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39 albums · 1960–2025

Music of Costa Rica, from the marimba and the calypso of Limón to Malpaís, Editus and today

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

A calypso group of Limón with banjo, congas, chimes and a box bass
Editus on stage, Ricardo Ramírez on violin, Carlos Tapao Vargas at the percussion and Edín Solís on guitarThe Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica with their instruments on the stage of the Teatro Nacional in San José
A calypso group of Limón in 2009. Photo: Filipe Fortes, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Editus, Ricardo Ramírez, Carlos Tapao Vargas and Edín Solís, on stage in 2015. Photo: Rodtico21, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · The Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional on the stage of the Teatro Nacional in San José in 2025. Photo: Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud de Costa Rica, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Costa Rica's popular music has the marimba of Guanacaste in Marimba Diriá and Guadalupe Urbina's sones, the calypso of Limón in Walter Ferguson and Kawe Calypso with the reggae of Mekatelyu beside it, Ray Tico's boleros and the sixties beat of Los Hicsos from Cartago, the rock that José Capmany's Café con Leche began in the eighties and El Parque, Gandhi and Evolución carried on, Malpaís and Editus with Manuel Obregón's piano for the folk and jazz of the nineties and after, and today Debi Nova's pop, Cocofunka, Percance, Las Robertas and Sonámbulo Psicotropical, with Eddie Mora's Plegaria for a nod to the concert hall. The list has 39 records from 1960 to 2025, one or two by each name and only a small part of what they made; the cimarrona brass bands of the fiestas, the song of the Talamanca, the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional and most of the classical tradition, and the many records that never reached streaming, Walter Ferguson's Babylon among them, are left for other lists. About 29 hours of music, 4 days of a few records each.

By genre

Rock 19%Pop 9%Folk & Country 7%Other 65%
  • Rock 19%
  • Pop 9%
  • Folk & Country 7%
  • Other 65%

The genres named most: costa rican, rock, pop, folk, calypso, reggae.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: Costa Rica 39. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.