Search - Cafe Tacuba :: Avalancha De Exitos

A quite enjoyable surprise

R. Suarez Giacoman | Mc Allen, Texas United States | 05/06/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I have never been a fan of cover albums, and I must say that in 1996 when I heard that Café Tacvba's next album would be full of covers, I was quite disappointed. Especially when a couple of years ago this same band criticized other bands for doing covers, now they were releasing an album full of those!



I am not sure but I believe that for this album the vocalist changed his name to `Anonimo', the album includes covers from Flans (an 80's pop band), Botellita de Jerez (another mexican rock band) and Leo Dan among others. It has only 8 tracks, but the eight of them are quite enjoyable.



Even though the songs were not new, what I never considered was that they changed the original music to the Café Tacvba style, which is totally unpredictable. Their version of `Chilanga Banda' made me buy this album, very different from the original, you basically know is the same song because of the title and the lyrics, everything else is totally café Tacvba. Their rendition of `No controles' was another pleasant surprise, especially when I never liked Flans, there's also an instrumental version of `Perfidia' which is one of my favorites, but the song that is really worth of mentioning is `Ojala que llueva café' (original by Juan Luis Guerra), the arrangement they made I promise you no one saw it coming, the last part of the song is now a classic thing an cheered in every concert they give.



If you can buy the special edition they released I would recommend it, it is a carton paper case with a very interesting work of design (as most of their albums)



Maybe not their best album, but a very rare and interesting piece of music that should be a guide to other bands on how to do a cover song, the only thing you need to do is adapt it to your style to make it different from the original and unique, and that's what Café Tacvba did in this album.

"

Un cd tibiri tabora (moves with the groove)

karynschultz@bigfoot.com | MIIS, Monterey,CA | 03/20/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"the genius of this group is that they take a world sound and make it uniquely mexican in an infinitude of ways. and if you listen to "chilanga banda" you'll learn a whole new vocabulario que ni parece a espanol, porque no es. es el son de la calle chilanga. no te lo pierdas."

Tacuba tributes their influences

ericvc@prodigy.net | 11/06/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"In the States not everybody knows this Cafe Tacuba CD is a tribute to all the songwriters and singers they've admired and received influence from. I only gave them 4 stars because they made covers from other people's songs and didn't give us some new material. But I love their "alarmala de tos" version (the original is Botellita de Jerez's), because it's so strong it makes you really get scared about it's tragic story. "Como te extrano" version (original from Leo Dan), makes me go back in time when I was 8. But the best is "Cuando llueva Cafe", this song from Juan Luis Guerra is performed in a beautiful "huapango" style and Anonimo (the lead Vocal) sings it so well. But wait to hear the new double album "reves-yo soy". They just keep getting better and growing up!"