How is it that nobody’s mentioned Santana? :eek:
or the Gypsy Kings?
Probably because neither is female…they’re both quite good though. 
Jennifer Pena
“Entre te voy a perdonar”
Now she may very well be saying " you are one ugly %^%$ SOB and I want your miserable sorry &^% out of this house right now"
I have no idea what she is saying!! LOL
but she has a beautiful voice and the music is very pretty
Olga Tañón… pop/merengue/rancheras/whatever… Should be easy to find something by her…
Do find something by Juan Luis Guerra y 440. At least one of his vocalists is female, and she has a very pretty voice, sometimes singing/replying to Juan Luis in the songs.
Eh… perhaps no one has mentioned Santana because most of his songs are not in Spanish but English? Santana’s CD Supernatural does have some songs in Spanish, most notably Corazón Espinado, with Maná.
If you want something with flamenco flavor, try Azúcar Moreno… those are two women singers.
Chavela Vargas. I picked up her Noche Bohemia a few years ago & was entranced. Just her voice with guitar backing, but absolutely haunting. As with many other CD’s of classic Spanish-speaking (Spanish-singing?) artists, the price is low but no translation is supplied. So you listen, turn to your Spanish/English dictionary, and listen again–as the meaning dawns on you. She has other CD’s available–just check Amazon. Also appeared in the movie Frida, as the old woman who sang “La Llorona” near the end. Apparently she knew Frida in her youth & may have been her lover (but, then, who wasn’t?)
Linda Ronstadt. Her Canciones de mi Padre and its followup are fine introductions to the Mexican ranchera tradition. She does classic tunes & the supporting musicians are absolutely the best. Her big-voiced, big-hearted style absolutely fits these songs. Bonus for Gringos: Lyric sheets in Spanish with English translation.
I’ll join my voice to the others suggesting La Pistola y El Corazon by Los Lobos. Anything by Cafe Tacuba is also recommended, although their Mexico City slang might be a challenge.
And you might look up Carlos Gardel, to hear the voice of the tango. Also an introduction to Argentine Spanish–different from the others…
If you want to hear Castilian Spanish:
Massiel
Marisol
Rocío Jurado
Mari Trini
Ana Belén
All females, all of a certain age, each the possessor of a strong voice & they all have good diction.
I will echo a couple of other people:
Cafe Tacuba – look for the album Re. I also recommend them to people who like Bare Naked Ladies, Moxy Fruvous, and KMFDM – they vary their styles wildly from song to song.
Aterciopelados – I’m partial to Gozo Poderoso.
Another extremely enthusiastic vote for Aterciopelados. Bonus: all the albums I have of theirs have lyric sheets, which makes it much easier to follow along.
Other stuff in my collection: a couple of merengue compilations (although I have yet to hear of a female merengue singer - why is that?), the newest Celia Cruz album (La Negra Tiene Tumbao), although I have a hard time understanding a lot of Cubans, and I’m fluent in Spanish), Fulanio (pan-Latin merengue/hip-hop group from NY, but they use a LOT of slang and random English words, so probably not the best for your purpose), a Shakira acoustic album, and random other things…
Gah, beat me to it. The Gipsy Kings sing in Gitane though, a combination of Catalan, Spanish, and French. Hard for me to understand most of it, but they’re one of my favorite bands ;).
~mixie
Another enthusiastic recommendation for Ana Torroja and Mecano. The lyrics are very literate, and she has a beautiful voice. When I was learning Spanish, I found that listening to music in Spanish before I went to bed at night was very helpful.
Olga Tañón sings merengue, and Milly Quezada, too. Again, one of Juan Luis Guerra’s back up singers has a very good voice, and sings with him some of the songs.
¿Aún no han mencionado a “La Ley”? :eek: These guys are quite good. So is Soda Stereo, but they disbanded a few years back.
As for the ladies that AFAIK have not been mentioned:
Alejandra Guzmán: Mexican. Look for her early stuff (Top hit songs: “Reina de Corazones”, “Eternamente Bella”).
Marta Sánchez: Spanish. Once again, I preffer her early stuff, like the radio hit “Desesperada”.
Fey: Mexican. Haven’t heard much from her lately. She was very popular in the 90’s with hits like “Media Naranja” and “Gatos en el Balcón”
Then you got very popular artists like the mexicans Paulina Rubio andThalia, who were both members of Timbiriche, another great band.
And of course there’s always the Spanish version of "Genie in a Bottle. Christina Aguilera was so sexy back then.
Cheers,
quasar
I will highly recommend Del Castillo out of Austin, Texas. Amazing guitars, and most of their songs are in Spanish. They have the English translations on their website. If you saw “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” you’ve heard some of their music. I’ve gotten hooked on their music lately.
Patricia Vonne has some songs in Spanish as well. She also sang on the OUATIM soundtrack, also from Austin.
I can unreservedly recommend Tish Hinojosa who writes and sings in both Spanish and English. Here’s her official site.
She does a very approachable mix of folk/country/tejano with some nice lyrics (in both languages), and there are a number of albums available.
When my wife and I married five years ago, her “Who Showed You The Way To My Heart?” with its combination of lyrics in both languages was our wedding song.
Shakira’s untranslated cuts of Objection and Whenever, Wherever
Jose Feliciano.
I’ve always been a fan of the Latin Jazz sounds of Tito Puente,and others of the same genre and time like Willie Bobo and Mongo Santamaria to name a few.
Never understood the lyrics but the sound can’t be beat IMO.
Also someone mentioned Mana,and I bought Supernatural just because of that single.I thought a few of the other cuts from different other “artists” should have paid Carlos to get the gig.
Finally,and the snobs will give the rolleyes,I heard Christina Aguilera for the first time ever on the Latin Grammys a few years back singing a song in Spanish ( I think she’s recorded an album in Spanish),and she knocked me out.That little girl has a big set of pipes.Complete waste of talent recording those whatever you call them, same sounding songs from the young "pop"singers of the day.
I thought her song/sound that night (I think she was one of the nominees) was better than the winner-Shakira.
If you want to hear Spanish songs give a look at this years Latin Grammys if they’re still giving them airtime.100% better in terms of talent and presentation,than the generic blend.And lots of Spanish from the victor’s speeches.
Juanes has a song, Fotografía (IIRC, or something like that), which is a duet with Nelly Furtado, both singing in Spanish.
Gloria Estefan has many albums in Spanish, going back to 1980’s and 90’s. I think one of her most known is the album Mi Tierra.
I was going to suggest Gloria Estefan too, she’s really an obvious choice.
OK, I am no geography wiz, that’s for sure … She is Cuban, is the Cuban language the same thing as Spanish, or is it some variation of Spanish? (Slight hijack, sorry.)
Spanish language, Cuban dialect. Meaning mostly differences in common day vocabulary. But since she’s an international artist, most of her songs do not have slang words.