Some veteran groups become exercises in nostalgia and spend most of their time celebrating their accomplishments from 30 or 40 years ago;
los Tigres del Norte, however, have maintained their vitality, and continue to record excellent albums and become even more popular and relevant than they were in the '70s and '80s. They still have their older fans who were converted by classic '70s hits like "Contrabando y Traición" ("Contraband and Betrayal") and "La Banda del Carro Rojo" ("The Red Car Gang"), but their '90s and 2000s recordings earned them an abundance of younger fans without alienating the older ones. So when a
Tigres best-of is assembled, it is easy to find high-quality material regardless of the era, decade, or period that a label chooses to focus on. The decade that
El Rugido de los Tigres del Norte ("The Roar of the Tigers of the North") mainly focuses on is the 2000s. One won't find "Contrabando y Traición" or "La Banda del Carro Rojo" on this 49-minute CD; nor should one expect to hear "La Jaula de Oro," "El Mojado Acaudalado," or their hit arrangement of the ranchera standard "La Puerta Negra."
El Rugido de los Tigres del Norte mainly serves as a reminder of what they have accomplished in the 21st century, and one can expect to hear 2000s recordings that include "¿En Qué Falle?" from 2002's
La Reina del Sur, "José Pérez León" from 2004's
Pacto de Sangre, "Señor Locutor" from 2006's
Historias Que Contar, "Detalles" from 2007's
Detalles y Emociones, "Rumbo al Sur" from 2008's
Raices, and "Mi Curiosidad" from 2009's
La Granja. In addition to the 13 previously released songs, there are two new offerings: the playful "El Enfermito" and the narcocorrido "Aguas Revueltas." One could nitpick about the fact that this CD is only 49 minutes long; as prolific as
los Tigres were in the 2000s, Fonovisa could have easily come up with another 30 minutes worth of recordings. "Las Mujeres de Juárez" from
Pacto de Sangre, "El Muro" from
Detalles y Emociones, and
La Reina del Sur's title track are among the omissions that would have been excellent choices. But while
El Rugido de los Tigres del Norte is by no means the last word on their 2000s output, it would nonetheless be a rewarding place for novices to get acquainted with the recordings they made during that decade. ~ Alex Henderson