Retro Spins: Los Lobos - By The Light Of The Moon
Critics rave about Los Lobos' album, By The Light Of The Moon. It often finds its ways to lists featuring "The Greatest Albums of the 80's", as well as, "The Most Underrated Albums of the 80's". It was because of this that I felt I really needed to find out what I was missing.
Perusing the back of the CD, as I suspected, I knew none of the songs. My only exposure to the band was their covers of Ritchie Valens songs for the soundtrack, La Bamba, which is a pretty solid record. Based on this work, they appear to be solid musicians. In fact, many critics stated the reason their studio album went by relatively unnoticed was because it was overshadowed by the sudden success of the soundtrack. There may be some truth to this as their studio album was released in January of 1987, with La Bamba coming out in July of that same year.
With high expectations set, I dove in. Right off the bat I had to take a step back. Was this a country album? Was it English language Latino music? I was so confused.
After hearing By The Light Of The Moon, I stand by what I said above. Los Lobos are solid musicians. However, I don't feel like I necessarily missed anything after all these years of not hearing the album. There was nothing that really stood out to me as a hit.
In review of Billboard's site, I'm apparently not alone in this line of thinking. The only hits from the band came from La Bamba's soundtrack. They haven't had any since then, and only one prior to that, in 1985 Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Billboard dictates whether or not music is good. However, it's certainly a good starting point when venturing into something unknown to you.
Still, for a buck at the local Timonium show, I'm not going to complain. Overall, it's not a bad album. It's just not very commercial. No singles, to put it another way.
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Disclaimer: They Toy Box does not endorse or contribute to piracy. Retro Spins posts are intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. None of the music discussed here is available for sale, downloading or distribution.
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