Elijah Wald's Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas is an in-depth exploration of narcocorrido and its composers. A sub-genre of norteño (popular throughout Central America and the US southwest (you may know it by localized names such as conjunto, Tejano or Tex-Mex), and incidently, far outselling the salsa and Cuban styles presented to Anglos as the be-all and end-all of Latin music), the corrido is a Spanish ballad form dating back to the middle ages, traditionally used to tell accounts of news events, heroes and outlaws. In recent decades, the lyrics have often told hard-boiled tales of drug traffickers (the compositions sometimes commissioned by the traffickers themselves), and gained the narcocorrido prefix. Wald hitchhikes his way around Mexico, interviewing the major composers of the songs and detailing the settings they are working within, from Sinaloa -- the state with the biggest badass reputation -- to Zapatista territory in the south. He also takes a sidetrip to Los Angeles to examine the booming scene there. Throughout, he personalizes the story with bits of color from his own wanderings, without going overboard in distracting from the main subject. Extensive discographical listings are included, and there is a companion CD floating around: Corridos y Narcocorridos.