Over the past four decades, few—if any—rock bands have evoked Los Angeles and Southern California as warmly or vividly as Los Lobos have. Of course, their SoCal is not the SoCal of, say, The Beach Boys or ’80s hair metal. It’s not catching waves, having fun-fun-fun in the T-Bird…

Welcome to RIFF Rewind! Every week of 2018, we’ll highlight the top five songs of a different year as selected by our expert panel of tastemakers, by which, of course, I mean me (with help from my friends Robin St. Clare and Ash McGonigal, plus other contributors and RIFF…