Call your primos! 10 Bésame Mucho artists we're most excited to see on the 2024 lineup

Saturday's Bésame Mucho festival will bring more than 90 Spanish-language music stars to Austin's Circuit of the Americas.

They'll play on stages representing four different genres: pop, banda, rock and classics (mostly norteño). Tickets for the March 2 festival will set you back at least $399.

So, who to listen to? The burden of choice.

Here are 10 bands we're most excited to sing and dance along to:

1. Los Tigres del Norte

A family band active since its members' early adolescence six decades ago, Los Tigres del Norte aren't just peg in the timeline of fame. They are, in norteño music history, the peg. The band of brothers tied the narcocorrido — songs written about the country's drug trade — to the heart of northern Mexico's lyrical tradition and kept a keen interest stories of the Mexican diaspora in the United States (Los Tigres' early success came in California). Song "La Jaula de Oro" tells of a parent's witness to their child's assimilation. "Somos Más Americanos" is a popular rejection of the Anglo claim to the term "American." Expect some of the most fervent sing-alongs.

2. Banda MS

It's going to be a tight squeeze of thousands at the Circuit, so Banda MS will show us just how good of partner dancers we are. The group is the product of the strong tradition of banda music exported from Mexico's northwestern coastal city of Mazátlan. Their lyrics fling idealisms and daily matters of love and heartbreak, but it's the big band — with its waves of horns and strings — and the full vocal harmonies that will keep the night alive.

3. Reik

Disparage their boybandness, but Reik has kept themselves on a high for two decades now. Voices like syrup, arrangements like hotcakes, it's the bedroom sound that fans will keep swaying to in the anonymity of crowds. Never speeding out of a sing-along, Reik's hits like "Yo Quisiera" and "Un Año" incorporate acoustic pop riffs with delicate, harmonized vocal arrangements. Don't say they're your little sister's band. They're ours.

4. Cafe Tacvba

Arguably the most eclectic of Mexico’s rock products, Café Tacvba has skirted the lines of genre in their 35 years together. Their attitude and politics grew from the alternativeness of their generation’s rock scene, but their sound pulled ambitiously from Latin America’s deep breadth — danzón, son, ranchera and boleros, to name a few.

5. Sin Bandera

In the early 2000s, Sin Bandera became instantly recognizable and beloved for their stadium-ready ballads, the kind that draw screams from an audience when the first notes are played. Songs that the crowd will song along to word for word: “Entra en Mi Vida,” “Kilómetros,” “Que Lloro.” Those are the types of songs that showcase some of Sin Bandera’s best qualities — romantic lyrics, unforgettable melodies and the duo’s harmonies. But that’s not all they have in their arsenal. Expect them to get you moving, too, hopefully with “Junto a Ti” and one of their earliest hits, “Sirena.” The duo of Noel Schajris and Leonel García split in 2007 to pursue solo careers, but they have since periodically reunited for music releases and tours — to the elation of their fans of about 20 years.

6. Duelo

Duelo, a band that hails from the southern Texas border city of Roma, has been going strong since its start in 2001. They claim a diverse range of influences — Ramón Ayala, Metallica, Los Tigres del Norte and The Beatles, according to a 2016 interview with Al Día Dallas. Duelo represents the best of both worlds in norteño music — songs that make you want to pull a partner into a dance, and belt along at the top of your lungs: “Desde Hoy” and “El Amor No Acaba,” if we’re going to the early days of their career, or, more recently, the Los Rojos collaboration “A Mí Me Gustas Tú.” The band still appears on the Bésame schedule after a car crash in Monterrey, Mexico, recently injured two of its members. They have been released from the hospital and are recovering, something we’re grateful for.

7. Bronco

Bronco added grupero soapiness to norteño music in the 1990s (or, conversely, norteño cowboy bravado to grupero). Its members kept their bronzed chests open-aired through their unbuttoned uniforms and stared out into the open so well that it appeared an attempt to titillate the waning century back to life. The band added synth riffs to this and that, and kept the vocals buttery. Singer Juan Guadalupe Esparza's innovative cadence continues to abound an intimate confessionalism.

8. Ramón Ayala

He plays sitting these days, but 78-year-old Ramón Ayala will receive the attention merited to “the accordion king” on festival day. The band leader helped deliver the borderlands' conjunto tradition to the broader Mexican market, first as a young man in Los Relámpagos in the ’60s and later with his Bravos. Ayala has used a soft voice to convey coquetry, tragedy and absolution. His love songs have whisked boot pairs on kitchen and wedding hall floors for generations.

9. Caifanes

Debuting in 1988 with a titular album that was enough goth, emo and synth to be called post-punk, Caifanes grabbed at the heart of the Latin American New Wave. In their 20s, the group dressed like The Cure, but their color evolved with the 1990s, with different albums fusing elements of tropical, Mexican folkloric and prog rock.

10. Belanova

A central exponent of Mexico’s early 2000s electropop and soft-rock, Belanova is pained, teenage angst. Singer Denisse Guerrero’s yearning cries match the indoor-shades and bright colors of their early look. Add a funny-shaped bass guitar and the keytar, and you have a show.

Local News Editor Vicky Camarillo contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: 10 Bésame Mucho artists we're most excited to see on the 2024 lineup