really the sort of music I like. I mostly listen to indie rock. I know I can get a list of all the Spanish indie bands from Wikipedia, but that turns up a very big list to sift through, and while I'm doing that, I was wondering if you could recommend any of your favorites. To give you a sense of my taste, the group I've found so far that I like best is Los Planetas. As far as music in general goes, my favorite bands are probably Dinosaur Jr and Pavement, but they certainly don't cover the whole spectrum. The only other thing I'd say is that I'm really not a fan of dance music. But really, I'm open to all suggestions.
I intend to do a bit of research on this, but I just thought I'd see if you all had any suggestions first. When I find something, I'll post it here if anyone else tells me they're interested.
Podéis responder en inglés o castellano, me da igual. Muchas gracias.
Update1: Found one called Indiecanciones.
Update 2: I just found an list on Elefant Records' website. Scroll down to near the bottom where it says 'fanzines and mags'. I may post it in a bit if the forum decides to let the formatting work (I haven't had great success with lists, so far). They're not all in Spanish, but a number of them are.
Update 3: Here's another one. It's called Me tienes tú contento. Every day, there's a new post with a CD recommendation. They're not always in Spanish, but they often are. I've had good luck with some of the bands they've recommended so far.
Update 4: La Fonoteca is another great site. I don't know exactly what to call it in one word, but a community writes bios of bands and musicians, reviews albums, and posts recommendations on the front page. It deals only with music from Spain, I think. Another is Club Fonograma, a blog in English about South American indie pop.
Update 5: Indienauta is another one. Much of the music they discuss is in English, but some is in Spanish.
14 Answers
I really like Dinosaur Jr. too (though the live show will really make you deaf) -- so maybe you will like some of the same bands I like (even if not necessarily sounding like Dinosaur Jr.). Let me suggest that you check out La Gusana Ciega (Mexico -- power pop, great hooks, great lyrics), Calle 13 (Puerto Rico, reggaeton but that label doesn't do them justice, very wide range of styles), Kinky (Mexico -- very very fun to see live), La Mala Rodriguez (she's a rapper from Spain, but don't let that stop you, even if you aren't into rap), Manu Chau (French guy who sings like he lives in the Spanish part of Kingston Jamaica is a world wide anti-hero pop star, except in the US, where most don't know him), and, oh yeah, Molotov... how could I forget Molotov? You'll like Molotov (Mexico) -- the front man is the son of a US DEA agent who went native while his dad was patrolling deep south of the border. (Just don't call him frijolero.)
I'm sure you can find videos of all these bands on the web, many on youtube. Check out National Records out of LA -- they are on the forefront of distributing some really good indie bands from the Americas.
By the way... LoMásTv.com has music videos with bilingual captions (user controlled), integrated dictionaries, listening game, etc. -- from all of the bands I just mentioned (with the current exception of Kinky). Other great bands on the site include Bomba Estéreo (iinterview), Choc Quib Town (music and interview), Café Tacuba, Ha*Ash, Circo, En Cuero, Karamelo Santo (interview - ska), Kany Garcia, Kubiky, Motel, San Pasualito Rey, Bersuit Vergarabat (interview - ska), Julieta Venegas, Las Orishas (from Cuba - musica and inteview) Also some decidedly "non-indie" artists such as Juanes and Shakira.
(Disclosure: Yes, I work for LoMásTv)
PS Fantastic Plastic Mag looks like a good read.
PPS You really must check out Nortec Collective, (if you can stretch your taste a bit into dance/electronica) -- these guys are brilliant. They are from Tiajuana and mix electronica with traditional trombone music from the region.Very funky.
Have you been to the website mondosonoro.com? If not, it could be right up your street.
Oh yes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPWzZ_bbEZE sorry I know you said indie bands, but some of these have the lyrics
I'm a bit late getting to this haha, but never mind...
A Spanish Smiths is exactly what I'm looking for too...just came across your question and there are some pretty good links on here, going to check them out soon!
I'm living in Sevilla for a year and really want to find some good Spanish Indie bands to listen to to improve my Spanish.
I've just came across a not very well known band from Barcelona called Prexto...they are pretty good! Try their myspace...http://www.myspace.com/prexto They are kind of more a rock band I think...
Oh and also the other week i went to see a Spanish electropop band called Delorean, they were pretty good! But unfortunately they sang in English, but I'm going to try and see if they have anything in Spanish..I'll keep you updated!
Just listened to Sr. Chinarro, i'm impressed! Thanks for all your links 
Hmmm.. I'm gonna check all those out. I recently got into "Ojos de brujo" which is pretty cool. They call thier style of music ""jipjop flamenkillo". It's cool. I'm always looking for new music, I'm really into indie too,(and triphop) but Morrissey, Smiths, Cure, old stuff like that is my favorite stuff and I haven't found any Spanish like it yet. Mostly dance music and ballads. I need something aside from Maná, Moenia, and Morbo to keep me going! 
I know a very cool one: http://www.fantasticplasticmag.com
wortheless to see!!!
I don't know about blogs, but I do know a song that helped me when I was studying a couple of years ago. La Paga http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QSXbvmEEJM http://lyricstranslate.com/en/La-Paga-La-Paga.html
Kat Deluna Whine Up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9oykNkctqE Spanish Version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7inA3_DDTW0 English
Beautiful Liar spanish version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHNl2-GoYNo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdNvV4mcTBo&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_364VqJ1Gb4
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Whine-Up-Spanish-Version-lyrics-Kat-Deluna/750364E771654B1248257467000BF1D4
There is also http://musicalspanish.com/ so does lomastv.com but they have translations.
i'm trying to find Spanish versions of songs I like as well as songs originally song in Spanish I found a demo song by Shakira. or Actually Lomasts demo http://lomastv.com/player_cdn.php?id=982&tlang_id=en
Busca joelsolmusic en el youtube...
<iframe width="400" height="100" style="position: relative; display: block; width: 400px; height: 100px;" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/v=2/track=4003675719/size=venti/bgcol=FFFFFF/linkcol=4285BB/" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0"><a href="http://joelsol.bandcamp.com/track/te-he-prometido">Te He Prometido by JoeL SoL</iframe>
link text Enlace a Russian Red que aunque cante en inglés es española.
You should check out Extremoduro, Marea, Platero y Tu, La Fuga and Heroes del Silencio.
Me gusta Aterciopelados.
Not a blog, but Cadena Dial -Lo mejor de nuestra musica (Spains most popular Spanish music only, radio station) plays that type of music.
A-ha! I found another great Spanish band while looking for Spanish-language radio stations not from Spain for Pajaro44. I clicked on the rock radio live stream on Radio Nacional de Argentina and they were playing this fantastic song. I Googled around for the name of it with some of the lyrics and found it was by a band called Sr. Chinarro from Sevilla. The song is called Los Ángeles, if you're interested. I highly recommend the band.
