Typically performed by ensembles of four or more musicians, the genre prominently features electric guitars, Musical keyboards, and drums.

After this initial stage, they moved on to include in their repertoire traditional ranchera songs, in addition to cumbias and ballads.

Thus, the 1970s saw the rise of a number of grupera bands that specialized in romantic ballads and songs that up to that point had only been sung with mariachi.

Enterprises like Televisa included bands from the grupera wave like Bronco in telenovelas such as Dos mujeres, un camino.

Meanwhile, grupera came to refer specifically to the bands and solo artists that use electric guitars and basses, electronic keyboards and drums, but that played ballads, cumbias, rancheras, corridos, boleros and huapangos, with said genre being one of many styles under the Regional Mexican umbrella.