One of the hardest working bands in Latin America is finally seeing results. On Monday, April 4, Banda Los Recoditos won “Regional Mexican Artist of The Year” at the iHeartRadio Music Awards.
Success didn’t always come easy to the 14-person band. Formed in 1989 by a group of friends and family members, the band faced a period of controversy during the 1990s. During this time, the band saw multiple rotations of members, and in 1998, founding members Alfonso Lizárraga joined La Banda el Recodo and Pancho Barrazo left to pursue a solo career.
Following the band’s shakeup, vocalists Carlos Perez, Luis Angel Franco and Carlos Sarabia refashioned the group to appeal to the emerging Mexican youth market. Music videos and video television was just starting to reemerge as a popular art form in the late ’90s with the younger set and the group’s new looser, hipper style appealed to that demographic.
Even with a growing fan base, their career lay dormant for years. In 2005, however, the group was awarded Popular Breakthrough of the Year at the Premios Oye! for Si No Existieras attracting a wider audience and bigger studio names. Then, in 2010, the band released their album ¡Ando Bien Pedo! featuring the single of the same title. A few weeks later, the single was at the top of the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart.
The years following Ando Bien Pedo, the band’s profile remained high. The group won a Latin Grammy Award for Best Banda Album in 2013 for El Free and in 2014, they signed with Fonovisa, home to major Latin artists like Los Tigres del Norte and Enrique Iglesias.
Despite their growing acclaim, however, the group seemed a magnet for controversy. In 2014, Banda Los Recoditos released Sueno XXX, a controversial album rife with sexual content. Many critics claimed the overtly sexual content of the album all but guaranteed its unsuitability for radio.
This time, however, controversy didn’t paralyze Banda Los Recoditios. Instead, the album ended up on the Top 200 charts in early 2016 — the same week as their followup album, Me Esta Gustando was released.
The rest, as they say, is history.
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