Originally of a folkloric nature, during the past century the mariachi repertoire has undergone major evolution due in great part to urbanization, internationalization and the mass media. Many of the original mariachi genres have tended to become overshadowed by newer, adopted ones.

Early 20^th century mariachis played mainly sones, corridos, valonas, minuetes, jarabes, short instrumental pieces and canciones mexicanas. In the urban setting, however, mariachis began adopting almost any music that was requested of them, adding folklore from other regions of Mexico, popular, classical, and international genres to their repertory.

In addition to the aforementioned ones (with the possible exception of the valona and minuete), mariachis today perform an extremely wide variety of musical genres that commonly includes valses, polkas, marchas, chotices, danzas, canciones rancheras, huapangos, boleros, pasodobles, popurrís, clásicas, danzones, joropos and baladas.