We round up the greatest boleros ever, with help from artists and listeners

Alt.Latino

NPR

Music

4.5 • 673 Ratings

🗓️ 8 February 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nothing captures the agony of love, loss, hope and redemption like the song form known across all of Latin America: the bolero.

Last December, UNESCO declared the bolero "an intangible cultural heritage of humanity" and "an indispensable part of the Latin American sentimental song." And given that Valentine's Day is coming up, Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre did something special this week, in honor of this news: they asked some of their favorite artists and show listeners to share their most-loved boleros, and break down exactly what makes them so special. Join Felix and Ana as they laugh, cry and sing a little to the love songs of the ages.

And be sure to check out the playlists we made for this episode, feature Ana and Felix's picks, as well as the selections from featured artists and listeners, on Spotify and Apple Music.

Audio for this episode of Alt.Latino was edited and mixed by Joaquin Cotler. Hazel Cills is the podcast editor and digital editor for Alt.Latino and our project manager is Grace Chung. NPR Music's executive producer is Suraya Mohamed. Our VP of Music and Visuals is Keith Jenkins.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message come from Yarl and Pamela Mone,
0:04.4	thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen.
0:10.7	From NPR music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras.
0:14.3	And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Let the Chisemay begin.
0:20.9	Relo, the hen to come in. Oh. May begin. Renaud
0:21.9	to come in
0:24.1	Oh, no.
0:25.8	No more singing.
0:27.2	We're not normalizing singing on the show.
0:30.5	That's what we have the artist for.
0:32.6	Especially my singing.
0:34.0	Okay, I'm singing a bolero because it's February and it's time for Valentine's Day.
0:38.5	So we want to do a nice little special show for Valentine's Day. And you know we love love
0:44.5	here at all Latino. Do love love. If the people knew, Felix, how much time we spend unpacking,
0:51.0	dissecting, analyzing. Yeah.
0:55.9	They don't want to know.
0:56.7	Okay.
0:59.2	But for now, we're doing this podcast.
1:03.5	What we're going to do is we're going to feature Bolero, and here's why.
1:09.0	Because I don't know if you noticed, but in late last year in December, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO,
1:12.8	recognized the song form known as Bolero as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
1:19.9	And their quote was, they are an indispensable part of the Latin American sentimental song,
	...

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