Rock from Argentina
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Argentine rock (called in its country "national rock") is a very broad musical denomination, applied to any variety of rock and roll, blues rock, progressive rock, jazz rock, pop rock, punk rock, new wave, post-punk, garage rock, ska punk, alternative rock, psychedelic rock, hard rock, heavy metal, among other musical styles. Argentina was the first country in the Ibero-American sphere that, after the Anglo-Saxons (the United States, Great Britain and Australia, their places of origin), combined the various genres derived from rock and roll with local elements, thus developing a rock of its own identity, which received the name of "national rock". He was also the first to use a language other than English to communicate and describe themes related to his idiosyncrasy and abundant references to local geography and culture, thus becoming a precursor of Spanish-speaking rock and the one that initially achieved the greatest commercial success outside of English. from its borders.
Rock in Argentina began to be interpreted in the second half of the 50s. At this time a musical genre began to form that was first called beat, later progressive music and finally "national rock", when several underground groups began to compose songs in Spanish about issues that concerned young people at that time. Since the late 1950s, local groups have dedicated themselves to singing rock and roll songs in Spanish and English, originals or versions of international hits, without giving them their own musical identity. But starting in the mid-1960s, Argentine rock began a constant evolution that during the 1970s and 1980s, and especially after the Malvinas war, crystallized into a movement with well-defined aesthetic characteristics and international recognition. From its origins, Argentine rock has been creating a repertoire of artistic expressions and musical movements that are part of the history of Latin American music. He developed an identity and an unmistakable essence of his own, since he did not limit himself to covering songs by American or British bands. He was a pioneer in incorporating Spanish into rock and roll, which allowed him to thematize about his idiosyncrasy, referencing national geography, history, music, cinema, customs, etc., and including local cultural elements such as slang and lunfardo. These components gave rise to a way of making rock. Argentine rock is prominent and recognized throughout Latin America, due to the great popularity of bands and artists, who reaped records in album sales and concert attendance.
Arrival of rock in Argentina (1955—1967)
The origins of Argentine rock date back to the second half of the 1950s, when it arrived in the country as part of the international rush that American rock and roll bands were experiencing. This innovative and danceable rhythm led to the formation of the first rock bands in the country, contrary to the belief that Argentine rock was born at the end of the 60s, since in February 1956 a rock song was published in Spanish in sheet music., which was later recorded on disc in May of that year; it was "Rock con Leche". Eddie Pequenino, Los Comandantes orchestra, Los Rocklands, Los Mac Ke Mac's on their first album and Osvaldo Norton's orchestra are some of the few exceptions.
Diverse musicians made their first experiences and attempts at rock in times when tango and Argentine folklore still predominated in the country. These early Argentine rock bands and soloists encouraged dancing and partying, influenced by names like Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chubby Checker and Bo Diddley, among others. Naturally, these early exponents of Argentine rock had different styles as a consequence of imitating the various American genres: some like Eddie Pequenino and his band Mr. Roll y sus Rocks were more inclined to the swing style of Bill Haley & His Comets, others like Los Cinco Latinos were adept at doo wop vocal groups like The Platters, and there were others like Sandro who was clearly inspired by Elvis Presley's fusion with country. When the 60s arrived, more groups and soloists with similar themes appeared, now with influences from new bands, the genres of twist, new wave, surf and garage appeared as the decade progressed, as well as having a great impact on Argentine music, the British and Uruguayan invasions.
By the end of the 60s, bands more influenced by British merseybeat appeared. Meeting centers such as La Perla de Once or the Di Tella Institute were the nuclei of this new artistic trend. In 1967 the song '"La Balsa" by Los Gatos, which with its resounding success and popularity with 250,000 copies sold became the first massive success of Argentine merseybeat in Spanish.
Context of the local music scene
The musical scene in Argentina in the 50s had, among its main genres, tango (established since approximately 1880 as the main urban genre), folklore (which was experiencing a boom with internal migration), music melodica both from France and Italy (the Sanremo Song Festival, started in 1951, was very popular in Argentine society at the time) and from the United States (such as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett), genres from other Latin American countries (such as bolero, mambo, merengue and cumbia) and jazz (which had established itself on the Buenos Aires scene since approximately the 1920s). Precisely, this last genre would be crucial in the birth of rock in Argentina.
Since around the 1930s, the phenomenon of internal migration took place in Argentina. The rise to power in 1945 of Juan Domingo Perón influenced great changes in various areas, including Argentine music. In 1949 Perón issued Decree 3371/1949 "De Protección de la Música Nacional", which established that in public places there should be 50% music made by Argentine artists. In 1950 folklore was already showing serious signs of being able to compete on an equal footing with tango: "El rancho 'e la Cambicha", a folklore song, became the first Argentine song to reach the figure of a million sales for his single; of the total number of singles released that year, 21% were tango and 17% folklore; and of the total scores released that year, 30% were tango and 25% folklore. Therefore, by the 1950s, tango was beginning to show signs of giving up its position as the sole leader of the Argentine music scene.
The military dictatorship calling itself the Revolución Libertadora of 1955 initiated great changes in several areas of the country, and as a consequence the Argentine music scene changed substantially. Tango was seriously affected: the economic crisis under the de facto government i> led dance venues to reduce their budgets, and orchestras and groups to reduce their number of members. The military regime persecuted artists for their political ideas, prohibited events with a large concentration of people (which took away from music Argentina a broadcast space), repealed Peronist music protection laws and established measures that favored the dissemination of foreign music.
Rock and roll emerged as a musical genre in the United States in the 1950s, the product of the fusion of various musical currents such as folk, hillbilly, bluegrass, country, western, and rhythm & blues, quickly gaining national and international popularity through artists such as Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, and Alan Chaile. In Argentina, the diffusion of his songs through radios and records awoke interest in many musicians to emulate the new sounds and marked rhythms that characterized him.
It was in the mid-50s when rock and roll arrived in Argentina, with American hits by singer-songwriters like Bill Haley & His Comets, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Gene Vincent that became worldwide popular, along with the premieres in Argentine theaters of the founding trilogy of rock and roll films: Blackboard Jungle, Rock Around The Clock and Don't Knock The Rock (translated in Argentina as Semilla De Maldad, Al Compás Del Reloj and Celos Y Revuelos Al Ritmo Del Rock, respectively). Rock and roll movies had such an impact among adolescents and young people that they began to dance this new rhythm in the corridors of the cinema, the streets, squares, or even in the obelisk of Buenos Aires. He began selling rock and roll records in record stores (called music houses or record houses at the time) and spreading the rhythm on the radio with stations advertising such as Radio Splendid, Radio Miter and its program Melodías de rock& #39;n'roll with César Lazaga, and Radio Excelsior with Rock and Belfast with Jorge Beillard, occasionally replaced by Miguel Ángel Merellano.
As for the radios, AM stations predominated, despite the fact that FM (invented in the United States in 1933) had already had its first case in Argentina, with the transmission in February 1945 of the LU3A station. However, it did not work like an FM as it would be known four decades later: this transmission was experimental, it worked at certain times of the day and had interruptions over the years. In the 50s, experiments with Argentine FM would continue.
Origins in the mid-50s
On December 5, 1955, the first known rock recording was made in Argentina. It was a version of "Rock Around the Clock" made by the jazz orchestra led by trumpeter Roger Santander.
Singer and trombonist Eddie Pequenino, a native of jazz (in the 40s and still as a teenager he formed the band Jazz Los Colegiales with Ricardo Romero) and R&B (in the early 50s he had formed Eddie Parker and his Rhythm Band) put together in 1956 the group Mr. Roll y sus Rocks, the first rock band in Argentina to release records to the market, with a young Lalo Schifrin as arranger and session pianist. The band performed both their own songs and songs by American groups, being Bill Haley & His Comets is heavily influenced by him with his swing-oriented style. Such was the success of the group that their recordings with the versions of Bill Haley's songs sold more than the originals. But in addition to having made the first rock album in Argentina, Eddie Pequenino was the protagonist of the first original Argentine rock song sung in Spanish, the aforementioned "Rock con leche", a song with a humorous tone made in collaboration with the Argentine comedian Délfor Dicásolo. Thanks to the success of the cut, the film Come dance the rock was shot, released on August 29, 1957 and with the performance of Mr. Roll and his Rockers and the actors Eber Lobato, Nélida Lobato, Alfredo Barbieri and Pedrito Rico. The film included two of Pequenino's own compositions in English, and a rock in Spanish titled like the film, created by Éber Lobato. In May 1958 Bill Haley visited Argentina with his ensemble, performing at the Metropolitan Theater, and chose as a band opening act for Mr. Roll and his Rockers.
Some controversies immediately began around rock, when certain media argued that young people "went crazy" in movie theaters because of rock movies, causing destruction in some cases, and raised their guard at the arrival of Bill Haley saying that rock and roll was foreign music. On the other hand, the magazine Antena published an issue in which Bill Haley appeared wearing a poncho and drinking mate, as a gesture of cultural conciliation.
The arrival of the new musical phenomenon and the formation of Mr. Roll y sus Rocks, caught the attention of the Argentine record industry, who saw that there was a segment of society that until then had not been explored by it: the teenagers and young people. From there, a new market would be opened to be marketed with youth music bands and soloists, which would leave a change in the subsequent development of Argentine music in its entirety without distinction of gender and ideological content.[quote required]
In 1958 and continuing the success of the visit earlier that year by Bill Haley & His Comets, more rock and roll bands were formed that performed their own songs as well as compositions by groups from the United States, several of the members of these musical groups had members who years later would be popular pop singers of the so-called "new wave" Argentina in the 60s. Rock and roll radio programs also began to appear on Radio Libertad (today AM del Plata) and Radio El Mundo. The magazine Jazzlandia had taken note of the rock and roll explosion in the Argentine music scene and began to publish articles, lyrics, scores and rock reviews, as did the magazine Estrellas. The disc-jockey of the program Música en el aire , Rodríguez Luque, created the Disc-Jockey label from which he published emerging rock musicians. In April of that year, Loving You, Elvis Presley's third film, was released, translated in the country under the title The woman I adore, was promoted in the media through Unlike the previous two installments, the result was a boom in Elvis' aesthetics.
The Paters was formed, with the singer Lalo Fransen (future member of El Club del Clan) who at the time called himself Danny Santos, his two broadcast cuts were recordings of "A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation)" by Marty Robbins and "I Forgot to Remember to Forget" by Elvis Presley. Los Modern Rockers also appeared, whose member Luis Aguilé —who played his own songs like Los Iracundos and versions of artists like Pat Boone— would also stand out years later, when he was hired by the Odeón label, and with his guitar and the support of the Armando Patrono's orchestra recorded the bolero "Mirá qué luna", but also one of the first rock songs originally created in Argentina, "La Balanza".
Accompanied by the Lucio Milena orchestra, the versions recorded in Spanish by Billy Cafaro, "Pity, pity" by Paul Anka and "Personality" they had considerable success. However when he did an interpretation in Spanish of the German hit & # 34; Kriminal Tango & # 34;, he turned out to be very unpopular among the tangueros who misinterpreted the song and considered it an offense to tango.. Billy Cafaro suffered repeated attacks by the tangueros, which is why he moved to Spain. A native of this country, Andy Maciá recorded his own songs in Spanish such as "Rock del vaquero", "Tú eres mi luna" and "A scooter" —the latter was an advertising jingle for the Siam-Lambretta scooters, and possibly the first advertising jingle in Argentine history— helped by the Horacio Malvicino orchestra, which at that time called itself Don Nobody, later turning to tango in Europe would adopt another pseudonym, Alain Debray.
By 1960, the group Los Teen Tops achieved great popularity among Argentine listeners, this Mexican group sang American rock and roll hits, but with lyrics translated into Spanish. His energetic style influenced Eber Lobato's brother, Rocky Pontoni, who entered the record market with his own songs such as "Dulce Amor Mío", "Edad", "Gracielita", "María Cristina", "My Presentiment", "Night of the Moon and Rumor of the Wind"; and renditions of "Stupid Cupid" by Neil Sedaka, "Adam and Eve" by Paul Anka and "I'm On a Merry Go-Round" by Teddy Randazzo. Pontoni always sang in Spanish. He was followed by Luis Bastián with his Spanish versions of Elvis Presley's Jailhouse Rock and "Itsi, bitsi, tiny winy yellow polka dot bikini" by Brian Hyland. Supported by the Orfeo label —a CBS subsidiary— Johnny Carel emerged —whose real name was José Roberto Gentile— with his own country rock songs in Spanish such as "Sácala a Bailar" or his Spanish version of "Let's think about living" by Bob Luman, whose successes made them be released in other countries such as Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico and Spain. At that time another future member of the new wave and El Club del Clan appeared within the jazz orchestra Los Platos Voladores which later became the seed of the rock band The Rocklands, this was Norberto Fago who would later use the pseudonym Nicky Jones.. He recorded a version of & # 34;Runnaway & # 34; by Del Shannon and was one of the few artists who sang in English at the time. Johnny Allon also emerged within his group Los Tammys, who recorded their own songs in Spanish such as & # 34; Las Viejas Molestan & # 34; and several versions of surf and beat groups from the 60s. Nery Nelson appeared in the province of Tucumán who recorded rock and rolls in Spanish by local authors and not versions of Elvis Presley songs as they say; Nery was promoted by the Discofonia label, he came to edit without any repercussions, and later at RCA he adopted the nickname Palito Ortega. The same label released another young man named Martín Meyer who had the musical support of the composer Aldo Legui. He released an LP sung in Spanish El millonario del disco .
In the early 1960s, several American mainstream musicians of the time such as Johny Ray, The Platters, Paul Anka (who sang in his performance at the Opera Theater with a local orchestra conducted by drummer Enrique Corriale as sideman), Dion DiMucci, Brenda Lee, Neil Sedaka and Chubby Checker visited the country. The latter and his twist style served as inspiration for a local band called Los Jets, whose member Jorge Jackie Álvarez would form Jackie y los Ciclones. Both groups sang in Spanish, both their own compositions and versions. In 1961 Tony Vilar released his LP with the CBS label with rock songs sung in Spanish such as "Fifteen years has my love", "Diablito", "Rock del Fuego" and "Rock del Abuelo". Tracks like "Rock del Fuego" They were of his own making.
In July 1961, the multinational record company RCA hired a musician under the pseudonym Balder, who had appeared on the Canal 7 program Justa del Saber. with a rock song composed by Balder himself, "El rock del tom tom". Soon after, his composition in Spanish was also published & # 34; Zapatos de pom pom & # 34;. The artist was Alberto Felipe Soria, known as Johnny Tedesco. The album sold half a million copies in a very short time, also becoming a hit on the radio. Tedesco developed a style highly influenced by Elvis Presley that was a mixture of rock, rockabilly and country and he established himself as an interpreter in Spanish of his own compositions and international rock hits. "Smug", "Lots of Love", "I Need Your Love Tonight", "Eight Days a Week", "Flirty" (own composition) and "La plaga" are some of his interpretations that helped consolidate the rock genre in Argentina.
In August 1961, the multinational CBS, to counteract the success and figure of Tedesco, promoted and released its new artist Tony Vilar, who with his own songs in Spanish such as the rockabilly "Rock de Fuego& #3. 4; and "Bailando", or versions of the Dynamic Duo such as "My love is fifteen years old" or "Devil" by Neil Sedaka. Tony represented the typical son of Italian immigrants of the youth of the moment. His second album was released in 1962, from which the singles & # 34; Despeinada & # 34;, & # 34; Nothing is worth without love & # 34; and "Acomlejada", slow rock ballads with an intimate tone with the orchestra of Frank Ferrer (pseudonym of Waldo de los Ríos) and electroacoustic guitar solos. While their success was short-lived, it was quickly eclipsed by the breakneck emergence of the Clan Club.
At that time, Los Pick Ups had emerged, a band led by Horacio Ascheri, who made their own songs like "Mi promise" and "Es La Locura". Radio Antártida, the name Radio América had at the time, presented a rock and roll program all day from start to finish, which included the programs A window to success with Antonio Barrios, Juan José's discotheque with Juan José May, Johnny Carel's Whiskeria and Círculo musical with Héctor Larrea.
In 1963, the group Los de Fuego —or Sandro y los de Fuego— recorded their own rock songs in Spanish "Peggy Peggy" and beat music "No Puedo Esperarte Más Nena", as well as versions of rock and beat songs sung in Spanish such as "I will get you", "Anochecer de un día agitado" 34;, "My bonnie" and "Money cant buy me love", becoming one of the most commercially successful bands of the moment. Later, the group and its other rock band the Black Combo dissolved, its singer Sandro began to radically change his style, abandoning classic rock and roll in Spanish, to design a more popular repertoire, being one of the pioneers of the ballad. Latin American romantic, derived from the bolero, which would become the quintessential Latin pop genre in the following decades. Sandro brought her themes, poses and rhythms taken from rock and roll, which made her provocative and attractive to young people from the most popular sectors of Latin American communities, and especially to women. Although generally rejected by the world of rock and branded as "fat", from the 1990s national rock revalued Sandro and several bands included his songs in the repertoire, some of them being important hits, as "Give me fire". His famous song "I have" has been placed at number 15 among the 100 best songs in the history of Argentine rock, by MTV and the magazine Rolling Stone of Argentina. The group Los Búhos, with the brothers Merlo in front, was the first band that in those years could be considered a Beatle, as well as Los Tammys, by singer Johnny Allon.
Influence of Mexican and Chicano rock
Chicano and Mexican rock musicians in the late 1950s and early 1960s exerted an important influence on the nascent Argentine rock. In 1957 Ritchie Valens achieved the first worldwide success in Spanish thanks to "La Bamba", while the Mexican bands Los Teen Tops, Los Blue Caps and Los Locos del Ritmo made successful adaptations in Spanish of Elvis songs. Presley, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Buddy Holly who became Latino classics such as "La Plaga" and "Popotitos". In Argentina, Billy Caffaro and Tony Vilar made their first local hits with a more international style, but adapted to local idioms, beginning to differentiate Argentine productions from the rest. Tony was the first Argentine to interpret the so-called slow rock or ballads slow, and his most important piece in this genre was the slow rock in Spanish "Y los cielos lloron" with Frankie and his group (pseudonym of Waldo de Los Ríos). Many artists of that time point out that Mexican bands influenced Argentine rock groups such as Los Gatos and Los Dukes among others, as well as almost all similar groups from other Spanish-speaking countries.
Litto Nebbia recounted in his book Argentine Progressive Music that he joined a band in 1961 in Rosario and that at that time there were many groups influenced by Mexican rock. The American bands were the source of the music and the Mexican ones that took that sound and exported it to other countries in the Spanish-speaking world.
New Wave and The Clan Club
LS10 Radio Libertad, presented at the beginning of the 60s a radio program that would give rise to the new wave, a style of pop mixed with twist, beat and rock that was very popular in Latin America and Europe. The term came from the nouvelle vague of French cinema. Several artists broadcast in the station's studios, who, although they were not well paid, the medium allowed them to make themselves known and achieve some popularity by performing at neighborhood clubs on weekends. Johny Tedesco, Lalo Fransen, Los Picks, Ricky Montana, Joe Twist, Gasparino —later Indio Gasparino and later Facundo Cabral—, Danny Palma (who recorded a Spanish version of "Muñeca rota& #34;, a hit by Johnny Halliday), Raúl Lavié (singing hits by Paul Anka in Spanish), Jolly Land, Los Jets and the duo Los Novarro (from which the soloist Chico Novarro would emerge years later), among others. The actor and comedian Dino Ramos, together with Ramón Ortega, composed a rock that, seeing its success and the potential for a youthful audience, convinced the leaders of Channel 11 to make a program that was aimed at that audience, that's how it was conceived Rhythm and youth, which would later be known as La cantina de la guardia nueva, which was broadcast on Sundays from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The multinational RCA-Victor ended up pressing to remove its artists from the program, so Dino Ramos replaced them with others from the new wave such as Johnny Carel, Jerry and the HI-FI; Pablo Danielo, Ricardo Roda, Jim & Jerry (one of them was Juan Marcelo), Danny Palma, Chicote López, Los Tammys, Ricky Montana, Beto Espinosa, Roxana, Donald and Juan Ramón (who sang the recent hits that emerged in France, Italy or the United States). It was also a point of resistance to a multinational like RCA-Victor, the strength of the CBS record company that leaned on Sandro and managed to promote him, including making a film Vagabond Convention with Ubaldo Martínez where el gitano displayed his musical skills singing a Spanish version of "Rit Up" by Little Richard.
Commanded by the Ecuadorian Ricardo Mejía, he put together a television program that was of great importance in the Latin American music scene: El Club del Clan, on Saturdays at 8:30 p.m. Various artists who came from rock and roll bands and who adopted pseudonyms, costumes and their own personalities were part of their program: Johnny Tedesco, Nicky Jones, Lalo Fransen, Raúl Lavié, Chico Novarro, Rocky Pontoni, Galo Cárdenas, Perico Gómez, Horacio Molina, Raúl Cobián under the pseudonym Tanguito (not related to whom he was later known as Tanguito, whose real name was José Alberto Iglesias), Pino Valenti and Palito Ortega, and among the women Jolly Land, Violeta Rivas and Cachita Galán. Supported thanks to this television program, the group Los Red Caps had a great impact, probably the first dream band or supergroup in modern Argentine music, made up of Johnny Tedesco, Lalo Fransen, Nicky Jones and Palito Ortega. One of the keys to the success of El Club del Clan was its sales strategy, its compilation LPs, which actually cost $626, were sold for $160 and thus all households knew the artists.
Due to business problems, the program ended and its successor where the artists went was Saturdays continued on Channel 9. Competitors also appeared that did not reach the same popularity levels as the Club del Clan, programs such as the aforementioned Ritmo y Juventud that was supported by the Dis-Jockey record company and featured Chicote López, Chiquita Saldi, Haydée Warren, Eduardo, Ricardo Roda, Chico Miranda, Tony Vilar, Ricky y Los Solitarios, Los Wonderfulls, Los Five Rockers, Los Flamantes, The Lonely Boys, Los Jaque Mate, Sósimo y los Demonios, Tony Maara, Juan Ramón (one of those who stood out, appearing in movies like The Galician with the dirty face). For its part, CBS promoted a new star to compete with Palito Ortega in the role of ordinary boy, it was Leopoldo Dante Tévez, a native of Atamisqui, a town in Santiago del Estero, he was known under the pseudonym Leo Dan. CBS also launched other singers with a more humble profile such as Larry Moreno and Yaco Monti.
With the passage of time there was a general repudiation against the Club del Clan and everything it represented, the term "music complacent" was born; to qualify the proposal "popera" (that is, relative to the pop genre) devoid of any ideological commitment. Daniel Colao and Rafael Abud, in statements to Rock Superstar magazine in 1978, made an analysis, attributing the carefree mood of the new wave and El Club del Clan to the fact that at that time there was supposed to be a good time Argentine economy. Malicious editions of this article have reproduced totally decontextualized quotes to prove an alleged complicity between "system" and the television show. But the authors only sought to prove that the Clan's lyrics spoke of everyday issues, such as military service but also the home.
While the Clan Club and surrounding were the highest representation of the pop, just this fact made the popular one qualified as Mersa. Over time, tastes began to be divided between national and foreign. The beatlemania was coming and the young people who did not feel identified by the type of careless theme began to qualify this music as "complete". However, for nothing he had the popularity he had. It was a time of economic bonanza, and young people were only worried about going out and dancing. It is not that the themes were not those who eternally cared for the youth but that the nuances were different as they were at different times.
Lovely disappointment: "And that love that burned us yesterday, today the haste already tasted nothing" ("Sabor to nothing" - Palito Ortega).The home: "Looking on the map I see mountains and rivers and a thousand paths that pass, but my village and my house ay caramba! do not appear on the map." ("The Map" - Palito Ortega). The school: 'What Latin serves me, I don't know, I don't know; I want to know what I can say better in Latin than in my native language, if I like more twist That's Latin. - Violeta Rivas. The family: "How lucky I have such a good mother, who always watches my clothes and my dinner: how fortunate my serene and quiet father, what luck love, what luck school, what luck to hear the grandmother's voice." "How lucky" - Violeta Rivas.
The military service: "Take advantage of dancing that you're going to fight. You've done the 20s, you haven't even noticed, boy keep in mind that you're already a soldier." ("Twist of the recruit" - Palito Ortega and the Red Caps.Quotes by Daniel Colao and Rafael Abud.
The Clan Club has often been criticized and accused of being "indulgent" during the dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía, who was accused of wanting to impose a "submissive" to the youth. However, it should be noted that the dictator Onganía began to rule since June 1966, the date on which the Club del Clan was already dissolved. The youth music of the time used to criticize the school or at least refer to it in a humorous way, without this having raised accusations that see hidden intentions. This is the case of "School Days" by Chuck Berry, Sacre Charlemagne by France Gall, Pythagora by Adriano Celentano, Laisse tomber les filles by the aforementioned Gall, or "Mathematics" by Los Teen Agers and "College Bank" by Los Tammys. The last two songs are other rock songs in Spanish composed by Argentine bands prior to 1967.
British and Uruguayan invasions
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Formerly Los TNT, originally from Uruguay, thanks to their adolescent and energetic rock and roll style, had achieved enough success in the late 50s and early 60s to the point of trying their luck in Europe. Their success allowed them to expand their career in Spain, so they left the local scene. But that experience had shown that Uruguayan gangs could take over Argentina.
In 1964, as in the rest of the world, The Beatles phenomenon had a strong impact in Argentina. International rock connected with a generation (born approximately between 1945 and 1960), politicized and mobilized through student and union organizations, which began to confront military dictatorships on the street (especially after 1966), with an active participation of young people, both men and women, from the country's extensive middle class. That generation symbolized their identity with rock and the sexual revolution, which they opposed as a radical break with tango and the macho double standards of their parents.
The Beatles began to gain great popularity in the country, in addition to their music, their aesthetics and their defiant hairstyles frequently labeled "long-haired." The EMI-Odeón record company in their compiled LP The Monster Awakens called them Los Grillos. When Channel 9 announced the coming of the group to Argentina in 1964, a youthful crowd went to receive them at the Ezeiza airport and the television broadcast reached 63 rating points, only to be surprised that they were not The Beatles, but The Beetles., The American Beetles; Despite this, the American group unleashed a massive euphoria equivalent to what John, Paul, George and Ringo could have unleashed, they played in various theaters and performed a recital in the Huracán micro-stadium. The Beatles in Argentina as well as in various parts of the world were a very big popular sensation, and they ended up imposing themselves on those who wanted to continue with Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Rita Pavone, Edoardo Vianello, Richard Anthony and Trini López.
In 1966, Sam (Santiago Malnati) frequented La Cueva de Pueyrredon and sang every night, along with Tony Osanah, Billy Bond, Javier Martínez, and many other musicians of the time. It was when he had the opportunity to record at RCA Victor & # 34; Paint in Black & # 34; and "Wild Thing" with his duo SAM & DAN, guitar and bongo, came out in March 1966 and in June the second single in Spanish was released with "Que culpa tenemos nosotros" protest music and "Last Train to Clarksville". In December the third and last plate of Sam & Dan with "The New Generation" and "I loved you I love you and I will love you", both written by Sam. In the 1967 carnivals, forty shows were performed in Buenos Aires accompanied by the group Los Gatos. Sam later sang as a soloist with Pappo on Almendra's album the song "Figuración". And also with Sam and his group he participated in the first BA ROCK festival at the Palermo Velodrome. In 1970 Sam went to work as a producer at Odeon Pops in Argentina, where he produced Trio Galleta, Sociedad Anónima, Sucesso —with the music of Sam "Se mete Se mete"—, Los Bárbaros, Los Blue Caps, Los No, Madera Tallada, The Gipsys, Gamba Trio, Freedom, The Tasaday and Las Mini Shorts. In 1973 he went to live in Brazil where he produced Gretchen, Domino, Nahim, Lady Lu, Black Juniors, and other artists.
In Argentina the so-called "British invasion" (with bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones influencing Argentine bands to this day), they were just as influential as the wave of rock & classic American roll, both for the initial youthful taste for rock & international roll as for the emergence of Argentine merseybeat in Spanish.
But it was the notable “Uruguayan invasions” between 1964 and 1965 that contributed decisively in Argentina to start playing beat music in the country. Inspired by the new British rock, many young Uruguayan musicians began to emulate its sounds. Three bands, Los Shakers, Los Mockers and Kano y Los Bulldogs took the style of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, respectively, singing in English and thus they moved to Buenos Aires.
In the mid-1960s and during the height of the British invasion, Uruguayan beat bands achieved some popularity in South America. Out of all the Uruguayan groups, Los Shakers stood out in particular. Although they were a beat group openly inspired by The Beatles, their sound stood out with their own style, a remarkable musical quality in their interpretations and originality in many of their compositions. The Shakers began to appear live on many television programs in Uruguay, Argentina and other countries. Due to his decision not to develop the lyrics of his songs in Spanish, his popularity declined.
Beat music in English and Spanish pre-"La balsa"
At the end of the 60s, the so-called beat music appeared in Argentina, enlisting both groups that sang in English and those that preferred Spanish. Los Gatos and Almendra were some of the most popular groups of this movement, which despite what was stated by historiography had roots in old rock and roll. Luis Alberto Spinetta took his first steps with his group The Hammers, a group similar to Los Teen Tops and dressed as the protagonist of the television series Mike Hammer.[citation required] In the same way, in 1963 the Wild Cats had been formed in Rosario, a band with influences from Elvis Presley, but in 1964 their singer had to leave the group to do mandatory military service, so Litto was brought in as his replacement. Nebbia, barely fifteen years old. Despite his early age, Nebbia was a composer and with his incorporation it was renamed Los Gatos Salvajes.
Around 1965 rock experienced a rapid development in Argentina with the appearance of numerous groups such as: The Seasons with Carlos Mellino and Alejandro Medina, Los Vip's group led by Charly Leroy, Los In, a band led by Francis Smith and Amadeo Álvarez who played some of his own songs, Sam & Dan duo from RCA that would enter with the new label "VIK La Nueva Generación", Los Bestias (precursor of Los Blue Men), Los Bishops and Los Jerks (genesis of La Joven Guardia), Los Knacks, Los Interrogantes, Telmo and Los Stones, Los Comanches, the Sir John Quartet, Billy Bond and the Lew Quartet, the Gamba Trio at Odeon Pops, the Larkins (whose best-known member today would be Luis Alberto Spinetta) and many others who used to appear at the The Musical Scale program, Club del Clan competition. Sam and Dan and Billy Bond sang in Spanish, although they sometimes resorted to English. The rest of the groups had their own compositions even though they sang in English.
Los Gatos Salvajes were also part of that generation, achieving repercussion thanks to the promotion of their record company Music Hall, which gave them logistical and financial support and got them appearances on programs and many parties. In 1965 they recorded their debut album with influences from modern bands of the 60s such as The Rolling Stones and The Kinks, and which included the hit "Bajo la rambla", a version of "Under the boardwalk&# 3. 4; by The Drifters that was also a success in Argentine mainstream music of the time. His debut album had nine of his own songs in Spanish, his own instrumental and two covers, one of which was only sung in English.
But it would be in the underground scene of Buenos Aires where the fundamental pieces of Argentine rock from the late 60s began to emerge. A small group of rockers began to meet in spaces like "La Cueva", a nightclub located at Pueyrredón 1723, closed by the commissioner Luis Margaride as part of the campaign of "morality" that he directed during the dictatorship from Onganía. It was close to Plaza Francia, the Auditorium of the Di Tella Institute (900 Florida) and bars that did not close at dawn such as the legendary pizzeria "La Perla" of Plaza Eleven. In that small initial nucleus there were young musicians who would later become famous, such as Litto Nebbia and Ciro Fogliatta from Rosario, Hugo Fattoruso and his brother Osvaldo from Uruguay, Mauricio Birabent (later known as Moris), Pajarito Zaguri, Javier Martínez, from Buenos Aires. Sam (Santiago Malnati), Francis Smith, Claudio Gabis, Pappo Napolitano, Carlos Mellino, Alejandro Medina, Daniel Irigoyen (Los Mentales) and Miguel Abuelo and Tanguito from Buenos Aires, among others, as well as the poets Pipo Lernoud and Miguel Grinberg.
These were also heavily influenced by international modern music, such as British merseybeat. They were followers of the music of authors and bands such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Joan Báez, Jimmy Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Frank Zappa.
Los Beatniks, a group of which Moris, Zaguri and Martínez were members (all big names in Argentine rock) recorded some of the first protest-themed Spanish-language beat songs. Formed in Villa Gesell, a beach on the Atlantic coast, in 1966 they recorded the single "Rebelde" with "No finjas más", incorrectly considered the first broadcast cut of Argentine rock; we have already seen how rock in Spanish existed since 1956. This single did not have much impact, and only 200 were sold do you copy.
Launch of “La balsa” and popularization of the movement (1967-1976)
On July 3, 1967, the single "La balsa" by the band Los Gatos was released, opening a new era in the history of Argentine rock. "The raft" became a phenomenon that swept the entire scene as it was known until then. The single was a huge success that shocked locals and strangers: it sold 250,000 copies.
"La balsa" established a new model of songwriting in the Argentine rock scene: sung in Spanish instead of English, original compositions instead of covers, including Argentine elements such as slang, and with related themes with countercultural ideologies.
"The Raft" spawned an entire scene of countercultural beat music (known at the time as "progressive music"), and the genre soon had its own record labels, magazines, festivals, movies and radio and television programs.
On the other hand, differences also began to be established between the same beat music: followers of its countercultural wing began to derogatorily call the other wing of the beat music as "complacent music" beat music, which had songs without ideological commitments.
The impact of «La balsa» was so strong that the myth that Argentine pop-rock was born in 1967 was consolidated in the collective imagination when Los Gatos released «La Balsa», composed in the toilet of the cafeteria La Perla del Once, by José Alberto "Tanguito" Iglesias, when in reality Argentine beat groups singing in Spanish had already existed for many years before, as in the case of Los Búhos, led by the Merlo brothers and of notable media success between 1964 and 1965. The truth is that all pop-rock activity in Argentina prior to "La balsa" came to be denied, belittled or branded as "not truly being Argentine rock". This vision was even transferred to academic and formal works, such as the books on the history of Argentine rock that came out over the following decades: they all begin their chronologies in the '60s. Only from the 2010s did a new breed of Argentine rock historians emerge who began to question the classical historians, researching and publishing about all rock activity in Argentina pre-"La balsa".
First rock festivals
The success that beat music had among young audiences was fundamental, since it led to the CBS record company, the main promoter of this genre, defeating its rival RCA, which until then had dominated the Argentine music industry. Thus began a counterculture that was scandalizing for how revolutionary its proposal was in the Argentine society of the time. La Joven Guardia promoted this new feeling of beat music with their hit "The Long Haired Stranger", which would lead to nothing less than a film being made under that name and with Lito Nebbia acting in it. Similarly, his other hit "The Stranger in the Pink Boots" It also had a lot of repercussion when it was used in a Coca-Cola advertisement filmed in República de los Niños. The names of the groups also drew attention, in certain cases because of how bizarre they were: Los In, Carlos Bisso, Conexión N°5 (of those who sang in English), Pintura Fresca (they made English versions of songs they composed in Spanish Argentines), Los Walkers, Narrow Trocha, Los Tíos Queridos, Los Banana, Piel Tierna, Kano and Los Bull Dogs, Solvente. The Uruguayan group Los Iracundos were also in the beat, and Los Pick Ups, who already came from the early 60s and had made the change in sound.
This new beat music began to be launched from the main media. On the radio, Modart at night with music by Ricardo Kleiman and hosted by Pedro Aníbal Mansilla, and Music with Thompson and Williams, while on television it was broadcast Basement Beat, High Tension and Music in Freedom. The media also used beat music for advertising, such as "Orange Summer" of Donald that was used in an ad for Crush soda, and "Shivering" which was used in a cigarette advertisement featuring a 17-year-old girl smoking Liliana Caldini. At that time, in beat music, no distinction was made between bands that had ideological themes and those that did not. While Donald, Tormenta, Juan and Juan, Sabú, Heleno, Raúl Padovani, Silvestre, Quique Villanueva and Cacho Castaña belonged to the most commercial beat, Arco Iris, Piero, Pedro and Pablo often made music with some message, added to a new current with new magazines such as JV, Baño, Pinap, Cronopios, La bella gente and the classic Hair.
In 1968 the first independent record company in Argentina called Mandioca was founded with the slogan "the mother of the boys". Among its creators were Jorge Álvarez, Pedro Pujó, Javier Arroyuelo and Rafael López Sánchez, the label was created as an attempt to end the dominant market that the big record producers had. Álvarez would be the main talent scout, having discovered musicians and bands such as Manal, Vox Dei, Almendra, Tanguito, Sui Generis (under the advice of Claudio Gabis), Pappo's Blues, Miguel Abuelo and Moris.
Shortly after the Mandioca label closed, Álvarez founded a sub-company of Microfón, called Talent (or sometimes Talent Microfón), whose releases included Manal's double compilation album, David Lebón's first album, Artaud (with an exclusive form), Life, Winter Confessions and Little Anecdotes about Institutions by Sui Generis, as well as the first album of Invisible.
The following year the first issue of the rock magazine Pinap was published. In 1969 four major beat music festivals were held: the June Sunday concerts, National Beat Music Festival, Pin Up Festival and Youth Music Festival.
During this period, Almendra was formed, a group made up of Luis Alberto Spinetta (vocals, guitar), Edelmiro Molinari (vocals, guitar), Emilio del Guercio (vocals, bass) and Rodolfo García (vocals, drums) and Manal —trio influenced by Afro-American music, considered the first blues group sung in Spanish— made up of Javier Martínez (drums and voice), Claudio Gabis (guitar, piano, harmonica) and Alejandro Medina (bass and voice). Along with Los Gatos, these three bands are considered the founding trilogy of Argentine rock of the late 1960s. However, none of these groups would have a very long history, as all three dissolved in the early 1970s.
In 1969 Manal recorded the soundtrack for the film Tiro de grace. The film in addition to being an early document of the rock movement is also the first with a soundtrack recorded by an Argentine rock group.
The more commercially inclined wing of beat music that lacked an ideological message would continue until 1973, as CBS director Francis Smith managed to seize the last days of commercial music. His label represented names like Los Náufragos, Safari, Industria Nacional, and in a more melodic vein Leonardo Favio, Sergio Denis, Salako and Sandro.
Palito Ortega declared, as a result of the controversy of the 75% Law that was intended to be promulgated in Argentina and that would harm national rock:
Its great counter-reality today is the famous "75 percent" law, of imminent sanction, as soon as it would declare rock (somehow it is necessary to call the hybridity of current rhythms) foreign music. "Before marginalizing like this—deplore Palito—the much more coherent example of Brazil should be followed: all investments made there to record national music are deductible from revenues." Of the 700 million pesos that SADAIC made in 1972 by edition of national themes, the highest percentage did not correspond to tango or folklore, but to what, for the new law, would be foreign music.
Manal and the blues in Spanish
Manal came into contact with Jorge Álvarez (an entrepreneur who had been very successful in the publishing business), at a party organized at the house of Piri Lugones (whose children were friends of the manales) made with the aim of the band getting to know their future producers. It was at that party where Claudio Gabis showed Javier Martínez a draft with a few lines to put together the lyrics of a future song, and a musical base that he had put together. Martínez finished the song right there in less than an hour, it was "Avellaneda Blues". The group sang this song to Álvarez, who was impressed by it, convincing himself that he had to produce the group.
Álvarez remembers that moment:
At a birthday meeting I met them as guys, not as musicians. One month later Peter [Pujó] took me to Alexander's house [Medina], where the trio rehearsed, and when I heard them I fell dead, it was really spectacular as they played. I ask them what they were thinking of doing told me they didn't want to get into the commercial gear, that that was a crap, that they wanted to do things freely and all that [...] We make the first single in the TNT studio and I go with the tapes to CBS. I make him listen to John Lear, the president, and he tells me that that doesn't work, that it is a gross imitation of what happens in the United States and that that will never sell in Argentina, that he doesn't care. I send a friend to another recorder and they kick us.Jorge Alvarez.
After the failed attempt at CBS, Álvarez joined Pedro Pujó, Rafael López Sánchez and Javier Arroyuelo to found Mandioca in 1968, with the slogan "the mother of the boys", the first Argentine rock label, as an alternative for those nascent rock groups that were marginalized by the big record labels. Álvarez's idea was, in addition to allowing the bands to record their work freely, for them to play in theaters, since at that time they did not exist rock concerts in Argentina, the groups played only in clubs so that the public could dance.
At the end of 1968, Mandioca released its first material on the market, it was Manal's first single: "Qué pena me das" with "To be one more man" as side B that had been recorded in October of the same year. It was a strange cut for the time, since the songs far exceeded the three-minute limit imposed by the radios and the envelope that contained it was an expensive triptych of elaborate graphics, whose author was the cartoonist Daniel Melgarejo. But this first record work was received by the media with skepticism, it was little disseminated and the press especially criticized the use of Spanish in the lyrics. In his second single published in mid-1969, "No pibe" With "Necesito un amor", the band achieved a more refined and bluesy sound, evidencing a clear technical and stylistic evolution in their interpretation.
The recording sessions for Manal, their first studio album, began in mid-1969, lasting until the first months of 1970. Nine songs were recorded, two of which were discarded, although later they were included in the double album published in 1973 by the Talent label, also called Manal. Manal received rave reviews and was one of the foundational albums of Argentine rock of the late 1960s, as well as being the first blues album in Spanish in the world. Despite the critics it suffered in At the time, Manal broke with the myth that it was not possible to compose blues in Spanish. A survey organized by Rolling Stone magazine, placed the album Manal i> at number 3 on his list of "The Best 100 Argentine Rock Albums".
This is how the fledgling magazine Pelo synthesized the moment of popular music in Argentina in its first issue of 1970:
This year, after so much time of usable confusions and complacent music, it seems to be the definitive one for the necessary decant of Argentine popular music. The stage seems to begin with the emergence of three important long plays: that of Los Gatos, Almendra and Manal, three key elements to anticipate future national music. To this is added the rebirth of the group Piel Tierna, of a simple but good sound, and the triumph of an uncompromising set, Arco Iris, at the festival held in Mar del Plata. Perhaps all of these guidelines are premonitory of the dawn of a more honest popular music, despite the inevitable marketing; but made with greater seriousness and study and integrated into real Argentina.Hair1970.
Dissolution of Los Gatos, Almendra and Manal
After the separation from Almendra in 1970, Spinetta tried to settle in the United Kingdom, but when he had just arrived in that country, he was denied a visa. He ended up arriving in Amsterdam, where he experienced late European hippism for more than a month. In that city, on June 12, 1971, he saw Emerson, Lake & amp; Palmer, one of his favorite bands at that time and from which he had a great influence. On July 22, 1971, he returned to Argentina with new plans: as soon as he arrived he formed the trio Pescado Rabioso with Black Amaya and Osvaldo "Bocón" Frascino. It is considered one of the founding groups of Argentine rock, for having introduced hard rock, blues and psychedelic rock to the national scene.
His ex-companions from Almendra followed a similar path (also interpreting a hippie-inspired hard rock): Edelmiro Molinari founded the trio Color Humano, while Rodolfo García and Emilio del Guercio formed the group Aquelarre, whose musical aesthetics already tended towards progressive fusion.
At the beginning of the new decade, the group Vox Dei from Quilmes stood out, made up of Ricardo Soulé (vocals, guitar and violin), Willy Quiroga (bass and vocals), Rubén Basoalto (drums) and Juan Carlos &# 39;Yodi's Godoy (guitar and voice). With a mix of hard rock and subtle melodies, this band broadened the musical spectrum of the movement and gained important audiences in the suburban area surrounding the Argentine capital, while their album La Biblia was one one of the most ambitious and recognized recording works of the beginning of the decade. For its part, the trio La Cofradía de la Flor Solar, emerged from the alternative community of the same name established around 1967 in the city of La Plata and originally integrated by Kubero Díaz (guitar and voice), Morci Requena (bass and backing vocals) and "Manija" Paz (drums), generated the most outstanding musical work of Argentine psychedelic aesthetics, recording a single album —also produced by the Mandioca label— in which he collaborated, among others, guitarist Skay Beilinson, future member of Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota. Later, musicians with notable later careers participated in the band, such as the violinist Jorge Pinchevsky.
This first Argentine rock scene was characterized by a large number of changes in the formations of the bands, and even exchanges of members between them, or members of different groups forming new groups.
During the 1970s there was a generational change, where the new generation of rock bands further diversified the genre, taking more and more creative independence from American and British rock.
Radio status
Although FM radios were still in the experimental stage, firm steps were beginning to be made so that FM stations would be what they would be some time later.
On July 9, 1967, Radio Nacional Córdoba began broadcasting on FM.
In 1968 Radio Miter began to use modulated frequency, more than anything out of necessity: they cut their cables and that interrupted the signal.
In 1970 Radio Municipal was a pioneer in Argentina in broadcasting in stereophonic FM.
In 1975, a crucial step was taken in the history of FM radios: until then, FM signal projects broadcast in a certain segment of the day and were interrupted after a while. As of that year, FM signals were established that will be regular both in schedule and in continuity through the years, the first to follow this modality were Radio del Plata and Radio Rivadavia.
First half of the 1970s: heavy, acoustic rock
In the early 1970s some bands began to play heavier rock, while heavy metal was emerging in the world. Among these bands were Pescado Rabioso, Vox Dei, Pappo's Blues and Billy Bond y La Pesada del Rock and Roll.
Along with the rise of heavy rock appears one of the first urban tribes in Argentina: the firestones. These owe their name to an advertising poster from the Firestone company that is located at the Llavallol roundabout on the Camino de Cintura. Formed by followers of bands like Pappo's Blues, Billy Bond and La Pesada del Rock and Roll, Vox Dei and Orion's Beethoven, they used to have a rebellious, anti-hippie attitude, they liked to ride motorcycles and the racing cars, the beer, the barbecue and the parties. The urban tribe of the firestones would be an antecedent of what decades later would be known as the urban tribe of the rolingas.
On the other hand, the first B.A. Rock featured several of the artists and bands that spearheaded the acoustic rock movement: Gustavo Santaolalla forming Arco Iris; León Gieco who would combine rock and folk; Sui Generis and the beginning of Charly García's musical career; Raúl Porchetto and Pedro y Pablo, among other bands. These groups not only turned to Argentine folklore for inspiration, but also to other Latin American sounds. There was also the DJ Sam Malnatti with a line-up that he simply called "Sam and his group"; and that it was made up of: Héctor Starc, Nacho Smilari, Geraldo Bass, Black Amaya and Sam on voice. The proliferation of these bands and their growing popularity, added to the fact that the hippie movement in Argentina boomed at the beginning of the decade, led to the "Acusticazo" from 1972 with León Gieco, Raúl Porchetto, Litto Nebbia, David Lebón and others. Throughout the 70s, acoustic rock continued as a popular style in the country. And for the first time in its history, Argentine rock began to appear abroad, when Sui Generis and Pastoral gained popularity in Latin America and the second group even released an EP in Japan.
As a result of the 1969 Woodstock Festival, which had gathered 500,000 people, interest in repeating a similar experience in Argentine territory soon awoke. It was then when the radio announcer Edgardo Suárez organized with the support of Coca-Cola and the municipality of Lobos the First Youth Music Festival of 1970. This was scheduled for September 19, 20 and 21 (to coincide with the beginning of spring), to be held on a 75-hectare property of the Country Club next to Laguna de Lobos. It was the first attempt to put together a mega-festival in Argentina (something that would only be attempted again on December 27, 1988 with the Three-Day Festival for Democracy, which brought together 150,000 people on 9 de Julio Avenue): a mega-structure was put together never before. previously seen in Argentina, prepared to receive 200,000 people, 80 portable toilets and a giant stage that would house tango artists, folklore and the main course of the festival, young beat music artists: La Barra de Chocolate, Manal, Los Gatos, Miguel Abuelo and The Brotherhood of the Solar Flower. Around the 19th, 30,000 people had already gathered willing to have good locations to see an unprecedented mega-festival in Argentina. But then the military government under dictator Levingston panicked and canceled the mega-festival before it could take place. Thus, Argentina was left without a historic opportunity to have an experience like the one that had been the Woodstock Festival, or like the one that would be the following year in Mexico at the Avándaro Festival. Decades later, findings were made in the Buenos Aires Police courier documents:
The report shows that the police ran into an unprecedented phenomenon. They call for the support of the mayor because the realization of the event would “appear enormous responsibility for the authorities, as there are no experiences of these festivals.”
In that year Tanguito died, run over by a train. The film Tango feroz: la leyenda de Tanguito would be inspired by his life, although his historical correspondence has been highly criticized by witnesses and specialists, stating that the personality they gave to the character has little to do with the of the original musician. That year brought a wave of violence at some concerts, such as the one that occurred at Luna Park in October, when the police broke into a concert to suppress it. Billy Bond comments that:
"They were moments of repression, they were times when the system was tightening a lot, it was a very heavy thing, rock and roll, it was an absolutely marginal thing, it was a thing that was from another world and they treated you like you were a guerrilla."
The incidents began before the recital and broke out when La Pesada, the only group that agreed to go on stage in such circumstances, began their performance. Some media attributed the disorders to Billy Bond's conduct on stage. In an article published in Clarín on January 21, 2006, the group's guitarist Claudio Gabis, who was at the time of the riots, described the situation as follows:
"Our agony, that of La Pesada, began that so named night of Luna Park that the boys, provoked by the Order Forces and the Lectoure bullies, dragged with the facilities of the pugilistic stadium. Out of context, Billy's famous phrase 'break everything' may seem an unhappy provocation, but in its true context, it happened that Billy—and all of us—we saw as all the people who were there faced irrationally and as there was nothing to do with them. They were completely nuts, they were so bad! What Billy shouted desperately when he saw that violence and stupidity were irreversible, was something like: Okay, idiots. If all of you are so crazy and dumb, then break everything! It was not necessary to say it... As it was regrettably soon after, in Argentina there were many crazy, too many fools, and it was all broken..."Claudio Gabis.
In February 1973, the first documentary for the musical genre was released, Rock Until the Sun Goes Down. A few days later, Argentina briefly regained democracy and free elections were held, won by Peronism, after 18 years of being banned. To celebrate the Peronist triumph, on March 31, a rock festival was organized at the Club Argentinos Juniors stadium in Buenos Aires with the participation of the main Argentine bands and singers of that time: Sui Generis, Pescado Rabioso, Pappo&# 39;s Blues, Aquelarre, Lito Nebbia, León Gieco, Color Humano, Pajarito Zaguri, Raúl Porchetto, Billy Bond and La Pesada del Rock and Roll, Vivencia, Gabriela, among others. With an estimated attendance of 15,000 people, the rain forced the festival to be canceled a few minutes after it started.
Progressive music
Already in the early 70s the band Contraluz had combined rock with progressive and folk nuances. This would be one of the most influential groups in the years prior to the emergence of progressive and symphonic rock. The band participated in the first edition of the B.A.Rock festival on Wednesday, November 11, 1970 and the second of the same in November 1971..
In the same year, 1971, Orion's Beethoven appeared, which in 1973 released its debut record Superángel on Phonogram, a progressive rock and blues band led by the brothers Ronán and Adrián Bar; who would have his moment of fame eight years later -already abandoned the progressive sound and with the name shortened to Orion's- with his only hit "All night until the sun rises".
Another early symphonic and progressive rock band was Crucis. Their music attracted a following in the underground scene, before they began playing bigger venues. Around 1975 his music began to be more successful, to the point that Charly García himself went to see one of his concerts to "verify his performance", offering to produce the first album. of the.
The band Espíritu, formed in 1973, was a group in the latter part of symphonic rock's heyday. His first album Crisálida, intended as a complete conceptual work lasting 50 minutes, so there are no silences between the changes from one song to another, is cited as his best work and influences are attributed to him. by Yes, Genesis and Italian progressive.
At that same time Sui Generis (integrated by Charly García and Nito Mestre), began a transition from classic and acoustic rock to a more electric and visceral sound. In the Argentine underground scene there were new bands with a sound different from acoustic and heavy rock, influenced by a more experimental acoustic sound, tango and English progressive rock. Argentine progressive rock would reach its peak of popularity in 1975. In that year, Charly and Nito ended the group, giving two concerts known as Adiós Sui Generis at Luna Park on September 5, 1975. Initially, the eleven thousand locations had sold out in two weeks, so a function was added, according to Mestre it was the first massive rock concert in Argentina. A color film with the same name was recorded about those concerts, where songs like "Bubulina", "Nena" and "El levante blues". The film, released during the dictatorship installed in 1976, was prohibited for minors under 18 years of age.
It is suggested that the Sui Generis concerts were the end point of the trend towards the predominant acoustic format in the scene, acoustic rock gradually dissolved and the bands would break up or change their sound. Those that retained their style lost popularity.
The band El Reloj, originating from heavy metal, explored progressive rock with their eponymous record from 1975.
In 1976 the symphonic band Alas emerged with artists such as Rodolfo Mederos, Gustavo Moretto, Carlos Riganti and Pedro Aznar in its formation.
In Rosario, in 1973, Pablo El Enterrador was born, a progressive band that included the presence of Lalo De los Santos and Rubén Goldín, two musicians who would later achieve notoriety outside of rock, with the so-called Trova Rosarina. On January 11, 1974, they played in the Evita room supporting Raúl Porchetto, who was presenting his rock opera Cristo Rock, a work that can be considered another of the foundational works of progressive rock in Argentina. In that performance, Porchetto is dazzled by Goldín and De Los Santos inviting them to form a new band in Capital. The result is Reino de Munt, another progressive rock band, which would also have keyboardist Alejandro Lerner in its ranks. After a few months, the people from Rosario decided to return to their hometown. Rubén Goldín forms another progressive band, Exordio de Bruja, while De los Santos once again integrates Pablo El Enterrador, who would record a single self-titled album on RCA in 1983.
After Sui Generis dissolved, Charly García formed La Máquina de Hacer Pájaros, another exponent of progressive rock, introducing the novelty of two simultaneous keyboardists on stage. This band, as García said, claimed to be "the Yes of underdevelopment." Critics credit him with strong influences from Genesis, Yes, Camel, Focus and Steely Dan. Also Invisible, the trio formed by Luis Alberto Spinetta after the dissolution of Pescado Rabioso, can be classified as progressive, especially since their second album, Durazno Sangrando, a conceptual work inspired by notions taken by Spinetta from the work of the Swiss philosopher and psychologist Carl Jung based on the traditional Chinese book The Secret of the Golden Flower. The progressive hard rock power trio would become a four-piece, with the inclusion of Tommy Gubitsch, to his latest album oriented more towards songs and with nuances of autochthonous music (like the presence of a bandoneon).
At that time other symphonic and progressive groups were formed such as Bubú, Tórax, Ave Rock, Anacrusa and Materia Gris. In this context, Arco Iris continued to expand their jazzy-progressive folk/rock, first in Argentina and later in the United States, where the band settled in September 1977. After this departure, one of the former members who stayed in Argentina, Horacio Gianello, founded Avatar, a curious formation with two drummers that continued the legacy of progressive rock fusion until 1983. Gianello, who was not part of the formation, acted as musical director and adviser, while the leader and composer of almost all subjects was Carlos Piegari, a former Sui Generis.
The impact of the last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983)
On March 24, 1976, the democratic government of María Estela Martínez de Perón was overthrown by a civic-military coup that called itself the National Reorganization Process, opening one of the darkest periods in Argentine history, marked by by the repression, censorship and the massive forced disappearance of people. Argentine rock, like society as a whole, suffered the period of greatest censorship in its history. Rock was perceived as subversive by the military, and in a 1976 speech Admiral Emilio Massera denounced its musicians and fans as potential subversives. Paradoxically, this antinomy did not go beyond being a merely rhetorical confrontation. During the dictatorship there were thousands of disappeared, from all professions and social origins, but there was not a single rock musician on that list. Nor did any suffer imprisonment. In the terms of the journalist Mariano Dal Mazo: "what becomes official in the dictatorship is the extermination of the guerrillas, and in that systematic plan rock was not persecuted because it was not a danger”. Or, as the musician Iván Noble also expressed it: "There is no one who has disappeared from rock. There is no Víctor Jara in Argentina, a guy whose fingers were hammered in Chile. In popular music there were guys who had to go into exile, of course, but later they came back and kept singing". Among the rock musicians who went into exile are Moris, Aquelarre, Crucis, Edelmiro Molinari, Gabriela, Gustavo Santaolalla, Arco Iris, Tomás Gubitsch, Miguel Cantilo and Roque Narvaja, and even the producer Jorge Álvarez. All of them did it of their own free will, fearing for their lives, but many of them returned before the return of democracy. The musicians who remained in Argentina, in general, did not suffer additional inconveniences to those of the general population during that difficult period in which a sector of the youthful radical left had opted for armed struggle, thus irreversibly challenging the public forces of the State.
Isolation and tension between the old school and the new trends
The main damage caused by the Process to national rock is related to the censorship imposed by the regime and the self-censorship to which record labels and press media were dragged. The information exchange with the outside stopped flowing and, at a time when rock worldwide underwent its greatest changes, in Argentina it was stopped. Punk, post punk, new wave and the main international trends would not come to take shape in Argentina until after the opening caused by the Malvinas War. At the height of the world punk scene, the bands that competed for the entire public in Buenos Aires were Serú Girán and Spinetta Jade, both coming from progressive rock with an opening towards jazz rock. The first attempts to form new wave bands generally came from musicians who had gone abroad at the beginning of the dictatorship and who, seeing that there was no risk in returning, tried to come with this privileged information to create a new sensation in the local scene. This was the case of Miguel Cantilo with his group Punch, Miguel Abuelo with the new formation of Los Abuelos de la Nada and Gustavo Santaolalla when he recorded his album Santaolalla, accompanied by a band made up of Alfredo Toth (bass), Willy Iturri (drums), Alejandro Lerner (keyboards), Rubén Rada (congas), Oscar Kreimer (sax), Osqui Amante (percussion) and Mónica Campins (choirs). The album has been considered "the first modern rock album from Argentina". The journalist Uki Goñi, after his stay in London, would also try to generate the first new wave product in Argentina with his band Los Helicópteros, which he released in 1982. the album Pep Music.
Something similar happened with Pappo who, after his years in the United States and Europe, returned to Argentina trying to learn the first influences of the new wave of British heavy metal on the continent; Thus, together with Vitico Bereciartúa, Michel Peyronel and Boff Serafine, he founded Riff, which, although it adopted the image of heavy metal —based on the aesthetics of metal characters such as Rob Halford— its sound is sometimes more compared to that of hard rock than to that of heavy metal itself. Whatever, with their first three albums, Metal Wheels (1980), Macadam 3...2...1...0 (1981) and Contenidos (1982), came to generate a phenomenon of tribal follow-up never before seen in national rock. By the time of Contenidos, it was already the Argentine band that brought the most people to concerts. The aesthetics of the band and the public combined the studded leather clothing typical of heavy metal with nods to motor racing and the typical motorcycles of the "Firestones" from the seventies, an urban tribe of followers, among other bands, of Pappo's Blues. Some of those fans, already in adulthood, continued to go to Riff's recitals mixed with the new generations. At that time, the V8 band would be the one that would define heavy metal in Argentina, mainly for the beginning of the years 1981 to 1982 and the end of the dictatorship. Producer Mundy Epifanio knew how to see the phenomenon and began to organize crossover Riff concerts accompanied by V8 and the first punk band to stand out, Los Violadores. He managed to generate a scene differentiated from that of the rest of national rock and thus anticipated, already in 1982, what would happen after the democratic replacement.
It is necessary to clarify that all these new trends collided, inexorably, against the prejudices of the rock audience for which, as a consequence of the relative dissociation with the fashions of the rest of the world, time seemed not to have passed since the first half of the 70s. As can be seen in the movie "Buenos Aires Rock", still in 1982, for the public the experience of going to a rock festival still followed the model of hippie festivals, such as Woodstock. A large part of the public arrived dressed as in the 60s, with peace symbols and other hippie iconography, and even with long hair and beards, in a completely different style from the rock public in the rest of the world at that time. In fact, the word "hippie" it had fallen into disuse during the dictatorship and those who used that image at that time defined themselves as "rockers" (At that time the humorous character of Paolo El Rockero emerged, a very accurate caricature of the rockers of the time of the Process). The reaction against that mentality and that aesthetic, which occurred throughout the world with punk rock, reached Argentina very slowly through small information cracks that drew the attention, especially of the younger public.
In "Mordisco", the music section of the magazine "Expreso Imaginario" -precisely, a magazine committed to the hippie and "rocker" worldview- was published in June 1978 by "La Nota Punk", an extensive dossier signed by the journalist Alfredo Rosso. The journalist began the presentation by exposing the characteristic vision of Argentine rockers: "the first time I heard about punk it disgusted me. Just like that: ASCO. Who were those guys with tousled hair and torn clothes who wanted to destroy ten years of neat and laborious musical evolution with their three tones of mmmmorondaganga?". But later he presented Complete information about what was happening in England and the United States. That note sparked the imagination of many young Argentines, a process that was completed in 1979 when "Punk: La Muerte Joven" was published in the country, a chronicle of the London punk scene from 1977 written "in hot" by Argentine journalist Juan Carlos Kreimer, who was living in London at the time.
That same year, 1979, the first punk band in the country was born, Los Testículos, formed by Pedro Braun a.k.a. Hari B after his usual European vacations, where he visited his family in Poland, and had passed through London. He arrived with a wide variety of punk records, by groups almost unknown to Argentina at that time, such as: Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Stranglers, The Jam, The Damned, Buzzcocks, Generation X, Ramones, etc. For Braun, who was struggling to master the guitar, the discovery of this musical style was an epiphany, which shaped his future style. To form the band, he published an ad in Pelo magazine, to which Sergio Gramática and bassist Beto Mafioso responded, with whom the band was completed. After the replacement of the latter by Pil Trafa as singer and Gustavo Fossa a.k.a. Stuka as bassist, they change their name to Los Violadores. They not only imitate the sound of punk rock but also the theme of their lyrics (since the first shows, their anthem is the song Repression, with totally explicit protest lyrics that contrasted with the self-censorship of the bands and traditional soloists). In addition, Gramática also ventures into the particular form of information transmission by editing "Vaselina", the first fanzine in Argentina.
At the end of the year, at the Abba Café Concert, owned by actor Esteban Mellino, the second punk band from Buenos Aires debuts, Los Laxantes, formed when Horacio “Gamexane” Villafañe, on vacation in Mar de Ajó, and from randomly discovers the simple God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols on the record player of a pinball club (something really unusual in Argentina at that time).
In Gerli, at the same time, Los Psicópatas emerged who, influenced by the same written sources, founded their own label, Pelmaso Records to self-produce what would be the first punk single in Argentina: Desocupación, with the B-side of Jipi Japa, the first anti-hippie anthem of Argentine rock. Only 50 copies were made of which 48 were given away. The Psychopaths subsequently had two name changes. They became a State of Siege and, finally, and from 1982, Alerta Roja, the name under which in 1983 they would record their only LP, Destroying the Pink House, which remained unpublished until the XXI.
In 1981 Los Baraja was formed in La Plata, a band led by Marcelo Montolivo. More in the inner circle of Los Violadores, Trixy y los Maníáticos is born, with Stuka's girlfriend, Sandra Elena Chaya a.k.a. Trixy, and counting as guitarist Robert Zelazek (later bassist of Los Violadores).
Among all of them a small concert scene is being formed in tiny places where the members of each one of the bands go to see the others and gradually creating a subculture that, with its particular and provocative image, begins to be noticed in the streets.
In July 1981 this small scene gained notoriety through what was called the "first punk festival in Argentina", in the Auditorium of the University of Belgrano. Hari B, who was studying at that University, had won the Auditorium for a performance by Los Violadores that would also serve as support for the debut of Trixy and Los Maniáticos. But, taking into account that they had to pay for the sound, they had to include in the line up a band that had nothing to do with punk, The Rosanroll Band, whose leader, Eduardo "Rosanroll" Camilli, was known at the time as the lead of Pappo, Spinetta and Nebbia. The young punks tricked Camilli into paying for the sound, with the false promise that his band would be the main number, that he would play twice as long as the others and that they would reimburse him for part of the money. The musicians and public of La Rosanroll were an example of the young "rockers" with long hair that the punks faced. The union of these two publics ended in a riot and Camilli denounced what happened in an indignant letter published in the Readers' Mail of the October issue of that year of Expreso Imaginario: “During the performance of these (Los Violadores), there was a punk bar run by the guitarist from Los Laxantes (Horacio “Gamexane” Villafañe; Los Laxantes were not playing that night but were in the audience), who kept burning pieces of paper, insulting the rockers and kicking the rockers from Belgrano (they did nothing). The singer of Los Violadores, when he sang Repression, said: “Repression at the UB…. the rockers from Belgrano are lying in the plaza without a c… to do, hippies from m…., rockers p….., etc.: you will draw your own conclusions”There were chair blows, a fight and it ended with musicians and public detained at Police Station 33. Later it was said that the scandal was good publicity, since it meant “the landing of the written press for entertainment, which would take Los Violadores and punk to their covers”.
After that scandal, Gamexane composed another of his hymns for Los Laxantes, based on that incident: Rockero Pajero, which would only be recorded in a demo: " You're always in the corner and I see you jerk / you're always in the corner and I see you rocker / you're a fat rocker jerk slime / you're always in the corner and you never leave from there / jerk rocker who gave birth to you? Walt Disney??". This type of provocation achieved the end pursued by the band: to enervate the traditional national rock press. The note written by Gloria Guerrero for Humor magazine (& # 34; Punks Go Home & # 34;) in which she accused them of "denigrating the Woodstock generation with insults and hurtful phrases" is famous.
The next sample of this gap occurred in 1982 when the fourth edition of the Barock festival was held, which would be documented in the film "Buenos Aires Rock". The images of the film show the atmosphere of "hippie festival" that it was still alive, although all musical styles coexisted in the festival line-up. The bands that tried to show new styles were, in general, reviled -the case of Los Encargados being emblematic, buried under a rain of fruit- while the public reached the climax with Raúl Porchetto singing Algo de Paz, lyrics that sounded like they were taken from a late '60s hippie album.
The Big Bands of the dictatorial period
During the hardest years of the dictatorship, the greatest milestone for national rock had been the inauguration, on May 25, 1978, of the Obras Sanitarias Stadium, which over time would earn the nickname the temple of Argentine rock, due to its crucial importance: reaching the first Obras as their own number was for the bands a certificate that they had become one of the main numbers of the Argentine rock scene. The first recital in Obras, although practically a rehearsal with guests, was by Banda Spinetta, however the first official recital was on November 3 with Serú Girán. This was undoubtedly the most successful band of the entire period of the dictatorship.
Serú Girán was born from the union, in Buzios, Brazil, of the musicians Charly García, Oscar Moro, David Lebón and Pedro Aznar. In a short time they managed to achieve great popularity with their own style of rock, reaching a diverse audience from different social backgrounds. This happened in large part thanks to the sound that the group captured during their three-month stay in the northeast of Brazil. In fact, the band's first album was clearly influenced by Brazilian music, combined with progressive rock and jazz.
During the group's first concert to promote the album, one of the most peculiar anecdotes of Argentine rock occurred: at the recital, the fans did not understand the strange costumes the band wore (completely white, except for Charly, who he was in a black jacket and shoes); and then when the group played "Disco Shock," a satire on disco music, the response from the crowd was very negative, going so far as to hiss and boo them. With some nostalgics clamoring for Sui Generis songs, the audience had not yet understood the satirical message the band wanted to deliver.
Serú Girán released their second album, entitled La Grasa de las Capitales in 1979. The album was well received by the specialized press and would cement their place as the best band of the time.
At the beginning of the decade, Serú Girán was still one of the most popular bands, although their compositions were no longer so pretentious. The group's third album, Bicicleta released in 1980, was lukewarm at first, but over time it became one of the group's classics. Both this and his previous work, La Grasa de las Capitales released in 1979, are moving away from the symphonic rock of the first album, while the Argentine music scene in general becomes more visceral and "simple& #34;, with fewer fixes. Serú Girán would not stay away from these changes, while symphonic and progressive compositions began to dissolve in Argentine rock.
Serú Girán went on tour to Brazil in 1980, where the reception they received was such that the organizers asked them to play again the next day, but together with the jazz-rock group Weather Report, among others. Later, in Buenos Aires, they played at La Rural, in front of nearly 60,000 people and chanting "No se banca más", alluding to the military government. They also played together with Spinetta's new project, Spinetta Jade. This recital was historic.
Charly García and Spinetta were at that time the two greatest exponents of "national rock" Argentinian, and they used to be presented as two confronting figures. The joint recital was considered "the musical event of the year". It was a historical fact that García and Spinetta, with two groups of such magnitude, were simultaneously on stage. A few months before, the first issue of Hurra magazine had been published with a cover title that read: "Charly Garcia vs. Louis Al Spinetta Is rock a football game?".
The show began with Spinetta singing the Sui Generis song, When I start to be alone. Then, out of the darkness, Charly García emerged accompanying the song Qué ves el cielo, by Invisible, on piano and backing vocals. Under a feverish climate, Lebón performed "Música del alma". Next came Pedro Aznar and Oscar Moro, completing the cast of Serú Giran, who gave a forceful performance and was given a long standing ovation by the people.
Then it was the turn of Spinetta, Pomo, Satragni, Rapoport and Del Barrio. Spinetta Jade's performance was highly applauded, despite her difficult style. Spinetta's effort to achieve greater simplicity in his music was notorious, so that the public could understand his message.
The recital closed with the two groups on stage performing Cristálida -a classic by Pescado Rabioso to which Lebón belonged- and The beggar on the platform. The final encore corresponded to Despíertate nena, a song by Spinetta that David Lebón sang in Pescado Rabioso. The final words were Spinetta's:
Thanks, this was it. No camels, no demagogia, this means there's some union.Luis Alberto Spinetta
It was after that recital that Spinetta Jade released her first two albums, Alma de Diamantes (1980) and Los Niños que escribien en el cielo (1981) and it became the other great band in terms of calls, with shows of a marked musical preciousness. Starting in 1982, the performances of this band became more sporadic due to the solo work of Spinetta, who released Kamikaze that same year. It is an album that came to be considered among the best Argentine rock of all times and, with its digital editions since the 1990s, became a cult object not only in Argentina but also abroad.
Serú Girán released his fourth album, Peperina in 1981, but at the end of the year Pedro Aznar decided to join the Pat Metheny Group in the United States. On March 6 and 7, 1982, Serú Girán played for the last time at Luna Park. A very outstanding moment was the first and only interpretation of the song "Don't cry for my Argentina" (not related to the musical Evita).
Falklands War and resurgence (1982—1989)
| No more intellect, I just want affection. Let's sing now what the people need to hear! When the body feels bad, you need to stop it, But as long as the body feels good, you must live it! Get up, get down, get down, the heart is strong and works more, How long? Why don't you drive all the way to Singapore? |
| Maria Rosa Yorio - Road to Singapore (1982) |
| I need to look at fresh faces, sit down on the street, laugh at me, and it's not that I forget that there are many problems, I just want to have the answer. I need to communicate. with the generation of which I am part, I think maybe we've been forgotten, Or did others hide us? |
| Window - Energy to share (1984) |
The Argentine economy was in the throes of a recession around 1982, and discontent against the military government was growing. On April 2, the Military Junta began a landing of military troops in the Malvinas Islands (a territory historically claimed by Argentina), later starting the Malvinas War, as a desperate attempt to stay in power by manipulating the popular support through a claim that dates back more than a hundred years. Thousands of young people were sent to war poorly trained, and without corresponding equipment or shelter. After hundreds of casualties in the Argentine ranks, the British finally managed to retain their control over the Malvinas. After the resounding failure in the contest by the Military Junta, the government called elections after seven years of dictatorship. Although the Malvinas war was one of the most tragic episodes in recent Argentine history, it had the paradoxical effect of revitalizing Argentine rock. While the war was going on, music in English was banned, which gave even more impetus to music in Spanish.
On May 16, 1982, the Latin American Solidarity Festival brought together some of the most outstanding bands of that time. The recital had the objective of supporting the troops fighting on the islands, although it was also a covert form of protest against the war and a call for peace. At the same time, rock in English was censored on the radio and the programmers had to fill the space left by rock in English with Argentine rock. This was the greatest boost obtained by national rock in its history and was the reason why many bands managed to obtain a recording contract, especially those that, having proposals close to the most innovative rock styles, they were not well received by the public of the massive festivals.
New wave stage and the birth of the underground
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This is how a series of bands more focused on the "humorous" aspect of music began to appear on the radios of the time, such as Los Twist, Suéter and Las Viuda e Hijas de Roque Enroll.
In 1979, in La Plata, the brothers Julio, Marcelo, and Federico Moura had formed a pioneering band of the new wave genre called Virus who, already in 1981, had anticipated this trend with his album Wadu Wadu. In 1982, to accompany the new pop explosion, they recorded Recrudece, an album that became a cult object over the years, but at that time had almost no airplay. It would be the next album, Agujero Interior, released in December 1983, in the very first days of the democratic restoration, which would make the sound of Virus massive and practically inseparable from that historical moment in Argentina., with hymns such as In my garage, El Probador and Hay que salir del Agujero Inner.
In 1981, Miguel Mateos, after speaking with Freddie Mercury, won the opportunity to open for Queen at their show in Buenos Aires, with his band Zas, which until then had only played in pubs and cultivated a rock style Latino influenced by salsa. As a result of the unexpected success in their performance as opening act for Queen, they obtained a recording contract on the Sazam Records label, a sub-label of Music Hall (from its producer Oscar López) and released their first eponymous LP in 1982, with a proposal more geared towards music. pop. As it happened with so many other bands, the strong radio coverage it obtained during the Malvinas War due to the prohibition of music in English made the song Va por vos, para vos. a hit.
The Twist burst onto the scene with songs with political content, but with touches of humor such as "I thought it was about blind men" and "Here, kill yourself." Widow and daughters of Roque Enroll was the first rock group formed exclusively by women. His compositions "Lollypop", "La silicone no perdona" and "La familia argentina" introduce songs with danceable rhythms, they were very irradiated. Sweater for his part would also have his comic side with danceable lyrics such as "Mom iron my shirt", "Methods" and "Illustrious Citizen". But unlike the first two groups, they were characterized by their more serious side and reached the top of pop rock of the decade with songs like "Amanece en la ruta", "Vía México" and " He is saying."
Argentina entered a new stage in its history in December 1983, with the inauguration of the democratic government of Raúl Alfonsín. Entering into democracy meant the disappearance of the repressive and censorship apparatus of the military government, for which reason freedom of expression flourished again. A whole generation that had not enjoyed this freedom during the dictatorship suddenly felt attracted to a whole series of popular music that had been banned and had nothing to do directly with rock. Protest singer-songwriters such as Piero, Víctor Heredia, the Nueva Trova Cubana, the Trova Rosarina and folk musicians such as Mercedes Sosa, took over radio waves and stages that were previously exclusive to national rock. But the new generations, who did not feel identified with these proposals, were creating the underground scene that would lead to the development of the bands mentioned in the first place.
The festive and joyful social climate marked the advancement of the Argentine new wave and pop rock, which with its energetic rhythms and its uncaring style would promote bands that would become the protagonists of the Argentine music scene, and eventually, of all Latin America. This type of band, which went from the "solemn" and progressive sound of symphonic rock to a more irreverent and accessible music -which would help national rock to expand abroad- perfectly represented the optimistic and festive spirit of the historical moment.
Much of the credit for imposing the new new wave sound on national rock comes from the beginning of the solo career of Charly García, one of the most respected musicians of the moment who, after the dissolution of Serú Girán, decidedly moved in that direction with his initial trilogy. His first album of solo songs, Going from bed to livng (1982) had great success, being one of the first beneficiaries of the ban on music in English on the radio. It is a transition album in which traditional ballads such as "Inconsciente Colectivo" coexist alongside "modern" like the one that gives the album its name, "I don't want to get so crazy" or the almost improvised "Peluca Telefónica". For this work, the band was made up of Willy Iturri on drums, Gustavo Bazterrica on guitar, Cachorro López on bass and Andrés Calamaro on keyboards (these last three members of Los Abuelos de la Nada). This material was presented in an impressive recital (before 25,000 people) at the Ferrocarril Oeste stadium, on December 26, 1982, where he also performed what would be another of his critical hits, "Los Dinosaurios", metaphor of the PRN and the thousands of missing persons. In those months, in addition to recording his first solo album, Charly artistically produced Los Abuelos de la Nada, who "opened" Ferro's recital together with the incipient Suéter, the latter very poorly received, with insults and objects thrown on stage.
In 1983 Modern Clicks appeared, recorded and mixed in New York. This new work presents a turn in García's music, with the introduction of danceable rhythms, shorter songs and at times more irreverent, in keeping with the air of renewal that began to arrive with the democratic opening. Songs like "Los dinosinos" (now in democracy), "Nos seguien pegando abajo (Mortal Sin)" and "They won't let me out" became enduring hits in Charly's career. This material was presented on December 15, 16, 17 and 18 at the Luna Park stadium, accompanied by Pablo Guyot (guitar), Alfredo Toth (bass), Willy Iturri (drums), Daniel Melingo (sax), Fabiana Cantilo (choirs) and a young man from Rosario on keyboards: Fito Páez. This album was not well understood by the public, as it included (for the first time in García's career) "danceable" themes, that is to say: the rhythm took on another dimension, cutting out the lyrics, until then a primordial concept of rock national. He had a later recognition. García's essential trilogy is completed with Piano bar, an album recorded live at the ION studios, with minimal use of overdubs, which has in «Demoliendo hoteles», the ballad «Promesas Sobre el Bidet”, “Rap del Exilio”, and “Cerca de la revolución” his greatest achievements. It is an album with a lot of New Wave in its rhythms, but a little less danceable and even with certain more experimental nuances.
In the Province of Mendoza, a current called Rock de Mendoza would emerge and the most representative group would be a pop rock band called Los Enanitos Verdes; that they would begin to play as a trio around 1979. In 1984 another band from Mendoza would appear, Alcohol Ethyllic; authors of the mega hit "Lamento boliviano" (which years later would be performed by his Los Enanitos Verdes on their album Big Bang in 1994).
In mid-May 1982, during the Malvinas War, the theater actor Omar Chabán, the journalist Sergio Aisenstein (from the editorial staff of Expreso Imaginario, who hosted the rock radio program El Tren Fantasma at dawn on Radio Rivadavia) and the chef of German descent Helmut Zeiger opened Café Einstein. Inspired by a Dutch bar called No Name that Aisenstein frequented when he lived in Amsterdam, the space was open Tuesday through Sunday. Tuesdays were "popular pot". Popular pots similar to those organized by unions and neighborhood organizations were held at the premises. Those Tuesdays there were no shows. The rest of the days, food and drinks were provided with live musical and theatrical performances. Katja Alemann, Chabán's partner, danced an erotic tango, Vivi Tellas did a show called La Nadadora and played with the band Las Bay Biscuits, Chabán and Aisenstein gave a show as the duo Pis y Caca, the clown Geniol acted as a mime At the same time that he began the journey of his mythical rock project Geniol with Coca, Arturo Carrera recited his poetry or Guillermo Kuitca, still unknown in the art world, painted on the stage of the place. There were even performances by a historical figure from the Di Tella Institute, Federico Manuel Peralta Ramos, as if marking a link between two moments of maximum creativity in Buenos Aires. As for music, it was a preferential setting for new trends within national rock. On the opening day, Los Twist made their live debut. Luca Prodan, who did not have a home in Buenos Aires and had made a great friendship with the owners, came to sleep at the venue or at Sergio Aisenstein's house, and played practically every day. On weekends with Sumo and on weekdays with his parallel projects The Hurlingham Reggae Band and Sumito (an acoustic group completed by Roberto Pettinato on sax and Diego Arnedo on double bass). In this way, Sumo, a band that had not benefited from the prohibition of foreign music during the war for singing in English, began to cement its prestige as standard-bearers of the Buenos Aires underground, while Prodan's histrionics on stage perfectly combined with the theatrical atmosphere of the place. Underground bands such as Soda Stereo, Los Encargados, Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota, Casanovas, or Alerta Roja played on the same stage. Los Violadores, after the scandal at the Belgrano University Festival, began to play at the Einstein almost every Sunday, turning it into the first place where new urban tribes such as punks and darks began to meet showing off their peculiar aesthetics.
Shortly after, at the corner of República de la India and Las Heras in the Palermo neighborhood, the Zero Bar was born with a similar proposal, although quieter. On the Zero Bar stage made their debut, in 1983, the band destined to take that move to the mainstream and make it massive: Soda Stereo. The same bands and the same public alternated between Einstein and Zero, generating an atmosphere of extremely high cultural turmoil that, after the democratic restoration, spread to other venues that copied the formula of bar with rock and theater (La Esquina del Sol, Stud Free Pub, Palladium, Sham's, Medio Mundo Varieté, and, a little later, Prix D'ami and the Teatro Arlequines). The peak of this movement came in 1985, with the creation of the Parakultural Center, in San Telmo.
The Parakultural was inaugurated by Omar Viola and Horacio Gabin in a basement they had rented at 336 Venezuela street. They had rented it as a rehearsal room, there Viola, Gabin, and actors like Batato Barea, Alejandro Urdapilleta and Las Gambas al Ajillo, rehearsed at night, until they decided to invite people to the rehearsals and then open it to the public. It was characterized by offering theatre, live music and unconventional plastic arts at that time, highlighting mainly the diversity of shows offered, from underground theater, or stand-up comedy, to independent rock bands.
In its early years, the Gambas al ajillo (humorous group formed by four women: Alejandra Flechner, María José Gabin, Verónica Llinás and Laura Markert), Barea, Urdapilleta, Humberto Tortonese, Susana Cook, Los Melli, The Nervio sisters, El Clú del Claun, among others. The most important bands of the underground and alternative scene of the second half of the eighties also paraded on its stage. Following the tradition of Café Einstein, Sundays were reserved for punk artists, in the cycle called "Paramusical Sundays". They passed through there: The Rapists, Sumo, Trixy and The Maniacs (later simply The Maniacs), Suicide Squad, Corpses of Children, Uncontrollable Feeling, Celeste and the Generation, Kadaverika Rigidity, Phlegm, All Your Dead, The Corrosives, The Rascals, Antiheroes, among others.
Almost around the same time as the birth of the Parakultural, Omar Chabán will seek to recover from the abrupt closure of the Einstein. According to Sergio Aisenstein, “It was not closed by the dictatorship but by democracy. (The radical minister Antonio) Tróccoli closed us down, because his children were there.” After the closure, Chabán, thanks to a loan from the actress Katja Alemann, his partner for those years, inaugurated a space for the elderly Dimensions: Cement. Initially it was thought of as a rock-oriented discotheque, very soon after they began to perform live concerts in the place, given the high profitability of rock concerts. The most important Argentine rock bands passed through there in their early days, such as Los Violadores, Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota, Riff, Sumo, etc.
A good description of the atmosphere that was generated around these spaces and that marked a milestone in Argentine culture, is the one given by the journalist Jorge Luis Fernández in the book "Gente que no": "The Alfonsinista spring had begun by expressing itself in a certain lack of inhibition in society and now it was reflected in a boom in experimentation and in the agitation of the avant-garde. The cultural renewal was not only revealed by the quantity and quality of alternative venues, among which Cemento and Parakultural stood out, which emerged at that time, but by the emergence of a relatively unknown concept, the underground. Under its umbrella a series of disciplines were covered in which theater and rock stood out, but also certain cinema and, in some sense, a lifestyle that included drug use.
The country was isolated from the world, or rather deprived of it, since 1976. Almost 10 years of darkness had passed and suddenly all the news arrived, without its chronological achievement. In that atmosphere, techno and dark were new, but so were punk and new wave, reggae and ska, although in Europe and the United States some of these genres had already gone out of fashion. What allowed the richness of artistic expressions in that Buenos Aires were its nuances, the variety of proposals was seen as a whole as something new.
Not only music and independent theater were experiencing a revival, but also cinema. In this context, the appearance of films such as Blade Runner and especially Liquid Sky, with its futuristic and apocalyptic settings, tinged with hallucinogenic charm, was decisive. But the replacement of films that had not been trained in Buenos Aires theaters, such as The Wall and A Clockwork Orange, was also important. All those films would project their own daring, psychedelic film in the minds of many, leaving their mark on many of the new proposals”.
Massive success and international projection
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Just as 1985 marks the consolidation of the underground scene with the inauguration of Parakultural, the opening to the masses and, eventually, an international projection also arrives for many bands. Many of the Argentine rockers sign with transnationals and this guarantees them Latin American distribution. On January 23, 1985, businessman Daniel Grinbark managed to get Rock & Pop, a radio that would be so successful that it would establish a programming and locution model focused on music that would be followed by the following FM projects, in addition to giving rise to a magazine, festivals and records with his name. A journalistic chronicle summarizes this period as follows: "The year 1985 was a key moment. In January the F.M. Rock & Pop, causing a revolution in Argentine radio. For its part, the newspaper Clarín launches the Si supplement, dedicated exclusively to youth culture and rock as the main focus of its content. With the arrival of Rock & Pop is the homonymous festival, which brings together for the first time international figures and bands with the popes of national rock. Through a network of media, production companies, representation agencies, record companies, nightclubs and clothing companies, the entertainment industry turned to "the young" as an element of mass consumption. In previous decades there were adolescent phenomena, never with this caliber of production and impact".
The golden era of Argentine rock, in commercial terms, began in April 1985, when Miguel Mateos /ZAS performed five consecutive shows at the Teatro Coliseo to present his third album, Tengo que parar (1984), a record that had brought the band enormous notoriety due to the constant radio broadcast of the songs. During those presentations, their first live album, Rockas vivas, was recorded, which would sell more than 500,000 records in Argentina alone, becoming the most successful album of Argentine rock up to that time. It was so successful that, despite being an album already recorded live, it was also "presented live" in August at Luna Park. The idea was to do a single show, but the demand for tickets exceeded all expectations, ending in a series of four shows attracting 60,000 spectators.
The tremendous success of Rockas Vivas leads all record companies to bet on national rock and invest in bands and soloists, including expansion campaigns and international tours, breaking album sales records and attendance at recitals in various countries of the American continent. A review of the main national rock records of 1985 is revealing, since many of them remained forever among the most remembered records of the genre: in addition to Rockas Vivas, Nada Personal by Soda Stereo, Locura by Virus (marking a strong stylistic shift towards synth pop), Giros by Fito Páez, Los Abuelos en el Opera by Los Abuelos de la Nada, and the second album by G.I.T., known as the Black Album, famous for its particular electronic drum sound.
In addition to these releases that were best sellers, this year also saw the arrival of the two most prestigious bands of the underground scene: Patricio Rey and his Redonditos de Ricota with Gulp!, and Sumo with Divididos por la Felicidad. Another band identified with the underground, Los Violadores, pioneers of punk rock in the country had come to release their first self-titled album in 1983, but from At that time and after the departure of Hari B's band -with the consequent consolidation of Stuka as lead guitarist- they began to move away from the pure punk style, to take elements of post punk and new wave. The press invents the nickname "hard pop" for them, which they also lavish on other projects around them more geared towards new wave, such as Trixy y los Maníáticos or Sissi Hansen's solo project. In 1985 they released their second album, And now what happens, eh? with which they have a great commercial success, especially for the song "Uno, dos, ultraviolento". underground stages and take them to play in larger venues and even tour abroad.
Soda Stereo, with its new wave and post-punk sound would become one of the most important bands in Argentine rock and, like Los Abuelos de la Nada and G.I.T. would find great success abroad. As Zeta Bosio, bassist of Soda Stereo, commented:
"We went out of Argentina and started going to Chile, Peru, we started going up and in some countries it happened that we arrived and never had a Rock band... they told us that this was a thing of the other world and it wasn't going to work... now it's a joy to see that it works and has its own strength... »
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Soda Stereo was one of the most successful and influential rock bands in Spanish that unleashed a massive support movement in Latin America known as "sodamania". In its beginnings, the band was influenced by ska rhythms and sound new wave bands like The Police, The Specials, Talking Heads and The Cure. With their first album, simply titled Soda Stereo (1984), they achieved national success; however, they were accused of being frivolous, just like Virus. Their second album, Nothing Personal, strengthened the band's popularity, with hits such as " Nothing personal" and "When the tremor passes", opening the doors to the Latin American market. In 1986 Soda Stereo released Signos, which would establish its popularity with hits such as "Persiana americana". The members embarked on a Latin American tour that included more than one hundred concerts in eleven different countries (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica and Mexico), in addition to recording the album live. White Noise. With the Signos tour, the Soda Stereos became international stars. The group would continue with its success until its separation, and after this it would become a mythical band of Argentine rock.
The little wave became a wave around 1986, and by the beginning of that year it had become a continental phenomenon, reaching Central America, Mexico and crossing the Atlantic towards Spain. Los Enanitos Verdes with their energetic pop-rock achieved great success. Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, with their mix of Latin, ska and rock rhythms became stars in their country and eventually in Latin America. 1986 was the climax of a wave of unexpected success for Argentine rock. Sissi Hansen, from the underground, arrives in Peru, where she gets three hits with her first album My Religion (Produced by Stuka).
This movement helped revitalize Latin American rock and would prove to producers and record labels in other countries that rock in Spanish worked and was profitable. In Mexico, Argentine bands were promoted by media such as Televisa under the phrase "Rock in your language." Mexico. It was in the latter country where its effects were most notorious through various compilation albums and the Rock 101 radio signal. Also in Peru, Argentine bands were a catalyst that brought Peruvian rock to an even larger audience, becoming mainstream. In Chile, where some bands (such as Los Prisioneros) already existed, the wave of Argentine bands would inspire and influence local bands, to this day. The outbreak of Colombian rock can be traced back to the '80s, with many local bands citing Argentine bands as direct influences.
In 1987, the album Signos by Soda Stereo came to have a prominent place in the history of the Argentine recording industry: that year it became the first album by an Argentine artist to be released in format of CD. It must have been manufactured in the Netherlands, since there were still no machines in Argentina to manufacture CDs, and from there it was sent to all of Latin America. This episode is one of the samples of how Soda Stereo was an avant-garde band, always on the hunt for the latest technological and artistic advances. On the other hand, the release of Signos in CD format in 1987 marked the beginning of the decline of vinyl and cassette in Argentina compared to CDs, a trend that would continue in the following years.
The underworld of the late 80s: punk and dark scenes
By 1987, the most important Argentine groups (Soda Stereo, Los Enanitos Verdes, Charly García, Miguel Mateos, GIT, Virus) were touring America, Europe and even Asian countries. As a counterpart, in the underground circuit of Buenos Aires, a new breed of young bands delved into the darker sounds of punk and post punk, accompanied by aesthetics and images in keeping.
The punk scene in these years became strong in the underground through a great variety of bands that are appearing and the information that circulates through word of mouth and through its own alternative broadcast channels, such as the fanzine scene.
"Vaselina", the first fanzine, edited by those around Los Violadores, passed from hand to hand until it reached Marcelo Pocavida, a young man who at that very moment joined Los Baraja as a singer, becoming a frontman with a disturbing stage presence. Another member of Los Baraja, the guitarist Marcelo Montolivo, edited the fanzine "Reacción Punk" in La Plata, and in 1984 Pat Pietrafesa started the fanzine Resistencia. Inspired by the ideology of Do it yourself and a strong anarcho-individualist look that he tried to bring to the whole scene: "I believe in the total authority of the individual who refuses passive acceptance because he knows that he it is not their natural state and I believe only in total nonconformity as long as the current state of control continues".
Pat Pietrafesa would later attempt to translate these ideas into music with the creation of the cassette label "Home Recordings Fuck the Music Business", and the formation of his bands first Uncontrollable Feeling and later Corpses of Children, along with Marcelo Pocavida. In addition to this, from issue 2 of "Resistencia", regular meetings were called in the Botanical Garden to get to know each other and exchange material. In 1986 five bands (Sentimiento Incontrolable, Mutantes del Kaos, Todos Tus Muertos, Los Corrosivos and Antihéroes), created a cooperative of punk bands to organize joint performances (called "festipunks", the first of which developed in the Verdi Hall of La Boca on May 2, 1986). This whole scene had a very strong performance in the demonstrations that called for the repeal of the Police Edicts that allowed arrests for background checks, also giving great discretion to the police authorities to determine who were "suspects", which had become the main instrument used to persecute punks and other urban minorities and tribes.
Between 1985 and 1986 two bands appeared that would mark the scene: Todos Tus Muertos and Massacre Palestina.
Todos Tus Muertos was born after the dissolution of Los Laxantes. Horacio Villafañe and Félix Gutiérrez, guitarist and bassist of that band, form Psico y el Drama de las Tres Cruces, an ephemeral band. After that brief experience, they recruited Jorge Serrano and Fidel Nadal (who at that time was playing in a band called Los Eunucos), to form Todos Tus Muertos. The band debuted in 1985 at a location in the Detention Center, in the San Telmo neighborhood, on the same date that Sentimiento Incontrolable debuted. Both bands adopted a style that put them halfway between punk and the new dark scene that was gaining ground in the Buenos Aires underground. Uncontrollable Feeling posed as standard bearers of anarchopunk and began their shows by listing the punks who were detained and denouncing other episodes of police brutality. Musically, however, their punk sound with a predominance of the rhythmic base, already related them to Joy Division and other post punk bands. Todos Tus Muertos, for its part, stood out for the incorporation of other genres and sounds into its music. Early in their career, their sound was heavily influenced by early hardcore punk bands like the Dead Kennedys and Bad Brains; by death rock and gothic rock bands such as Virgin Prunes and The Birthday Party, and also reggae bands (it should be noted that, in parallel, Gamexane was a member of the gothic rock quartet, La Sobrecarga, with whom he opened for the British band The Cure, in their 1987 recital at the Ferrocarril Oeste stadium).
For its part, Massacre (originally: Massacre Palestina) was the pioneering skate punk band in Argentina, influenced by bands from the West Coast of the United States, such as TSOL, Dead Kennedys and Black Flag.
Comando Suicida, a band that since 1984 had been standing out in the second generation of Argentine punk, little by little, influenced by Cockney Rejects, 4 Skins and the Spanish Decibelios, began to differentiate themselves ideologically from punk fanzines while increasing speed of their music, becoming the first representatives of the Street punk /Oi! genre. After them, two other Oi! bands emerged: Doble Fuerza and Defensa y Justicia, the latter a kind of parallel project of the brothers Ciro and Mariano Pertussi, whose main project was Attaque 77, more attached to the sound of the Ramones. All this time With the agitation of the festipunks and the fanzines, an authentic revolution of bands took place, which appeared by dozens practically every week. As Daniel Conesa, from Descontrol, recalls: “the bands of that time were armed and disarmed week by week” (...) “Attaque's drummer, Leo, played in all of them. Everyone played with everyone, but there were few of us who remained fairly firm in a structure. We stayed and started to play. We were different in that sense. Los Muertos was a notch higher, but then we, Concussion, Uncontrollable Feeling, were the ones that sounded halfway good”. In addition to those already mentioned, the scene of those years was made up of Secuestro, Tumbas N.N, Morgue Judicial, Exeroica (the first all-female punk band in Argentina), División Autista (the first hardcore and straight edge band), Soberanía Personal, Mutantes del Kaos among many others.
The next step for that scene was the ability to record their own material. Mostly relegated from the big labels, independent non-profit labels began to appear in Argentina as well, interested in documenting what was happening in the underground. The work of Daniel Melero (from Los Encargados) and César Rosas (from Mimilocos) was important, who with their label Catálogo Incierto documented on cassette not only their own personal projects, in the field of electronic expressionism, but also the sound of Los Corrosivos (Case Study) and Todos Tus Muertos (Hectic Nights in the Cemetery, recorded live at the Parakultural).
Post punk in Argentina achieved its own personality with a whole movement of bands that were then classified as "dark". The biggest repercussions came from Don Cornelio y la Zona, who reached radio stations with their hit: Ella Vendrá; song composed by its leader Palo Pandolfo.
Friction had the same impact, a project that was born as a kind of supergroup between Gustavo Cerati (guitarist for Soda Stereo), Richard Coleman, Christian Basso and Fernando Samalea (three musicians who alternated between the new wave projects Metrópoli and Clap, and who At that very moment they were part of Las Ligas, the band that accompanied Charly García in his performances). It was a parallel project to Soda Stereo in which the songs were composed by Coleman, and Cerati occupied a purely instrumental place, like a laboratory to experiment with different guitar sounds. In 1986 they gave three recitals at the Stud Free Pub that produced an intense buzz among musicians and journalists, to the point of being forever remembered for the quality of sound and staging and the groundbreaking nature of the music. It was as a result of this repercussion that they were chosen "Revelation Band" in 1986, for the supplement Yes! of the Clarín newspaper. In that same year, they were contacted by manager Fabián Couto to edit the band's first album, called Consumación o consumo. In this one, Cerati now occupies only the role of producer (and guest guitarist on the song Modern Architecture, a ballad reminiscent of the instrumental tracks from David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy). The band, reduced to a trio, added the participation of Gonzalo Palacios on saxophone and Celsa Mel Gowland on backing vocals, who would become permanent members as of the second LP, Para Terminar (1988).
Other groups linked to the dark genre were El Corte, Euroshima, Los Pillos, Perdón Amadeus, Los Corrosivos, Duna, La Forma, El Extranjero and La Sobrecarga. In the interior of the country, other bands tried to follow this path, but far from the temples of the Buenos Aires underground, they had to settle for a small group of followers. This is the case of the Córdoba bands El Final de los Árboles, Los Enviados del Señor and La Batata. Also Mellonta Tauta from Mar del Plata, who would go on to publish and obtain international recognition in the following decade.
On March 17, 1987, all this recent "dark subculture" He had his first big massive date at The Cure show in Ferro (and with La Sobrecarga as opening act). There were incidents of hordes entering the stadium without paying a ticket, infiltrating through neighboring roofs, and then once on the field they began to fight with the security employees and their dogs. The musicians themselves suffered attacks while playing, although the recital was never cancelled. There were rumors that rival production companies sent barras bravas as revenge to the organizer of the concert, Grinbank. The balance of the incidents was 20 injured, 100 arrested and 1 dead (a hot dog seller who worked in the stadium and had a cardiac arrest).
Late 80s
At the beginning of 1987, an edition of the rock festival La Falda was held that was particularly negative. Due to poor organization, torrential rains and an aggressive audience (which had incidents with the police), it went down in history as one of the worst episodes of Argentine rock. In the Miguel Mateos/ZAS recital, for example, at one point the singer got tired of those who were throwing corn at him and began to insult them harshly, while below a punk with a knife in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth terrified the public. Charly García insulted the audience, who was throwing corn at him, which caused him to also say "don't kill me in this place, I want to die in Hollywood!"
The negative episode at the La Falda 87 festival caused Miguel Mateos to decide to leave the Argentine market aside and begin to prioritize the Mexican and American markets, where he would reap the best successes of his career and where his prestige would be so high that it would be only comparable to that of the most internationally popular Argentine bands (Soda Stereo, Enanitos Verdes, Fabulosos Cadillacs).
But, fundamentally, the scandal of the La Falda 87 festival was a hard blow to the holding of federal rock festivals. The idea became prohibitive for the producers after that episode, which led to a federal rock festival not being held in Argentina for many years. Only in 1992 with the Argentine Contemporary Music Festival of La Falda, publicized with the slogan "the myth is reborn" as a way of dispelling doubts and traumas, did he become one again: it was a success and there were no incidents. However, this did not mean that the idea of federal festivals was established, since it did not have regularity in the following years. In November 1996, the third edition of the Nuevo Rock Argentino festival was held in Córdoba, with the alternative rock bands of the moment. In 2000, the Buenos Aires Vivo festival was held (which was itinerant and played in different provinces), and he repeated the following year. But fundamentally, in 2001 with the first edition of Cosquín Rock, the idea of making a massive rock festival in the provinces was definitively established: it managed to be regular in the following years.
On May 2, 1987, at the Soda Stereo concert at the Highland Road nightclub in San Nicolás de los Arroyos, a balcony collapsed, leaving 5 dead and 110 injured. The venue, set up for 1,500 people, had 2,500 that night. Because of the incident, the next concert in Obras de la banda was done in a sober tone, without decorations, as a commemoration of the victims.
As an anticipation of the end of this movement, in December 1987 the death of Luca Prodan, leader of Sumo, took place. He was found dead on December 22 in his room, with the cause of his death being disputed, his death caused shock among his fans and in the Argentine rock scene. After Prodan's death, Sumo would separate and its members would form two new bands, Divididos (with Ricardo Mollo and Diego Arnedo) and Las Pelotas (with Germán Daffunchio, Alejandro Sokol and Alberto Troglio). Of the two, Divided would achieve greater commercial success, boasting a powerful rock sound, advertising with the nickname "The Rock Steamroller". Pettinato, for his part, lived for a few years in Spain, where he formed Pachuco Cadáver, a duo with Guillermo Piccolini with whom he released two albums exploring the sounds of psychedelia and experimental rock of all eras. Upon his return to the country, he returned to the field of journalism and conducting television programs.
In 1988, Fricción would release their last album Para terminar, bringing the post-punk stage of Argentine rock to a close. After their dissolution, Richard Coleman allied with Horacio "Gamexane" Villafañe, from Todos Tus Muertos to create Los 7 Delfines, which would be another of the bands that would cultivate a powerful and highly worked sound in the 90s.
In that same year, he would lose another artist of great prominence on the rock scene: Miguel Abuelo, founder of Los Abuelos de la Nada, was diagnosed with AIDS. He died on March 26, 1988 of cardiac arrest a few days after his 42nd birthday.
The leader of Virus, Federico Moura, was also notified of having AIDS. Moura died of cardiorespiratory failure on December 21, 1988, just one day before the first anniversary of Prodan's death. However, Virus survived the death of his leader, since several months before his death, Federico ordered his brother, the keyboardist and chorister of the band Marcelo Moura, to take his place.. The band is still active to this day, as a pop-rock band with influences from synthpop and electropop.
The late 80's also mark the transition, for Patricio Rey and his Redonditos de Ricota, from the underground to the massive, until they became a mass phenomenon. His popularity was increasing based on reviews in specialized media and word of mouth among fans. On December 2, 1989, the group played at the Obras Sanitarias Stadium. The covered stadium had a capacity for 4,700 people, which was quickly reached, surprising the band itself. So they added a new date, but once again the tickets were sold out quickly. Faced with the demand, the band announced a third show for the 29th, but this time not in the covered stadium, but outside, on the Obras hockey fields, which, being an open space, allowed a capacity of up to 25,000 people and managed to sell all tickets. Los Redondos went from playing small venues to selling out a stadium in just twenty-seven days. It was the second time in history that a band played on the Obras hockey field with their own recital (not as part of a festival), only after Soda Stereo, who had achieved it in December 1988. In this recital they appeared the first security problems and control over their audience, the fans began to move the stage, which endangered its structure and caused the band to stop with the recital and ask the audience to calm down. Despite this incident, the Obras shows had a very good reception from the public and critics, and in the voting at the end of 1989 in the Suplemento Sí! and the magazine Rock&Pop, Los Redondos were chosen as the band of the year, breaking with the hegemony that Soda Stereo had had in the scene in the years 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1988. Soda Stereo were only voted band of the year in the Pelo.
Although a certain sector of the fans disliked that they played in Obras, since they considered that performing in a stadium with such capacity consisted of a betrayal of the group's principles, which were essentially opposed to commercialization and merchandising, the truth is that the popularity of Los Redondos expanded enormously with their arrival at the temple of Argentine rock, generating a marked change in the social composition of their fan base. The "ricoteras masses" as the shows in stadiums that the band gave in the 90s were called, they were characterized by the presence of flags, soccer chants and even a speech in the public that did not match the music of the band or its lyrics. Among the consequences of this change was the growth of acts of violence, both in confrontations between the public (part of which identified themselves as "bars" with flags and different names, sometimes linked to their place of origin, and from one recital to another they dragged relations of friendship or enmity with other bars) as confrontations with the police. In the new folklore that was being generated around the "masses" in the stadiums, these confrontations were counted as a sign of "endurance," a term borrowed from the field of Argentine soccer. This new ambienye, far from the underworld of the 80s, was the breeding ground for what, in the following decade, was called neighborhood rock.
December 27, 1988 saw a milestone in Argentine rock: for the first time it had a mega-festival, something that materialized with the Three Days Festival for Democracy that brought together 150,000 people, an amount never seen before on the scene and that put it at the level of the biggest scenes in the world. The festival was held on Avenida 9 de Julio and had among its numbers La Torre, Ratones Paranoicos, Enanitos Verdes, Fito Páez, Charly García, Luis Alberto Spinetta and Soda Stereo as the main course of the night. That desire to make a rock mega-festival in Argentina was fulfilled, something that had been attempted unsuccessfully in 1970 with the First Young Music Festival in Lobos; It was clear that the conditions and context in Argentina were now in place to undertake a project of this type.
Hyperinflation and Convertibility (1989—2004)
On May 14, 1989, Argentine hyperinflation broke out when, in the midst of an economic recession, the presidential elections held that day resulted in the Radical party leaving the government and Peronism taking over with Carlos Menem as the new president of the nation. As a consequence, the previous trends of economic decline accelerated, looting and riots exploded throughout the country, and various sectors began to press for the transfer of command not to take place in December but rather to take place in advance, which took place on December 8. of July. However, the hyperinflation was long and continued with the new government, having its tail until April of the following year.
Hyperinflation severely affected the Argentine music scene. Established bands with greater purchasing power were able to somehow get around the crisis, touring internationally where they could raise the much-needed dollars. However, the girl bands that were just starting out suffered a different fate: due to the fact that the music industry was severely affected by the crisis. The independent labels that were beginning to make themselves known and influence the scene, disappeared. As for the big labels, they began to rule out any risk and focus their catalogs only on established artists whose sales flow was practically guaranteed by their career. Thus, several projects were put on hold or directly discarded, which affected the careers of various growing bands and soloists.
One of the long-term effects of that hyperinflation was that, while the pop rock and new wave girl bands that followed the model of joining a major label were disappearing, an alternative model of self-management and recording was growing. productions independently, and in fact between the late '80s and early '90s several countercultural bands, alternative rock and the genre later known as neighborhood rock were born. Even if they had sought to use the route of the major record companies, the emerging bands would have found their doors closed, both due to the economic crisis and due to the reluctance of the labels, which with the change from vinyl to CD format preferred to go to the safe business. to reissue plates of established artists, instead of risking to publish new artists. Regarding this period, the musician Fernando Samalea commented years later in his autobiographical book While Others Sleep: A Long Vigil of Rock (2017):
Particular times were happening for the musical industry. The change of vinyl to the CD had made most of the big companies apostasen more than to current projects. As a result, alternative radios, independent seals, compiled (...) and bands emerged in Argentina (...) [that] showed another alternative scene.Fernando Samalea.
As a sign that there was a debacle for the underworld in that period, it can be said that in 1990 almost no Argentine rock band made their recording debut. The few editions were by already established artists, and the outstanding albums of the year were Canción Animal by Soda Stereo and Filosofía Barata y Zapatos de Goma by Charly García. As the only exception, the punk label Radio Trípoli tries to go back to the sources and publishes, that 1990, the debut album (and that would be the only one) of a historical of the Buenos Aires unk scene: Trixy (now without the Maniáticos).
The Later Music Industry
Regarding the state of the recording industry, it was not until 1991, with a certain economic stability, without inflation but also without much purchasing power, that the record companies were able to release the first and second albums of numerous emerging bands, albums that in some cases they had been pending for 2 years. Something that caused criticism from producer Daniel Grinbank was that during the crisis the record companies did not make many efforts to export Argentine bands, and for this reason in 1991 he accused the record companies of a lack of creativity executive. In 1992 the improvement continued and there was a rebound in record sales and attendance at concerts, and although the producers still saw it as difficult to tour the provinces, they did welcome sending bands back to to play other countries. As a sign of economic improvement and greater purchasing power, as of that 1992, visits by international bands and artists exploded, which were taken advantage of by local bands acting as opening acts.
Around 1993, the "multitarget" model of FM radios was establishing itself, with rankings of the "top 40" type that they did not follow a particular genre but simply followed a popularity criteria: the listeners voted for the songs and the most chosen ones were passed. So that artists as different as Patricio Rey and his Redonditos de Ricota, Julio Iglesias and Michael Jackson could play equally on a radio. Such was the programming of, for example, FM 100. However, another was emerging in parallel more rock movement: the Condon Clú established recitals every weekend in different venues, where numbers such as Las Pelotas, Los Piojos, Memphis la Blusera, Bersuit Vergarabat, Pappo and Juanse played. This movement would be an important link in the subsequent outbreak of neighborhood rock
Nevertheless, by 1994 the excellent sales of records and tickets to concerts did not repeat themselves, and in the environment there was talk of an estimated drop of 20-30%. Grinbank reflected that perhaps it was a mistake depositing at the end of 1993 a large concentration of international megastars such as Michael Jackson, Madonna and Guns N' Roses, and declared that "the industry had reached its real dimension". Black Sabbath, Sting-James Taylor, etc. National artists continued to take advantage of these visits to be opening acts.
The following trends reflected the low purchasing power of the public, for example, in the summer of 1996 there was little concert activity on the Argentine coast due to this factor. Several years later, Grinbank referred to these problems:
When they say "for you the time of 1 to 1 was fantastic" I say no, because I could buy cheap artists, but people had no money to pay them and, moreover, the situation that was lived was not very good.Daniel Grinbank, La Nación, January 31, 2016.
In 1996, an event took place in the United States that would have great long-term consequences for the global music industry, changing the evolution of American music and, therefore, of the entire world: the Telecommunications Act, a law whose main argument was to deregulate the telecommunications market so that any company could buy media space without limits, and which, among other results, favored the advance of monopolies in radio broadcasting, led to a greater homogenization of sounds and harmed the dissemination of new or independent artists.
1999 was the year of the record sales peak for the global recording industry, with a record of US$28,900,000,000 generated, largely thanks to the CD format, which also reached its peak that year.
Nevertheless, on June 1, 1999, Napster was founded, a company dedicated to online music downloads. From that moment on, in the following years there would be an uninterrupted drop in sales of physical formats, and a sustained increase in digital downloads. Although there were also voices who argued that traditionally only 20% of the public bought music, and with the advent of digital channels, the other 80% appeared on the scene.
The Argentine economic crisis of 2001-02 caused the repetition of a pattern that had already been seen in the Argentine hyperinflation of 1989-90, with Argentine bands and artists going on tours abroad in search of the so-called in need of dollars, although this time it was not only established artists but also others on the rise and with less popularity.
The economic improvement was felt in the resumption of international visits, the first to arrive after the long crisis was Iron Maiden, who played on January 11, 2004 in Vélez with Horcas and O'Connor as opening acts.
Megafestivals
The great success of the mega-festival Three Days for Democracy in 1988 (gathered 150,000 people) had suggested the idea that mega-festivals would be established on the Argentine scene; however, hyperinflation put the idea on hold and the government did not hold a mega-festival in 1989.
Nevertheless, by December 1990 the economic situation had recovered sufficiently for the idea of mega-festivals to be revived, and on December 14, 1990, the Mi Buenos Aires Rock festival was held on Avenida 9 de July, with 100,000 people and having among its numbers La Portuaria, Fabiana Cantilo, Luis Alberto Spinetta and Charly García.
The experience of said megafestival would continue in the following years, so in the '90s Argentine rock would show a trend of an exponential increase in its convening power with respect to the level it had in the previous one decade. From the panorama of the '80s, where the recitals were mostly in small theaters and stadiums, with very few episodes of massive recitals, in the '90s it became usual for massive recitals to be held: the festival Mi Buenos Aires Querido II on Avenida 9 de Julio in 1991 (250,000), the Rock de Corazones Solidarios festival in the same place in 1992 (100,000), the two Rivers at the Serú Girán meeting in 1992 (120,000). In addition, from 1992 another massive space would be added to Argentine rock: that year began the custom of including recitals in the traditional annual anniversary festival of La Plata, typically held in November in Plaza Moreno. The first edition of 1992 had as central numbers Horacio Fontova, Luis Alberto Spinetta and Fito Páez.
On the other hand, on November 30, 1991, on another date of the Mi Buenos Aires Querido II festival, a tango recital was held on Avenida 9 de Julio. In one section, Argentine rock artists joined in and sang emblematic tangos; The rockers participated: JAF, Celeste Carballo, Horacio Fontova, Fabiana Cantilo, Roque Narvaja, María Rosa Yorio, Moris, Litto Nebbia, Silvina Garré, Alejandro Lerner, Patricia Sosa and Juan Carlos Baglietto. This tango recital had an attendance of 40,000 people.
On March 3, 1999, the Buenos Aires Vivo III festival was taking place in Costanera Sur, when unfortunate events occurred at the shows of Caballeros de La Quema and Divididos: two 21-year-old fans named Raúl Lumille and Diego Aguilera were electrocuted when touching a wire fence that had become electrified with loose cables, there was also a blackout that was taken advantage of by hordes of criminals to rob the public and stab them, in total there were 25 injuries. These events led to the cancellation of the last two dates of the festival, which were going to have messages from Amnesty International for the 50 years of human rights and artists in tune (León Gieco and Mercedes Sosa). But fundamentally, they planted serious doubts for the future about the government returning to do massive rock concerts.
However, the government wanted to continue performing rock concerts, so after the incidents it replanned the entire format for the following year: in 2000 the Festival Argentina en Vivo was held, now not only in the capital but with concerts throughout length and breadth of the country, and exclusively in closed enclosures (easier to monitor than the open spaces of the previous time). There it was possible to make the special date of Amnesty that had been originally planned for the previous year. Argentina en Vivo 2000 was a success, and it would have another edition the following year, but fundamentally it was important to convince businessmen again and organizers that it was possible to hold festivals in the provinces (an idea that had been discarded after the trauma of the incidents at La Falda Rock '87), and that in 2001 it would lead to the birth of Cosquín Rock.
On April 4, 2000, Argentine rock conquered a record: for the first time in world history, a rock recital was held in Antarctica, with the presentation of León Gieco at the Marambio Base as part of the traveling Argentina Live.
In October 2003 a new festival appeared on the Argentine rock scene: Quilmes Rock. The main premise of Quilmes was to become the first Argentine festival to host different themes, in the manner of the most important Anglo-Saxon festivals, for this reason already in its first edition the artists were placed on dates according to their style (for example, the 10th of October was a day of pop with Gustavo Cerati and Emmanuel Horvilleur, and October 11 was a day of neighborhood rock with Ratones Paranoicos and La Mancha de Rolando).
Media
In the '90s there would be substantial changes in the Argentine radio scene, with the start of broadcasting of radio stations such as FM Hit, Metro 95.1, NRG 101, and FM Panda.
On April 24, 2000, a milestone occurred in the broadcasting of Argentine rock: Mega 98.3 began broadcasting, an FM radio station that already from its slogan (pure national rock) made its content: 100% music by Argentine rock artists. Although there had already been cases of Argentine radio stations broadcasting only Argentine rock (Red TL in 1989 and FM La Boca in 1993), it was the first time that this had happened with a mega-enterprise in the capital. As soon as it started, the radio set a record: in less than 30 days it had already become the most listened to radio, with 15.03% of the audience percentage. However, its organizers were clear from before that it would be a success: a preliminary market study had shown that a large part of the Argentine public wanted a radio station that broadcast only national rock, and that included artists who had been almost forgotten on Argentine radio stations., such as Sandra Mihanovich, Miguel Mateos and Juan Carlos Baglietto.
On April 1, 2004, FM Kabul began broadcasting, a new project by Daniel Grinbank designed to promote emerging and independent bands. Taking the opposite approach, the same day Pop Radio 101.5 began broadcasting.
Law on nightclubs
In June 1996, an obstacle arose for the scene: the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Eduardo Duhalde, promulgated a law that restricted the activities of the discotheques in the province, for example, establishing 04:00 in the early morning as maximum hours of activity. The law had arisen in response to recurring episodes of violence in nightclubs, and the advance of drugs in Argentina. But on the other hand, this measure was a blow to the activity of the bands in the province, and especially in the suburbs (one of the most important rock circuits in the country). As a consequence, there were artists who composed songs criticizing the measure, such as Kapanga with "El mono relojero" and Bersuit Vergarabat with "Se viene el explosión". However, in practice the measure was quite ineffective: being so unpopular, hardly anyone made efforts to enforce it. Another weak flank to exercise it was the lack of coordination with the capital, where they simply did not comply with the law. The businessmen They were among those who suffered the most from the measure, and 100 nightclubs went bankrupt, for which they fought legal battles to obtain amparo appeals and counter a law that, in their opinion, was contrary to the spirit of business freedom. Because of the measure, Duhalde lost the support of the sector of younger voters, something that hurt him in the 1999 elections. With the change of government after these elections, the new provincial governor, Carlos Ruckauf, repealed the law in early 2000, establishing that each municipality would arrange its discotheque activity.
Violence escalates
Los Redonditos would be particularly affected by the recurring violence in their concerts. It began on April 19, 1991 with the recital in Obras that led to 73 detainees, one of whom died from blows at the police station, beginning a long trial (the Bulacio case). The two of December 1994 in Hurricane left 28 injured and 60 detainees. The attack on May 23, 1998 in Villa María (Córdoba) left 1 dead, 30 injured, 20 arrested and a Crónica TV mobile phone destroyed. Those of June 1999 at the Mar del Plata Skating Track left 1 dead, 100 injured, 500 arrested, 3 cars set on fire and numerous businesses looted and destroyed. Those of April 2000 in River left 1 dead, 150 injured and 39 arrested. Finally, his last recital, on August 4, 2001 at the Chateau Carreras, left 1 dead and 2 injured.
After Bulacio's death on April 26, 1991, and the trial that followed, the practice, common for decades, of the police stationing themselves at concerts with orders to take a quota of detainees, ended. for the police stations, in large operations that included empty buses to fill them with detainees. On the other hand, it happened that another police modality that had been common for decades also ended that year: kidnappings, after the fall of the gang of police officers who on August 24 kidnapped Mauricio Macri. In short, in 1991 Argentine rock got rid of the last vestige of repression that remained from the dictatorial era, that of police repression and harassment. In the following years, the Argentine concerts were held in a climate of greater freedom and ease, and with the police no longer summoned to make arbitrary arrests, but simply as security for events with a large concentration of people. Although also less police activity in rock led to the fact that, in the face of an incident, the police were slow to arrive and restore security (something that was evidenced in 1996 in the incidents in Florida and Lavalle, caused by a promotion of tickets for the Ramones).
On December 1, 1992, it was planned to hold the festival for the World Day of the Fight Against AIDS on 9 de Julio Avenue, announcing that Fito Páez, Charly García and Soda Stereo would play. When 45,000 people were already gathered, it was announced that these artists would finally not play, which caused the crowd to rage and businesses were looted and 200 injured.
On February 18, 1994, Hermética was playing at the Morón 90 nightclub when an electric shock killed a 16-year-old fan named José Luis Damián. However, then something unprecedented happened, which had not happened in previous cases of deaths in concerts on the scene (and which would not happen in future cases either): the band decided, by way of apology to Damián's family, to pay the funeral and perform a recital at the Stadium disco allocating all the proceeds to the family. However, the family still sued the band, and there the members argued that they were employees of the bassist and lyricist Ricardo Iorio so they were free of blame. Iorio would be the only one convicted in this trial, since his SADAIC account would be seized (something that would only be lifted in 2012). As a consequence of this event, the members were seriously confronted and Hermética entered its final stretch. The band was going through its best moment and on November 12 they had their first Obras propio, but they still broke up on December 18 of that same year at the Go! from Mar del Plata.
There would also be deaths with international visits. On December 4, 1992, one day before the Guns N' Roses, a 16-year-old fan named Cynthia Tallarico shot herself because her father forbade her to go to the recital, the father also killed himself when he saw his daughter's body. On September 3, 1994 at the recital Kiss fans Edgardo Pereyra (23 years old) and Carlos Clavero (25 years old) died, both from falls from a great height; the band found out and almost did not play, but they were finally convinced to keep their commitments. On October 14 of that same year, in the ticket lines for the Rolling Stones recital in February of the following year, a 22-year-old fan named Fabián Maldonado was killed by a cut to the neck with a broken bottle; the case was resolved with the sentence of the attacker, Raúl Zarza, to 9 years in prison.
No deaths, but equally with incidents were the visits of The Exploited (March 20, 1993, there was a pitched battle between punks and skinheads), Poison (August 1993, they appeared on the television program Ritmo at night and they destroyed the studio) and Ramones (March 1996, a promotion to exchange tickets for soda tapas ends up being a disaster and causes looting and destruction in the heart of downtown Buenos Aires).
On May 8, 2004, during Motörhead's visit to the Hangar bowling alley, something ominously prophesying happened: a horde of violent men entered beating the patovicas and then, already in the recital, one lit a flare, which took away the oxygen inside from the bowling alley and caused the band members to start to feel bad and decide to end the recital after only 50 minutes. This inflamed the anger of the public, who destroyed the bowling alley and the band's equipment.
90s Styles
What's Left of the Under 80s
Different circumstances caused the rich underworld scene of the 80s to be completely transformed at the beginning of the 1990s. The economic crisis and hyperinflation brought down record labels, meeting places and the disappearance of most of the most relevant bands. On the other hand, some of the bands that did not disappear achieved unexpected massiveness, leaving the underground circuit. The most emblematic case was that of Patricio Rey and his Redonditos de Ricota. Since his arrival at Obras in 1989, it became clear that the stage of small chaotic shows in small places was definitively closed. The stage of the "ricoteras masses" began, the great shows in stadiums for an increasingly large audience.
Something similar happened with the two bands born after the death of Luca Prodan and the consequent dissolution of Sumo. Both Divididos and Las Pelotas began their respective careers as a logical continuation of Sumo, something very notable in the sound of Divididos' first album, 40 drawings there on the floor (1989). But already from the second album, Caressing the rough (1991), they turned towards a harder rock sound based mainly on the guitar work of Ricardo Mollo. With this new formula, already in 1992 they performed several recitals at the Obras Sanitarias Stadium, becoming one of the few rock bands that could compete with Los Redonditos in terms of numbers and the fanaticism shown by their youngest followers. Las Pelotas never reached that level of popularity. but since 1994, on the occasion of the presentation of their second album, Máscaras de Sal, they began to play at Obras and to hold massive concerts.
Todos Tus Muertos, the band that represented the most underground tendencies of punk and dark in the 80s, after their great recording debut in 1988, after their debut album, extended their career with the masterful Nena de Hiroshima (1991), an album that continues to maintain the gloomy profile of its predecessor, but detaching itself from punk and hardcore sounds to delve into its darker side, as can be seen on "Terror al change", "Faults" or "The Mirror". There is also a cover of The Doors, "Break on Through (To the Other Side)", in a Spanish version. Later, from their third album, Dale Aborigen (1994), they would leave behind the style to crossover between styles such as reggae, raggamuffin, hip-hop, hardcore and other rhythms.
Parallel to the career of Todos Tus Muertos, and since 1989, Horacio Villafañe was a member of Los 7 Delfines, a band formed by Richard Coleman after the dissolution of Fricción. Although they still did not have a record on the street, Los Delfines were awarded as the Revelation Band in 1990, for Clarín's Sí. They had had a great reception at the recitals organized by the Municipality of Buenos Aires, in the open air on 9 de Julio. There they appeared together with Charly García, Luis Alberto Spinetta and Fabiana Cantilo.
In June 1992, the band released their first record, entitled L7D; Of which songs such as "Dale salida", "She is so jealous" and "Post Crucifixion", a version of a song by Pescado Rabioso stand out. This material was recorded at the Soda Stereo studios and featured the artistic production of Gustavo Cerati. Their powerful and very careful sound brought them closer to the so-called "sonic rock" scene.
From the ashes of the other great underground band, Don Cornelio y la Zona, Los Visitors were born. It was the project of the leader and main composer of Don Cornelio, Palo Pandolfo and included two other former members: Federico Gahzarossián and Daniel Gorostegui Delhom. The line of continuity with Don Cornelio was marked by the name of the band itself, which made reference to the last song on the last album by the old band, I am the visitor. Unlike his previous group, Pandolfo adds new sounds to this project, where rock, pop, tango, folklore and candombe are some of the new influences on each album recorded by this lineup.
The under circuit didn't change much. They closed some historical sites and opened others that would make history. The Parakultural closed its doors in June 1990, at the end of 1991 (on or before October 4) a new Parakultural New Border was opened at 1000 Chacabuco street. New artists join here, such as Alfredo Casero, Carlos Belloso, Diego Capusotto, Mex Urtizberea, Marcelo Mazzarello, Mariana Briski and Valeria Bertuccelli. Sergio Aisenstein, one of the former owners of Café Einstein, inaugurated in 1989 Nave Jungla, a larger place. In the same year the plastic artist Sergio De Loof opens Bolivia, the first of his many clubs in which he tried to create a distinctive atmosphere based on cheap materials and the charm of kitsch that was complemented by the "poor kitchen" (polenta and stews were served with wine served straight from demijohn). As De Loof said in an interview: "In the bathroom of the Parakultural I saw a punk vomit cardboard wine and I said enough, I'm going to feed and drink at least demijohn wine". On one of the walls of the bar, a graffiti synthesized the aesthetic guideline: Haute trash (something like "High trash"). It was the beginning of the "trash aesthetic" that would triumph in the 90s within national rock through the success of Babasónicos, a band made up of regulars from Bolivia who took a lot of that influence.
After Bolivia, De Loof continued the style he called "trash rococo" in three other clubs designed by him: El Dorado, Morocco and finally Ave Porco.
At the end of 1990, in number 33 of the magazine Cerdos & Peces published a Top 40 Under Bands evaluating "frequency of performances, thematic or musical innovations, sound quality, movement they provoke with the crowd, "musical quality", eggs or balls or as a shell is called the strength of the proposal". This is a completely arbitrary list and it is not known who made it. Notwithstanding this, as it is a media outlet that faithfully portrayed the underground scene for many years, a testimonial value can well be given to the opinion expressed there. What you see on the list is a scene in transition, grouping together the few remaining active bands from the 80s (Attaque 77, Massacre Palestina, Duna, Perdón Amadeus, Sentimiento Incontrolable, Diana Nylon), along with bands recently emerged in that same scene (Los 7 Delfines and Los Visitantes) and new bands that had not yet released material (Los Piojos -occupying number 1 in the ranking-, Los Caballeros de la Quema -band that also reproduced the lyrics of two unpublished songs- and Juana La Loca -who shortly after would release her cassette Autoejecución, in what would be the swan song of the indie label "Catálogo Incierto"). It can be considered a postcard of a scene that was beginning to veer towards the typical styles of the 90s. The importance given to Los Piojos as to the dirty-realistic lyrics of Los Caballeros de la Quema, as well as the allusion to the "eggs" or "power" of the bands, can be seen as embryonic signs of the sensibility that soon after would animate neighborhood rock.
Sonic and alternative rock
During the first half of the 1990s, a new generation of bands emerged on the national rock scene that tried, in different ways and in different proportions, to incorporate into their music the musical styles that were in vogue at that time in the Northern Hemisphere (shoegaze, britpop, dream pop, different types of electronica, ambient, trip hop, etc.).
The origin of this current can be traced back to 1990, when Soda Stereo settled in the studio with his friend Daniel Melero, now in the role of producer, to record their fifth LP, Canción animal. This album caused a great impact on national and Latin rock, being considered the second best album in the history of alternative Ibero-American rock, according to the ranking made in 2006 by J.L. Mercado and published by the North American magazine Al Borde and ninth according to Rolling Stone magazine. The most outstanding song on the album, "De música ligera", has been considered the fourth best rock song Latino in the Satélite Musical ranking, while in Argentina it is also considered the fourth best by the site Rock.com.ar.
Canción animal confirmed that it was okay for Argentine rock to return to a more powerful attitude, electric guitars being the stars in riffs and solos. To make Canción Animal, the band was mainly inspired by the sound of the Argentine rock bands from the 1970s that they had listened to during their adolescence, such as Pescado Rabioso, Vox Dei, Color Humano and Aquelarre. This change of sound in Soda would soon influence the evolution that rock would take throughout the continent. From that album, the single "De música ligera" became a national rock classic, but almost all the songs on this album were released as singles, which is why it includes several of the band's best-known songs, such as "(En) The seventh day”, “Cae el sol”, “A million light years”, “Among cannibals”, “You usually leave me alone”, “Tea for 3”, “Man overboard” and the eponymous “Animal song”.
In 1990 they began to present it with the Animal Tour, throughout the American continent, which ended on December 14, 1991 with a free recital on Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires. Soda Stereo surprised, and was surprised, gathering 250,000 people (some say 400,000) to listen to the band within the framework of the cycle of free recitals carried out by the Municipality of Buenos Aires called My Dear Buenos Aires II, which was also televised live. This is the largest gathering of people in Argentine history to listen to music, relegating Luciano Pavarotti to second place, who gathered 200,000 people that year in the same place. This album meant for the band access to the Spanish public, which would take place in May 1992 with presentations in the cities of Madrid, Oviedo, Seville, Valencia and Barcelona.
The Animal Tour was the most extensive that a Latin American band had done up to then, both in tour and travel time.
From then on and after that success, the band bet on continuing this process of assimilation of new influences and in 1992 took it to the extreme with Dynamo, an album that brought to Argentina the sounds of shoegaze and other genres that at that time were considered the vanguard of Anglo-Saxon rock. Not only was it a disruptive album due to its sound, but the band presented it with four recitals held at the Obras Stadium at the end of that same year. Each show had a new band as guests and thus Babasónicos, Juana La Loca, Martes Menta and Tía Newton were in support. It was the baptism of fire of the "sonic movement", which also included Los Brujos and Peligrosos Gorriones. In the middle of 1993, all these bands traveled to Córdoba, together with two historic 80s underground bands, such as Todos Tus Muertos and Los Visitantes, to participate in the “Nuevo Argentino Rock” Festival, organized by businessman Héctor Emaides.
Daniel Melero, the former leader of the dissolved Los Encargados, was considered the great inspirer of this whole scene. In addition to producing the most "sonic" of Soda Stereo, he accompanied the edition of & # 34; Dynamo & # 34; with "Colores Santos", an album accredited as a duo with Gustavo Cerati. That album introduced to Argentina the sounds of ambient house and electronic psychedelia that were then avant-garde in the Northern Hemisphere. Its impact was so powerful that music critic Ivan Adaime of Allmusic said that "in a way this record was like a UFO in the Argentine rock scene in the early 90s". It was from the influence of Colores Santos that several of the most representative albums of sonic rock incorporate long passages of electronic experimentation, either complementing the songs created with typical rock instrumentation (such as the case of Sueño Stereo by Soda Stereo; Amor Amarillo, the solo debut of Gustavo Cerati or Miss Universe by Carca), or as its main element (in Bistró Málaga, Estupendo's debut album).
Melero also collaborated with various bands of the movement, producing the best albums by Los Brujos (Fin de Semana Salvaje and San Cipriano) and Juana La Loca (Electronauta, the Bible of Argentine shoegaze) and acting as a guest on records and concerts by Babasónicos and Carca. Two contributions by Melero, in particular, allow us to appreciate his role as a conscious creator of this movement. In 199 it was his direct intervention that got him the first recording contract, and no less than with Sony Music (through its subsidiary Epic) for the band that would end up being the most relevant of the sonic litter, Babasónicos. What is remarkable is that at the time of getting the contract the band had not played live once. Melero promised Gustavo Cerati to be his producer and, at the same time, he presented them to the company with two pieces of evidence that it was a proposal that broke with all of the above: a press photo session (with the band showing their peculiar "trash" aesthetic, with vintage clothes bought at American fairs) and a newsletter written by Pablo Schanton, in which they made statements such as: “We grew up in the process and we didnt realize. We were the kids who waited to see their Sea Monkeys grow (...) Until recently, people suffered horrors for anything. In the 70s it was the revolution; in the 80s, the dark and the transgression. We are from the 90s, we are optimists. We are good, we love our parents. We no longer complain: total, today everything is the same. They killed ideologies; and AIDS, for example, is not so terrible. Take the necessary precautions. Try not to die”. Just after recording the album, Babasónicos began to perform live. They did four shows with little audience. The fifth was the presentation at Obras as the opening act for Soda Stereo on December 19, 1992 and, that same day, Pasto, the debut album, went on sale, containing a clear generational hymn as a broadcast theme: "D-Generation": "Because my generation/ doesn't care about your opinion/ Because my generation/ something is wrong/ Because my generation/ today shits on your opinion".
The other fundamental step taken by Melero was the release, in 1993, of the ambient album "Recolección vacía", which included a booklet recording months of conversation between Melero and the rock critic Pablo Schanton.That booklet includes reflections on music and art and can be taken as an aesthetic manifesto of the sonic movement of the 90s.
In 1994 he released the album "Travesti" by Random Records, with the participation of the members of Babasónicos, work based on acoustic songs, with influences from psychedelic singer-songwriters such as Kevin Ayers and Nick Drake, but with the sound updated to the 90s. This "classical" stage; of Melero's albums culminates in 1996 with the release of "Rocío", where easy listening and bossa nova come together. This album was released independently and sold five thousand copies.
Meanwhile, the sonic scene expanded, especially in the Federal Capital, with the support of specialized media and journalists such as Pablo Schanton and “Ruido” Magazine. It was through the cassette editions of “Ruido” that more elaborate and groundbreaking proposals in style were added to the scene, such as Suárez and Resonantes.
Other 'alternative' They were Perdón Amadeus (in its new version), Massacre (after the stylistic and name change in the early '90s), Los 7 Delfines, Carca (his solo project after the dissolution of Tía Newton), Iguana Lovers, Industrial Pirate, Atrocious Exhibition, Avant Press, Estupendo, El Otro Yo, Demonios de Tasmania, Giradioses, La Nueva Flor (and its successors Victoria Abril and Victoria Mil), Jaime Sin Tierra and Santos Inocentes, among many others.
In 1995 the last studio material from Soda Stereo appeared: the calm and almost chillout Sueño Stereo, an album at times much more electronic than rock, which would be a prelude to the first Cerati's times as a soloist. Soda Stereo made their last major international tour throughout the United States and Latin America, selling out wherever they performed. Their last concert in Buenos Aires was on September 20, 1997, where they sold out the River Plate stadium, which was attended by approximately 80,000 people, and was later released as a double live album. The band said goodbye to their audience by playing their famous song "De música ligera", with its last lines: "Nothing else remains..." repeated over and over again and with Cerati telling his audience a phrase that became legendary.: «Thank you... total!»
Neighborhood rock
The separation in 1997 of Soda Stereo marks the end of the golden era of national rock. The farewell of the flagship band of the Argentine conquest in the 80s of the entire continent of America, added to the advance of rolinga and neighborhood rock, closes a brilliant and magnificent era in the history of Argentine music. Throughout the 15 years since the Malvinas War, Argentine rock had been at the forefront of music in Latin America and had left a trail full of successes and achievements throughout the continent. A legendary era that would be remembered forever as a glorious milestone in the history of Argentine music was coming to an end.
The "neighborhood era" in Argentine national rock reveals a change in musical trends but also a change in the way of doing business. Argentina does not export more bands to conquer the continent, but rather produces "cabotage" bands that, although very popular and attracting stadiums, are only known in Argentina, which makes Argentina lose ground in the Latin American music market to Mexican, Puerto Rican, Chilean, Colombian, etc. artists.
From the musical point of view, an isolationism is observed with the currents and international styles. The US and UK went through post grunge, brit hop, teen pop and nu metal. Latin America and Spain went through pop rock and Latin pop. None of these international mainstream movements had an effect on national rock during this time, and although there were a good number of offers of proposals (rolinga, punk, dark, metal, indie, tropical, alternative) there is zero contact made with the international currents. This secrecy, which the representatives of rolinga rock defended as a form of national autonomy, would take its toll on Argentine rock, which would stagnate artistically.
Not for nothing, the neighborhood era largely coincides with the worst cultural crisis in Argentine history, demonstrating a lack of ideas and an anemia in creativity that contrasted with the brief bonanza that the country went through in those years in its economy. Economic stability gave a sector of the population a greater real possibility of accessing imported records and technologies, fostering a whole new breed of rock bands that sought their influences beyond the tradition hitherto in force in "national rock".. But, on the other hand, there was another sector that was expelled from the middle class and, by falling below the poverty line, and by also falling the level of public education, ended up -especially the younger generations- adopting the culture and references of the excluded classes.
Pablo Semán, a CONICET researcher, published in 2005 "Vida, apogeo y tormentos del rock chabón", the most serious theoretical attempt to explain the genesis of the phenomenon in social terms. It delves into the social change experienced by Argentina in the '90s: the growth of poverty in the country, the institutional and moral decline that the country experienced during the height of globalization and the growth and popularization of violence in soccer that had been taking place since the mid-1980s. For Semán, it is clear that until then the "national rock" he was predominantly a middle-class phenomenon. "From that fraction come the "big names," he says and exemplifies: "Litto Nebbia (Los Gatos), Charlie García (Sui Generis, La máquina de hacer pájaros, Serú Giran), Luis Alberto Spinetta (Almendra, Pescado Rabioso, Spinetta Jade), Gustavo Cerati (Soda Stereo), the “Indio Solari” (Patricio Rey and his ricotta rounds), Federico Moura (Virus) are some of the leading figures of rock production in Argentina who belong to diverse trajectories typical of the middle classes. At the same time, the middle classes have historically provided the most public to these musicians and their groups from the beginnings of national rock to the present. In the popular sectors, in the population of manual workers, and in low-skilled jobs, as well as among the unemployed, the rock tradition was present infrequently, forming islands, especially among heavy metal listeners, in a field dominated by melodic music., cumbia, chamamé and "música folklórica in general"". "barrial rock" it would be born not as a musical genre but as a response to the diffusion of rock culture in a materially and culturally impoverished middle-class population and whose ways of thinking were closer to the popular classes that, until then, were alien to rock. To consummate the rapprochement, neighborhood rock bands flatly reject "modern" of "sonic" rock, concentrating on a rock considered more "pure" and to which they add, also in different ways and in different proportions, elements of other popular music (mainly reggae, murga, candombe and tango; also some cumbia or folklore).
The first symptom of this social change is evident in the remarkable transformation of the audience of the main cult band of Argentine rock: Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota. “Patricio Rey y los Redonditos de Ricota” encryptedly cited the heroes of rock along with the heroes of anarchism. His song "Every prisoner is political" affirmed, in tune with Bakunin, a heart-rending cry: "inmates of property/every prisoner is political" and challenged the youthful anarchism of the middle classes while causing a stir in the left-wing culture that was not He was very close to the possibility of putting the victims of the dictatorship on the same plane as common criminals. But towards the end of the eighties another public began to dominate among that of "Patricio Rey". For this public, that song was a vindication of the practice of all kinds of illegalities. In this context, several observers noticed that the public of "los redondos", as their new fans called them, was rebuilding itself and while the young middle-class avant-garde from the Federal Capital left their place in recitals that were organized in downtown theaters, The public of the greater Buenos Aires was gaining space, which began to fill soccer fields in which they cultivated fervor for their favorite group. The university public decreased and, on the other hand, that of those who had had their own or family passage through the world of crime and the penitentiary increased". This more than evident change accompanied the strong massification of the band that went from recitals in theaters and underground spaces to Luna Park in 1989 and from there to the big stadiums. The "ricoteras masses" as these huge congregations were called, they were characterized by the presence of flags, soccer chants and even a speech in the public that did not match the music of the band. The public displayed a purist cult of "rock and roll" (this word was used as a fetish or as a password among new followers), something that the Redonditos de Ricota never practiced. That is why perhaps it was this breeding ground that gave rise to the next massive phenomenon of Argentine rock: that of La Renga, a band that was anchored in the purest forms of rock and roll and addressed themes more in line with the neighborhood rock audience..
Band born at the end of the '80s, La Renga had released their first album in 1991, independently and with little impact. However, the same dynamic of the birth of a different audience for rock at the beginning of the '90s is what led to its massification. As Semán explains, “An example of what was happening in this context is the emergence, preceded by surveys, of a national rock radio dedicated to popular segments. The company that set it up wanted to find out which radio station was missing among the low-income population and learned of the demand for a rock radio in Spanish that, according to the public surveyed, should base its programming on a repertoire of 200 songs that few people of the middle class would have identified with rock or with the best of rock. They were the heritage of rock that had been heard in the popular sectors. That radio station would become the expression of the youth of the great Buenos Aires while the station that until then was the flagship of national rock (Rock and Pop) would see its empire cut, before unquestionable, to the youth of the Federal Capital and urban centers. inside”. One of the most representative songs of that new rock feeling was, without a doubt, "Blues de Bolivia", from La Renga's first album, the one that reached a younger audience due to the strength of its chorus that, perhaps for the first time, called to drugs by name and openly boasted about their use, contrary to the complex metaphors used by the Redonditos de Ricota and other historic national rock bands.
In 1993, when La Renga released their second album, A donde me lava la vida..., the demand for it was so great that it far exceeded the band's distribution possibilities, being forced to contract with PolyGram, a large record label that was the first to bet on this new form of expression within Argentine rock.
In 1994, when La Renga gave their first recital in Obras, they left graffiti in the dressing room with the legend "The neighborhood arrived at Obras", showing that the band saw that day as the kickoff of a new movement, something that until then did not exist in Argentine rock. And in fact, from that moment on, the first neighborhood rock bands would begin a stage of recitals in large stadiums and with a very important call. It was in this context that critics began to speak of the "soccerization of rock" and to classify La Renga as "neighborhood rock", a new category that at first also included bands that shared the stage with those of "New Argentine Rock". such as Los Piojos, Los Visitantes and Caballeros de la Quema. This was the initial core that developed the tendency to think of the universe of rock in direct relation to daily life in the popular neighborhoods of Greater Buenos Aires or the lower-middle-class neighborhoods of the Capital. However, these bands being rooted in the underworld of the 80s, all of them had a musical and lyrical development of a wealth far superior to the bands that would follow them, that is to say, the second-class neighborhood rock bands.
In 1994, the fact that the press considers as a founding milestone of neighborhood rock occurred: the publication of the album Valentín Alsina, by Dos Minutos, which was the first to focus on street themes (although previously there were songs referring to the same themes, there was no history of an entire album focusing on them, although some from other Buenos Aires punk bands, such as Sin Ley, Attaque 77, Comando Suicida and Flema were very close to it), added to the youthful jargon and street used by the band and its strong imprint for marking their pride in their identification with their place of origin, Valentín Alsina (located in the southern part of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area), which is erroneously branded as " neighborhood" (Since in reality it is a city. This is common in most of the towns of Greater Buenos Aires, because many of them are demographically comparable to the actual neighborhoods of the city of Buenos Aires). The entire album refers to street fights, alcohol, soccer and violence towards the police and the bourgeoisie.
The following year he published his first album Viejas Locas, which contained a theme mainly related to sex, drugs and alcohol, which made rolinga rock grow enormously in the lower classes but also contributed to the growth of neighborhood rock, due to the themes of the band's songs and the proletarian origin of its members and a large part of the public. Also in that year, Los Gardelitos would be formed, a band whose recitals at the beginning were usually performed for free or at low prices in working-class suburbs, shanty towns and even prisons (many times for charitable purposes).
In the following years, most of the neighborhood rock bands that would emerge (such as La 25, in 1996) or would publish their first records (Jóvenes Pordioseros), would be part of rolinga rock, a trend that continued until the middle of the decade of 2000, for which both concepts were confused, and in this way the entire current barrial of Argentine rock and roll was related as part of the Rolinga subculture, when in reality it is exactly the other way around. This caused bands like Los Gardelitos, Callejeros, La Beriso and many others from the underground circuit to be classified as rolingas, when, although they were influenced by The Rolling Stones, they were not they sought to imitate it as did the bands belonging to rolinga rock. However, they did have a majority of rolingas followers, the urban tribe most closely linked to neighborhood rock. In 1998, as part of the radio program "Day Tripper" what Juan Di Natale did in Rock & Pop, the segment "El Bombardeo del Demo" was born, hosted by Marcelo Torabe Martínez in order to disseminate demos sent by emerging bands. As Torabe would recall years later, "When El bombardeo began, 90% of the groups were copies of La Renga, Los Piojos or Viejas Locas. Neighborhood rock is a product of the social context of that moment, of the crisis and of that thing of bringing passion for soccer to rock".
The dissolution of Redonditos de Ricota, in 2002, motivated the growth of different neighborhood bands that tried to imitate the sound or certain lyrical resources of this band, although with a much more basic level of development. Pier y Callejeros are two of the bands that were most successful in capturing the younger generations of the "ricotero" public.
Later, the phenomenon of the marginal style born in the villas, cumbia villera, would challenge the dominance of rolinga rock in the lower and working classes in Argentina. This genre, very popular after the Argentine crisis of 2001, also had the attraction of relating daily life and the reality of the street.
Latin rock and crossover
Tropical rock, fusion and Latin-influenced continued to grow, 1992 was the year of "La Pachanga": the single by the Rosario, Vilma Palma e Vampiros. Its popularity invaded the radio in the early 1990s.
Bands like Los Auténticos Decadentes, who had a huge hit in 1990 with "Loco (tu forma de ser)", and Los Pericos mirrored the trend. Another band that emerged in the late eighties was La Sonora by Bruno Alberto; creators of the mega hit "Tirá la goma", whose title would mark as a double reference to the very popular act of fellatio and "La Canoa", whose melody began to be used on soccer fields throughout Argentina.
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, had a slump in the early 1990s, after garnering accolades in the late 1980s, but returned in 1993 with their album Vasos Vacíos, which featured the megahit « Bullfighter". The single would gain international reach, winning the 1994 MTV Video of the Year Awards and peaking at #3 on the MTV Top 100 Videos.
Also at the beginning of the decade, a group characterized by its mixture of tropical rock, some cumbia, a large number of members and a charismatic bald leader began to play: Bersuit Vergarabat. This band would be characterized by having a name without any meaning and wearing pajamas on stage, which is in itself a tribute to the inmates of the José Tiburcio Borda Municipal Hospital and a contrary response to the leather outfit used by groups normally linked with rock and heavy metal. After three medium-hit albums: Bersuit Vergarabat y period! (1992), Asquerosa alegría (1993) and Don Leopardo (1996); National and world recognition would be achieved by his fourth album, entitled Libertinage (1998). After the massive success of this material, they would visit Spain, the United States, Mexico, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Ecuador and Puerto Rico.
The Tsetse Fly, would also show the growth of the genre with its rise to popularity towards the end of the 1990s, giving the genre a great presence at the arrival of the third millennium. In 1992, Las Manos de Filippi was formed, a fusion rock group led by Hernán de Vega, a street musician who was a member of the Partido Obrero. In his lyrics were songs against capitalism and the established order, as well as funny lyrics. His biggest hits were the cumbia "El himno del Cucumelo" (later popularized by Rodrigo Bueno) and "Sr. Collection”, (popularized by Bersuit Vergarabat).
In the fusion or River Plate rock scene, Bersuit Vergarabat confirmed itself as the most important band of the genre and one of the most important in Argentina. Their 1998 album, Libertinaje, catapulted them to fame and toured Europe, the United States and the rest of Latin America. His follow-up, Hijos del culo (2000) went double-platinum.
On the reggae-pop side, Los Pericos and Los Cafres dominated the scene. Although the renewal of the genre is driven by festivals and new bands with a different capacity for calling and creativity. Ska had La Mosca, Los Calzones and Kapanga as the most commercial versions with important national and international success, but Los Fabulosos Cadillacs continued to be the most famous band of the genre, mixing rock, ska, rap, reggae and Latin music, until their separation. The more underground ska bands that were born in the eighties inspired by British steady rock have completely disappeared. Inspired by the creativity and brit-fusion style of Sumo, the styles of ska, reggae and punk did not transcend the eighties with the alternative force that characterized them. Only Dancing Mood, Mimi Maura, Cienfuegos or La Portuaria represent an attempt at that creative spirit for a middle-class audience sensitive to contemporary fusion with Latin rhythms.
A new band of the genre is Karamelo Santo, from the city of Mendoza (as well as Los Enanitos Verdes). The band boasts a fairly new sound of rock, punk, ska, reggae, and cumbia that has earned them critical attention. The group spent most of the period from 2001 to 2007 touring Europe and America and is the only band to have played at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark.
Metal
The last decade of the millennium was very productive for Argentine heavy metal. In Argentina there were already bands with a heavy sound, like Billy Bond and La Pesada del Rock and Roll, in the 1960s; Pescado Rabioso and Pappo's Blues, in the 1970s; V8, Riff and other bands in the 1980s. But, except for Riff, these had never been in the mainstream circuit of Argentine rock, but were generally eclipsed by other genres, and remained in the mainstream circuit. i>underground. This changed in the 1990s.
At the beginning of the decade, the heavy metal bands Hermética, Rata Blanca, Horcas and Logos already had notable careers within national rock. That decade also represented the rise of ANIMAL (Harassed Our Indians Died Fighting). In their songs they defended Aboriginal communities and nationalism, while also criticizing the current world order. Their sound combined with hardcore punk, heavy metal and thrash. The disappearance of Hermética, resulted in the emergence of Almafuerte, one of the most popular bands today.
Other important groups of the decade (in the underground) were Tren Loco (who traveled to Japan), Lethal, Nepal, Imperio, Jeriko, Jason, Malón and O'Connor.
In the metal scene, Hermética broke up in 1995, giving rise to Almafuerte (bassist Ricardo Iorio, Claudio Marciello and Claudio Cardaci) and Malón (the rest of the ex-Hermética). With a more up-to-date sound, Almafuerte became the leader of national metal, together with A.N.I.M.A.L. and White Rat. This last group continued recording and touring intermittently through Latin American countries.
O'Connor, an exponent of classic metal, came out of the underground at the beginning of 2000, together with Cabezones (a band with dark influences) and Carajo. Los Natas originally a stoner rock group, in their last albums they went on to a more experimental and strident sound with a proposal close to psychedelic, inspired by The Doors, the first albums by Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin. It differs stylistically from the 'metal' local, although they recognize in Pappo's Blues or Human Color a creative source.
Punk
Argentine punk would have a new wave of artists in the 1990s. Los Violadores had dominated 1980s punk, but in the 1990s they would serve as inspiration for the punks of Attaque 77, 2 Minutos and Flema. The arrival of Attaque 77 to the masses, would come hand in hand with their classic "Do it for me", hit of the year '90, from the album El cielo puede esperar (one of the most important of the group, since it caused the rise to fame of the band). Flema was never massive, but it became a cult band within the underground punk scene, among other things, thanks to its charismatic leader Ricky Espinosa. 2 Minutos, were identified with the so-called Punk neighborhood; since in their lyrics they spoke of the reality of the neighborhood. Little by little, Attaque 77 would become one of the most listened to bands on the national rock scene, especially thanks to its combination of punk with pop melodies and some ballads. Another band from the movement that emerged in the 1990s is Dos Minutos, with an energetic punk sound. Another band on the scene was still Todos Tus Muertos. Fun People combined melodic hardcore with punk and an indie and anti-sexist attitude, in addition to having lyrics mostly in English, something very rare in Argentine rock. The She Devils were pioneers of the Queercore scene in the country. Cienfuegos, (led by Sergio Rotman of Fabulosos Cadillacs) a punk band that had been playing since the 1980s, finally produced a few albums around the middle of the decade.
Soloists
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Solo artists like Charly had long been established as great figures in the world of national rock. The two big stars since the 1970s were Charly García and Luis Alberto Spinetta. Charly enjoyed a prolific eighties, releasing several albums and with his songs becoming absolute classics of Argentine rock. However, in the 1990s, at the same time as his health problems related to drug use were advancing, his albums were declining in quality, although nothing could make a dent in the fanaticism of the hard core of his followers. Charly began with his catchphrase "Say No More", which would eventually become his "trademark".
In December 1990, Charly García played a rock version of the "Argentine National Anthem" before 100,000 people gathered at a public festival organized on Avenida 9 de Julio by the Municipality of the city of Buenos Aires. The interpretation generated a wide debate, and even criminal complaints and a disqualifying criticism of the wife of President Carlos Menem.
At the end of February 1999, during the Buenos Aires Vivo 3 festival, organized by the City Government (with free admission), Charly García, surprising everyone, performed a spectacular concert in Puerto Madero, bringing together 130,000 and 300,000 people (depending on the source).
Luis Alberto Spinetta released his first live album as a soloist in 1990, called Exactas because it was recorded during the recital held at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the UBA on the 30th and August 31 of that year. The band that accompanied Spinetta was made up of Mono Fontana and Claudio Cardone on keyboards, Guillermo Arrom on guitar, Javier Malosetti on bass and Marcelo Novati on drums.
Shortly after, on October 8, 1990, Spinetta played at the public festival Mi Buenos Aires Rock I organized by the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires, in front of 100,000 people on 9 de Julio, along with Charly García, Fabiana Cantilo and La Portuaria, opening his presentation with an anthological version of Imagine by John Lennon, massively chanted by the public.
For the third time in four years, a Spinetta album was voted the best album of the year, Pelusón of milk (1991) and the best song, «Seguir vivir sin tu amor", which became the biggest radio hit of Spinetta's entire artistic career and has been ranked No. 33 among the 100 best in the history of Argentine rock.
This album took a long time, because I did everything alone. There are some interventions by my band musicians, but I did almost everything. Pelusón it looks like Spinetta de entrecasa. [...] There are acoustic songs, melodies are fresh, it has a good selection of material. [...] Like to be understood. Luis Alberto Spinetta
This is an introspective and family album, recorded at home while the whole family awaited the birth of their fourth daughter, Vera. The title Pelusón of milk is a metaphor for the baby. The song "La montaña", related to the disappeared, was also recorded as a video clip. The musicians who occasionally collaborate on some songs on the album are Juan Carlos "Mono" Fontana, Claudio Cardone, Guillermo Arrom and Javier Malosetti. The song "Panacea" has lyrics by Roberto Mouro.
In 1993 he released the album Fuego gris, with the seventeen songs that make up the film of the same name shown the following year, a surreal work without dialogues, conceived as a &# 34;drama-rock" by its director Pablo César, which narrates the inner search of an adolescent lost in the sewers of Buenos Aires, with images oriented by the music and poetry of Spinetta. In an album of equal quality, considered by one of its analysts as & #34;Spinetta's latest masterpiece", stand out songs like "Escape to the soul", "Precious blue lady", "Stopped in the bilge&# 34;, "Wicker fingers" and "Penumbra", the latter two composed respectively in 1973 and during his adolescence. Occasionally he is accompanied by Claudio Cardone, Machi Rufino and Jota Morelli. From that moment on, he recovered the desire to play in a band and in 1994 he formed, together with Daniel Wirtz and Marcelo Torres, the power trio Los Socios del Desierto, which would be his last collective experience.
Miguel Mateos continued to be popular and recognized in Latin America, although he almost disappeared from the local scene due to his success in the United States, which made him decide to settle in the city of Los Angeles, California since 1989, after giving his first concert. of rock in Spanish at "The Palace" and toured that country without ZAS, and with a band made up of his brother and well-known American musicians such as Stuart Mathis and Jennifer Batten (Michael Jackson's guitarist) and rubbing shoulders with Anglo-Saxon bands like Bon Jovi until 1994 when he returned to record the album «Pisanlov».
Celeste Carballo left behind her brief punk stage and began to dedicate herself to experimenting with traditional blues, folkloric rhythms and even tango. She maintains a prolific career, being one of the representatives of national rock that has made the most contributions to the Argentine collective unconscious.
Fito Páez's career continued to take off. At the beginning of 1990, Páez made public his decision to leave the country and his words caused a national uproar. In 1992 he released El amor después del amor, an Argentine album that would become, together with Rockas Vivas from the band Zas de Miguel Mateos, one of the best-selling rock records of all times. The title of the album is no coincidence: Fito had just ended a relationship with the rocker Fabiana Cantilo, and was meeting the actress Cecilia Roth. With his album, Páez confirmed himself as a national and international star.
In 1996 Fito Páez was the protagonist of a historic moment: for the first time Argentine rock came to the Colón theater, usually used for the presentation of operas and classical music orchestras. It happens that the pianist Miguel Ángel Estrella offered Páez to join him on a tour with the Camerata Bariloche, for the Música Esperanza Foundation. Despite some criticism from purist and conservative sectors of classical music, who did not want their usual space to be occupied by Argentine rock, the recital was a success and received very good praise from the media.
Meanwhile, Andrés Calamaro was enjoying some popularity as a solo artist, but had not achieved massive success until then. Calamaro left Argentina and went to Spain, where along with Ariel Rot and others they formed Los Rodríguez in 1991. Two years later, the hit “Sin documentos” finally gave Calamaro an international success that would make take off its popularity in Spain and, above all, in Argentina. With this album, Los Rodríguez managed to conquer Latin America, especially Argentina, and Calamaro became the most internationally popular Argentine rocker. The Spanish-Argentine band remained from 1990 to 1996 and was the one that filled the facilities of the Plaza de los Toros, called Las Ventas, in Madrid the most times.
In 1999 Andrés Calamaro published Brutal Honesty, which according to the specialized press on the subject is the singer's best album, and also from the 1990s. However, that album marked the beginning of a stage in which the artist began to suffer a toxic collapse, which kept him away from the stage for more than five years.
Cro-Magnon tragedy and crisis (2004—2016)
On the night of December 30, 2004, national rock experienced the deadliest tragedy in its history. That night, the República Cromañón dance club caught fire as a result of a flare that got entangled in a semi-shade cloth, while the neighborhood rock band Callejeros was playing. The fatal combo of the flares, the half shadow, the exceeding of the capacity of the premises (there was an overselling of tickets, which caused there to be more people in the premises than the legally allowed), the emergency doors that were macabrely closed (which created a death trap for people trying to escape, who died of suffocation from the human stampede and inhalation of poisonous gas), the lack of ventilation of the premises (which caused it to essentially become a gas chamber during the fire), the negligence and laziness of the political class that did not meet the needs of society, the corruption of the inspectors who had to check the state of the premises, and the unconsciousness of the neighborhood rock public lighting pyrotechnic elements in a closed space, were all factors that were adding up and that resulted in the unleashing of a deadly tragedy. The Cromañón bowling alley fire meant the greatest tragedy of national rock in its more than forty years of life, since it left a balance of 194 dead, as well as being the greatest unnatural tragedy in Argentine history. Among the fatalities, in addition to the young people who had gone to see the recital, relatives and friends of the band members also died. In the years that followed, sadness, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and disease also killed survivors and family members of the deceased.
Cromañón was managed by Omar Chabán, an artist and businessman closely related to the world of rock, and who had owned two other very important places for rock in general: Café Einstein and Cemento. After the tragedy, Chabán was arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned. During his time in jail, Chabán fell into sadness and depression and his health progressively deteriorated, which is why he eventually contracted cancer. In 2014, due to his delicate state of health, he was released from prison to be treated in a hospital, but he continued to deteriorate and died on November 17, 2014, when there was just over 1 month to go before his 10th anniversary. tragedy. Although there were voices that criticized him upon learning of his death, the general climate in national rock when he passed away was one of respect, condolences, and gratitude to a man who gave national rock space to grow, and who was the first that he trusted bands that would later be prominent.
In addition to Chabán, the mayor of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Aníbal Ibarra, who was dismissed from his position, those responsible for the inspection of the premises, the employees of the premises who closed the emergency doors the night of the fire causing a deadly trap, and the musicians of Callejeros. With different luck, some were acquitted, while others were imprisoned.
Callejeros continued to play in the years following the tragedy, but their field of action narrowed and each of their performances was surrounded by controversy and protests. The drummer of Callejeros, Eduardo Arturo Vázquez, would later be the protagonist of a crime of femicide, when in February 2010 he would murder his partner Wanda Taddei by setting her on fire, a crime for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment and which accelerated the final separation of Callejeros.
Advancing Online Platforms
It is the era in which new digital technologies begin to be incorporated into Argentine society, and the use of the Internet above all opens up new possibilities for the world of national rock. Throughout the era, different digital spaces would appear that would help national rock as Blogspot, Fotolog, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify and Bandcamp.
In the same vein, the progress of websites with great coverage of the music scene was deepened, such as 10Musica.com, Terra, Rock.com.ar, and the websites of Rolling Stone Argentina, from the supplements Sí (Clarín) and No (Página 12), and from radio stations such as FM Hit, Mega 98.3, Rock & Pop and The 100.
As part of these technological changes, different bands (both established and new) open up to the new scenario and create their official web pages with which they spread their activities.
Help by the advent of broadband, the public also begins to use digital media and a revolutionary exchange of information takes place like never before seen in the history of Argentine music.
Babasónicos became on February 25, 2009 the first Argentine band to reach one million visits on their Myspace profile.
Revitalization of alternative and indie rock
In 2007 Massacre released his album El mamut. The album provided the starting point for the new stage in the group's career. This was also the year of the return of Soda Stereo, whose resounding commercial success soon demonstrated the validity of alternative rock.
During this period, the largest number of indie bands in Argentina emerged, due to the consequences of the tragedy of República Cromañón. All these groups come to light as a result of the advancement of the internet and social networks, underground clubs and cultural centers. This type of bands began to gain great importance in the local scene at the beginning of the 2010s, examples of this are: Eruca Sativa, Connor Questa, He Killed a Motorized Police Officer, Mustafunk, You Point It Out to Me, Sewer, Perras on the beach, Guauchos, Sig Ragga, Cirse, Eruditos, Huevo, Los Espíritus, Octafonic, Banda de Turistas, Caballo, Bicicletas, Sur Oculto, Científicos del Palo, and others, all belonging to different subgenres ranging from the purest rock to fusions with funk, jazz, electronic music, progressive rock and even reggae.
In 2017, Indie Rock once again gained strength with the release of albums such as La Síntesis O'konor by He Killed a Motorized Police and Agua Ardiente by Los Espíritus, placing itself in the center of the alternative scene.
Megafestivals and international visits
In the first half of the decade, both the number of festivals dedicated entirely to national rock and the visit of international bands increased notably. Although national rock had massive festivals since its inception, events such as "Pepsi Music" or "Cosquín Rock" have considerably increased both its audience and its proposals. For example, Pepsi Music had more than ten days dedicated almost entirely to national rock (grouped into thematic days such as reggae day, metal day, punk day, etc).
In 2011, Movistar Free Music began, a festival that over the years would change the season and gain more and more space.
In October 2009 there was a break in the field of performing recitals. Due to the recurring complaints from residents about the problems with the recitals (high levels of noise pollution, lack of security, deterioration of public roads), the government of the city of Buenos Aires ordered the closure of several stadiums where they used to perform. perform recitals: River Plate, GEBA, Club Ciudad, Obras, Club Hípico and Defensores de Belgrano. This measure raised a new need for businessmen to look for other spaces to continue with musical activities. The aforementioned clubs made different infrastructure reforms to comply with the acoustic insulation regulations, some returned to give some recitals but were immediately closed again. So they lost their regularity and predictability, and the main spaces on the scene became other.
On the other hand, after the reopening of the Estadio Único de La Plata on February 17, 2011, the venues chosen by businessmen for festivals and international visits changed. On the one hand, the Único de La Plata was very different from Argentine soccer stadiums up to that time: it had a modern infrastructure, meeting the standards of European soccer stadiums, with extensive use of modern technological elements such as cameras, as well as being the first covered stadium of Argentine soccer. But, fundamentally, what ended up convincing the businessmen to hold the most important recitals in the Único de La Plata instead of continuing to do so in the River Plate Stadium was the issue of security and the problem of the barras bravas, which brought several inconveniences: losing money by granting free tickets to the bars, freeing of turnstiles, rags in the vicinity of the fields, lack of prevention of episodes of violence, and unauthorized sale of drinks. As a result of these factors, businessmen began to opt for spaces that were not in the hands of clubs, but that were under the orbit of the municipal or provincial government, such as the Estadio Único de La Plata itself, the Mario Alberto Kempes Stadium in Córdoba and the José María Minella Stadium in Mar del Plata. The change in trends was evident in the Rolling Stones recitals in February 2016: they were held at the Único de La Plata, since in all previous visits the band had touched in River; it turns out that the organizers of the Rolling Stones tour wanted to do it in River, but Grinbank convinced them otherwise by showing them videos of the pepper spray attack in the 2015 Copa Libertadores Superclásico.
In 2014 the Argentine festival scene underwent drastic changes. On the one hand, the Pepsi Music and Quilmes Rock festivals (which had their last editions in 2013) will no longer take place, and on the other, Lollapalooza appears. This particular phenomenon was analyzed in a note dated March 8, 2014 in the newspaper La Nación, which noted the absence of advertisements for the Pepsi and Quilmes editions, which traditionally occupied the spaces of the autumn and spring. The note reported the businessmen's arguments about the difficulties in organizing the festivals: on the one hand, in their understanding the music would be overshadowed in a World Cup year, on the other, the growing inflation during the Cristina Kirchner's government made it difficult for them to make plans. However, the businessmen affirmed that the cannons were pointed at the second half of the year, which suggested that Pepsi and Quilmes would take place in the spring. Finally, Lollapalooza was held in the autumn, the spring slot was taken over by Movistar Free and Personal Fest, and Pepsi and Quilmes disappeared. Thus, in 2014, the world-famous Lollapalooza began to be held in Argentina, held once a year in two days that host the participation of musicians from the alternative scene, both national (such as IKV, Eruca Sativa, He Killed a Motorized Police, Sig Ragga, Onda Vaga or Babasónicos) and international (Robert Plant, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Soundgarden, Eminem, among others).
During 2015, the first edition of Rock in Baradero was held, the second festival organized in the city (its predecessor was Baradero Rock) after almost eight years of not having held any similar event there. Since then it has established itself as the most important festival in the province of Buenos Aires, with the participation of bands such as Almafuerte, Kapanga, La 25, Las Pelotas, Guasones, among others.
Late 2000s and early 2010s: reunions and separations
In 2007, Soda Stereo announced their return for an American tour that included six sold-out dates in Argentina, at the River Plate stadium. Approximately one million people attended the tour, in Latin American countries and in the United States. In that year, Andrés Calamaro filled the Club Ciudad de Buenos Aires stadium twice, gathering 70,000 people in two nights. In those concerts he presented the album La Lengua Popular .
A wave of reunions takes place, several bands that were separated decide to get back together, such a decision was made after the Soda reunion by the ex-members of the Fabulous Cadillacs.
With regard to Argentine punk, one of its main exponents met again five years after the death of its leader. Thus, Flema returned to the stage in 2007, remaining active until today. On the other hand, 2011 is the year in which Los Violadores decide to disband permanently. Anyway, in 2015 they announce a return with their original formation.
| «The underground and subculture are very large there [in Argentina]. So much so it doesn't seem to be a subculture anymore when you go to a pharmacy and it's ringing The Ramones. That would never happen in Europe. The Ramones would be considered something very rare." |
| Molly Nilsson artist and musical producer. |
These separations and reunions were also present in the neighborhood rock of the '90s. In 2008, Intoxicados (one of the most important bands of the 2000s) began to dissolve, ending their career in the 2009 edition of Cosquín Rock (although half of the band would no longer be present at said presentation).). Jóvenes Beggars moved away from the stage in 2008, although in 2011 he returned to the ring with a different formation from the one he had at the time of their separation. At the end of 2008 Ciro Pertusi (Attaque 77 leader) proposed a break from the band for one year. That proposal was denied by the three remaining members, so on March 18, 2009 (the same day he turned 41) Pertusi announced his disassociation from the band. On May 30, 2009, the separation of Los Piojos took place. Their last concert was held before 70,000 people at the River stadium with a show that reviewed the entire history of the group for more than three hours. On the other hand, Ratones Paranoicos, founders of Argentine stone music, released the news of their final separation in August 2011.
In 2010, after several controversies dragged down from the Cromañon tragedy, Callejeros began to dissolve. After the departure of almost all the members, its bassist and its leader decided to found Casi Justicia Social, a group that had replacement musicians for Callejeros from its last stage. From then on they began to work on new songs, and in 2014 (after a long legal process that kept the Callejeros musicians deprived of their liberty) the group was renamed Don Osvaldo, which already has two of its own albums (Casi Social Justice and Almost Social Justice II).
Already in 2011, the members of Bersuit Vergarabat decide to get together again after taking a break in the band's career to dedicate each one to different solo projects. The meeting was not joined by its leader Gustavo Cordera, who decided to put his solo career ahead of the new stage of Bersuit. This same year, another exponent of Latin American rock fusion band, Todos Tus Muertos, dissolved due to the death of its guitarist and founder: Gamexane. However, in 2015 Fidel Nadal met with the other members of TTM and they announced a return to the stage for 2016.
Regarding metal, after some long periods of separation, the Malón group held its final meeting in 2011, a meeting that has kept them active up to the present.
On October 30, 2012, La Tolva performed (together with jazz musician Omar Garayalde and tango musician Walter Slongho) at the Marambio Base, Antártida Argentina, as part of the promotional campaign for the creation of INAMU and the enactment of the Music Law. Argentine rock returned to play in Antarctica after an absence of 12 years, since the León Gieco recital as part of the Argentina En Vivo 2000 festival.
The Media Law
One of the problems that had been dragging on since the hyperinflation of 1989-90 was that the big record labels preferred to stick with established artists, instead of betting on little-known emerging artists. This led to the fact that, since that time, there would be some stagnation at least in the mainstream and pop scenes of Argentina, and that the movements of generational replacement, such as promotions of new bands and soloists, would be quite slow. Neighborhood rock bands, for example, had established themselves in massive popularity in the '90s despite the major record labels, not thanks to them.
Due to this situation, an important sector of the Argentine rock scene supported the Audiovisual Communication Services Bill (popularly known as the "media law"), proposal in 2009. One of the sectors that was most at the forefront of activism for the approval of the law was the Union of Independent Musicians (UMI), founded in 2001 and whose president was the musician Cristian Aldana (guitarist of the band of alternative rock The Other Me). The UMI would also support other measures of the time related to musical activity until 2016, when the sentence of Cristian Aldana to 22 years in effective prison for aggravated sexual abuse and corruption of at least four minors, made him fall into the discredited not only Aldana but also his band (which went into indefinite recess) as well as the UMI, which appointed a new president but gradually ceased its activity.
Among the reasons that aroused hope for the Media Law was that its article 65 established that 30% of the music broadcast on the radio should be national, and half of that percentage should be independent music.
However, the bill was not exempt from controversy and rejection: there were sectors that interpreted that its real intention was not to democratize the media, but to destroy the power of Grupo Clarín, and grant the national government the power to silence the criticism from the media. Despite this, the law was approved on October 10, 2009 but was never fully enforced due to successive claims of unconstitutionality and precautionary measures that postponed its application for more than four years. On October 29, 2013, the Supreme Court of Justice issued a ruling in which it determined the constitutionality of the law, but it was not clear regarding the requirements that the media groups had to meet for their divestment plans. This lack of clarity led to new proposals and precautionary measures that continued to prevent the full application of the law. The Argentine State tried ex officio to initiate a non-voluntary divestment plan from Grupo Clarín, but this attempt was stopped by the Court by the Chamber I of the National Chamber of Federal Civil and Commercial Appeals, which by means of a judgment of February 19, 2015, suspended the procedure and maintained the precautionary measure in force in favor of the group. Finally, its central points, including the articles that regulated the sale of licenses, set limits to the number of licenses that a media group can own and established restrictions on private property, were repealed by a Decree of Necessity and Urgency issued by President Mauricio Macri in December 2015, a few days after removal of Kirchnerism from power. The repeal of these points was finally confirmed by Law of Congress on April 6, 2016, with the vote of all Cambiemos legislators plus the support of different sectors of Peronism, such as those who responded to José Manuel De la Sota and Sergio Massa..
Thus, ten years after its sanction, very little remained standing of the original draft of the Media Law. The candidate for president Alberto Fernández, who had been one of the few members of Kirchnerism who had opposed the law, argued in a note with Tiempo Argentino that the failure of the initiative was due to the fact that non-profit organizations do not have the capacity to manage commercial projects:
If the Clarín Group, as a result of this, has some dominant position or some para-monopoly or quasi-monopoly position, it is resolved by the laws of Defense of Competition and Consumer Defense. And those are the laws we have to use to see if the Clarín Group fails to comply with some of those things. But that's not solved by the Media Act. The Media Act can be a great tool if we want to multiply voices, and if we want to promote something that, I remember, is essentially a business. Because that was one of the mistakes of the Law. When the Law says that a third of the spectrum should be in the hands of NGOs and non-profit entities. Because you can't leave a commercial project in the hands of a non-profit. That's not possible. (...)
The mistake is to think that an NGO can have a radio and compete with a radio that has a capacity to hire broadcasters, journalists, musicians, infinitely greater. Because then we create two radios but there is one that concentrates the attention of the public. That is the result of not warning that the media are business. In modern society they are a business. (...) The Media Law did not serve what it wanted to serve.Alberto Fernández, May 26, 2019.
Law of Nightlife
The idea of a law that would restrict nightclubs would be raised again in 2009, when the then provincial governor Daniel Scioli proposed it again, arguing again about the lack of control of young people in nightclubs due to alcohol and drugs, although this time the scope of the law was made slightly more flexible, establishing the limit time at 05:30. Again, the ones who protested the most were the business owners of the nightclubs. figure of Law 26,370 "of Nocturnity". Although this time the law managed to consolidate itself through the years and different governments, the problem of its predecessor of being ignored in practice was also repeated: for example, in In 2014 in the province they protested that violence in nightclubs was growing due to the lack of compliance, and in the summer of 2018 a report revealed that on the Atlantic coast no nightclub was following the schedule. The problem of nightclubs in Argentina is a recurring theme with tragedies where in each case a pattern was repeated: severe controls at first, to then return to neglect some time later when the cases had declined in public opinion, until another tragedy occurred again.
Solo Hits
In 2006, many soloists established themselves as Andrés Calamaro (who recorded an album this year in the company of Litto Nebbia), who received the definitive consecration for his career, released two albums, recorded two tribute albums, gave recitals full of public, met with Ariel Roth as a tribute to Los Rodríguez, was invited by Indio Solari to share the stage in a recital in La Plata, and won the Gardel de Oro and other tributes during those years.
On the other hand, 2006 was the year of the recording return of Gustavo Cerati, with his work Ahí Vamos. The new album was a great success for Cerati, earning him numerous awards and nominations throughout the continent, such as his Latin Grammy Awards for Best Album 2006, Best Song 2006 (Crime) and Best Song 2007 (The Exception); his MTV Video Music Awards Latin America award for Best Southern Artist 2006; his Rock & Pop Awards for Best National Soloist 2006 and Best National Singer 2006; the prize of him in the survey of the supplement Yes! from the newspaper Clarín to the Soloist of the Year 2006; his awards Carlos Gardel Awards 2007 for Album of the Year, Best Rock Album, Song of the Year (Crime) which was also Performance of the Year and Video Clip of the Year; and the 2008 Carlos Gardel Award for Best DVD of the Year (Ahí Vamos Tour). With Ahí Vamos came the definitive international consecration of Cerati as a soloist, who until then had not managed to detach himself from the image of Soda Stereo, and solidified and consolidated him as one of the best soloists in history. of national rock.[citation required]
In 2009, Charly García returned, after a long hospitalization due to his addiction problems, he returned to the Latin American stages.
One month after Charly García returned to Vélez, Luis Alberto Spinetta gave a mega-recital entitled Spinetta y las Bandas Eternas, where for more than five hours he played with all the bands he had around. throughout his career: Almendra, Pescado Rabioso, Spinetta Jade, Invisible y Spinetta y los Socios del Desierto, as well as leading local musicians, including Charly García, Fito Páez, Gustavo Cerati and Pedro Aznar. Said recital was later considered the "Recital of the Decade", and perhaps the most important in the history of Argentine rock.
Starting in 2010, Indio Solari experienced exponential growth in attendance at his recitals in the following years, breaking his own personal records each year. It began with his recital on November 13, 2010 at the Tandil Hippodrome, being his only show in the year, in which he broke his personal record for the number of audiences up to that moment, with 80,000 spectators.
In 2011, El Indio performed three recitals as part of the presentation of El perfume de la tempestad. On March 26 at the Padre Ernesto Martearena Stadium in Salta (35,000 people), on September 3 at the Eusebio Marcilla Racetrack in Junín (100,000 people, beating his personal record) and on December 3 at the Tandil Hippodrome (80,000 people).
After being away for more than a year, he returned at the recital on September 14, 2013 at the Jorge Ángel Pena racetrack in San Martín, Mendoza Province, with 150,000 spectators (beating his personal record).
On April 12, 2014, he gave a show presenting Pajaritos, bravos muchachitos before more than 170,000 spectators in Gualeguaychú, Entre Ríos, breaking his personal record. However, he received criticism for the poor condition of the racetrack floor.
On December 13 of the same year, he gave a recital again at the Miguel Ángel Pena de San Martín Autodrome, in Mendoza. The organization expected 50,000 people, but expectations were exceeded and 120,000 people attended. However, the recurring violence at their concerts reappeared, with fights between fans and the police. In addition, it was criticized that the sound was too low.
After another separation of more than a year, he performed again on March 12, 2016 at a recital in Tandil. The sale of tickets was more prudent than in previous recitals, because they were not announced until the day of their sale to prevent counterfeit tickets. The attendance finally reached 200,000 people, which not only broke the musician's personal record but also became the paid recital with the most people in the history of Argentine rock.
In 2008 there was a milestone in the broadcasting of Argentine rock with the first government FM dedicated to Argentine rock, Radio Nacional Rock, which also had among its main premises broadcasting to emerging and independent bands.
In 2012 Mario Pergolini, after leaving Rock & Pop, after 25 years working on it, inaugurated his Vorterix megaproject, which included a radio, online video transmissions and even a theater (the former Colegiales Theater) for recitals.
Wave of complaints and its consequences (2016—2020)
The first complaint
On April 15, 2016, José Miguel del Pópolo, singer of the indie rock band La Ola who wanted to be Chau, was denounced for rape through a video uploaded to YouTube where the victim, Mailén Frías, told the camera the fact. The next day the same YouTube channel uploaded another video, with the testimony of Rocío Márquez, the singer's ex-girlfriend, where she said she had experienced the same thing. The videos quickly went viral and the case generated great repercussions in the media, numerous bands issued statements on Twitter and Facebook in repudiation of del Pópolo and in solidarity with the victims. As a result of the scandal, the band decided not to perform that weekend at an indie festival, a venue canceled the recital they had scheduled with the band, and two of its members announced their departure. In effect, the career of La Ola who wanted to be Chau was over.
The denunciation of del Pópolo is of great historical importance, it paved the way for more denunciations in Argentine rock that would soon appear massively.
A movement called Ya no nos callamos más was generated, aimed at denouncing these behaviors in Argentine rock, and which had its first march at the Obelisk in Buenos Aires on May 20, 2016. Therefore, the movement We no longer shut up anymore was a pioneer on the planet, it was 1 and a half years ahead of the global outbreak of Me Too on October 5, 2017, when the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was publicly denounced for abuse.
By 2017, it was clear that a new stage in Argentine rock had begun. The Rock and Ball website published that it was facing a new Cro-Magnon that established a change in the paradigm, and said:
Once again, the national rock faces a "breaking point". From now on, nothing will be the same. (...) It's true, this was happening and it was said for a long time. But one day he went from private to public and now it's time to act. Just as we all knew there were bengalas on rock, but until “Cromañón” did not happen, no one acted accordingly. Well, this is the same. Once again, Rock remains in an uncomfortable place, from which to return will not be easy. Accusations of demonization, people talking unaware and mechanisms of degradation must be addressed. But like that time, the Rock will be able to defend itself and follow. But because Rock isn't bengalero, rock isn't abuser, rock doesn't kill. Yes, the people who make it up. Hopefully Rock itself (their members) will be able to re-interpete, judge themselves, to change the rules of the game. That time, we all benefited: without bengalas, everything became a safer place. Imagine if rock matures at once and understands that a 16-year-old pibit, for more “good as it is,” however fan it is, for more “provocative” to be present, is not a trophy, or a conquest, or a medal. Once again, we will all benefit and our rock will heal again.Rock and Ball, September 29, 2017.
In the same vein, the online magazine Arcadia published on July 6, 2018:
Two years after that moment of break (...) These violences are the biggest scent that Argentine rock has suffered since the Cromañón fire during a Callejeros recital, which took the lives of at least 194 people at the end of 2004. What happened that night, where security protocols were violated by the organization of the concert, provoked a series of closures and restrictions on recitals that impacted the underground scene. Business laws changed, as well as the relationship of fans with their preferred artists. They began to demand that they take care of their audience; now, they are asked to put up with the growing questioning of the patriarchal status quo.ArcadiaJuly 6, 2018.
The website La Primera Piedra declared, on September 14, 2017 in a note with the chronology of the complaints: "In 2016, the complaints (...) generated a break in the scene of Argentine rock".
The magazine Sudestada, in its bimonthly edition of July-August 2018, said: "2016 became a milestone for rock culture".
The newspaper Página 12 commented on July 19, 2019: "The sentence to 22 years in prison for corruption of minors (...) is another stepping stone of an era that began in 2016, when Mailén Frías denounced Miguel del Pópolo, from La Ola who wanted to be Chau, for rape. From there, nothing would be the same".
The Pópolo case generated a shock wave that devastated the entire Argentine rock scene. Complaints began to emerge against various artists, including Cristian Aldana for repeated abuses against underage adolescents, punk band Loquero, on July 25, 2016, Alan Eric Martensen, singer of Tarantos and bassist of Drogadictos, was denounced for violence. On November 6, 2016, they denounced Pity Alvarez, singer of Viejas Locas, for having beaten and locked up two press workers during a Viejas Locas show in Florencio Varela, on September 20 Miguel Castillo, drummer of De Lo Ajeno, was denounced, which caused the band to cancel their scheduled performances, which was followed by a long silence. The band only reappeared on June 4 of the following year, with a statement kicking out Castillo. Shortly after, the band broke up.
On August 10, 2016, a huge scandal broke out over Gustavo Cordera's statements in a talk with TEA Arte journalism students. They had asked him his opinion on the cases of denouncing del Pópolo and Aldana, to which he replied:
It's an aberration of the law that if a 16-year-old with the hot shell wants to fuck with you, you can't fuck them. (...) There are women who need to be raped to have sex because they're hysterical and feel guilt about not being able to have sex freely.Gustavo Cordera, August 10, 2016.
As a result of these statements, Gustavo Cordera was denounced for public incitement to violence, certain radio stations stopped broadcasting his songs and certain venues canceled their scheduled performances. Cordera's career was practically over. After a long time, on April 3, 2019, the trial against him was finally resolved by accepting the proposal made by Cordera himself: he will not go to jail, but he will have to film a video apologizing and publish it, give two benefit recitals where they will upload feminist activists to the stage, and must do a gender equality workshop. After this, Cordera's career (who was away from the stage for a long time after the scandal) was activated again, publishing songs like "Sueños de libertad".
Second stage of complaints
The following cases of complaints in Argentine rock did not have the same impact, and in general the artists were able to continue with their activity normally.
This could be due to several factors: a certain global backlash against feminism due to its more intransigent and aggressive positions, which caused the negative image of the movement to grow in response, and the positions grew in popularity. anti-feminists; the constant sample from October 2017 of cases no longer Argentine but international, after the Hollywood scandal of Harvey Weinstein; the emergence in November 2017 of the website "Your idol is a forro", which also constantly published complaints against figures; the over-exposure of public complaints and a certain wear and tear on society from seeing high-impact cases replicated by all social networks; the use and abuse of this resource in Argentina, especially in the week of September 20, 2017, where there were 5 consecutive complaints; and the defeat of pro-abortion groups in the Senate vote in 2018. There was also criticism of the resource of denouncing and they called it a witch hunt, alleging that: it is an unequal tactic from anonymity against publicly known people, causes gratuitous damage to the reputation of artists, fails in the principle of presumption of innocence, and uses methods outside the judicial system.
In 2017, Martín Marroco, bassist of Sueño de Pescado, was denounced by a fan of the band who claimed to have been sexually harassed and abused. The band made the determination to separate the musician and continue with his artistic career. In 2018 there was a second wave of complaints, including: on March 15, 2018 on the "We will not shut up anymore" Jean Deon, a member of soloist Diosque's band, was denounced. As a result, on April 24 Diosque issued a statement dismissing Jean Deon, on April 21 a blog denounced Franco Salvador, drummer for the alternative rock band Pez, accusing him of abuse in March of the previous year. Juano Falcone, drummer of Don Osvaldo and La Caverna, grandson of Estela de Carlotto, the head of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, and nephew of María Claudia Falcone, an adolescent activist who disappeared during the National Reorganization Process, was denounced. For these reasons, Falcone, like Santiago Aysine, had great legitimacy and support in the environment: a "sacred cow." A couple of days after the complaint, Falcone issued a disclaimer and everything stopped there, the musician continued with his career, and on March 1, 2019, a blog denounced Maxi Prietto, from the indie rock band Los Espíritus, for abuse.. The band canceled their performances for that weekend at Niceto Club and fired Prietto.
Female quota law
The debate about the law of quota for women in festivals in Argentina began in the spring of 2017, when discussions began to appear on social networks about the festivals that year in tribute to national rock, such as the B.A. Rock, they had included almost no female artists.
On January 23, 2018, Musician's Day in Argentina, a debate program was held on Canal CM where the idea of establishing a female quota law at Argentine music festivals arose., using the existing law in Argentine politics that assigned a 30% quota for women on electoral lists, and measures that were being promulgated in the world, such as the one that promoted, in festivals in North America and Europe, reaching a 50% female headliners, juries and commissions before 2022.
After the end of her position as vice president at INAMU on August 3, 2018, the musician Celsa Mel Gowland turned her attention to the elaboration of a bill. Her first step was to get together with the CONICET researcher Mercedes Liska and the SINCA manager Alcira Garido to carry out statistical research on the state of the participation of female artists in Latino festivals in general, and in Argentina in particular. In said investigation, it was found that in Argentina 70% of men and 30% of women were registered as musicians, but that in the festivals there were only 13% of bands with at least one female member, and in the main festival of Argentine rock this figure was only 10%. He then brought in 18 colleagues to draft the rationale for the bill, including ensuring that the 30% of registered women coincides with a 30% participation of women in festivals. She baptized the armed group as & # 34; For more women musicians on stage & # 34;. Once the project was drawn up, they looked for a political figure to help get it into that field. They presented it to Anabel Fernández Sagasti, a 34-year-old Kirchner senator from Mendoza, who accepted it and promoted it on the political scene.
On October 2, 2018, the group For More Women Musicians on Stage, headed by 34-year-old senator Anabel Fernández Sagasti, formally presented the bill for a female quota and access for female artists to musical events, whose The main proposal was to establish 30% of female artists in festivals that presented a minimum of three artists, and with a fine of 6% of all proceeds from the festival for those who did not comply.
On May 22, 2019, the bill obtained half a sanction, when it was approved in the Argentine Senate, with 50 votes in favor and only 1 against. It was crucial to have the support of the two main political forces in the country: Cambiemos and Peronism. This surprised the promoters themselves, who feared that the political forces would stop the project in 2019 because it was an election year.
Finally, on November 20, 2019, the female quota law for festivals in Argentina was approved, in a session in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies where there were 133 votes in favor, 5 against, and 6 abstentions. This event made global history: it was the first law in the world that established a female quota for musical events. On December 18, 2019, the law was promulgated in the Official Gazette.
Rise of female artists
The 2017 Gardel Awards honored the albums of Eruca Sativa, Lula Bertoldi's alternative rock band, won the "Best Rock Group Album" for his album Mud and fauna; while Marilina Bertoldi as a soloist won the award for "Best Female Rock Artist Album" for his album Sex with models.
The 2019 Gardel Awards awarded Marilina Bertoldi with the Gardel de Oro (the highest award of the ceremony, dedicated to the best album of all genres) for her album Light a fire, which also received the "Best Female Rock Artist Album" award. The Gardel de Oro for Marilina Bertoldi was a historic event for several reasons: since the start of the Gardel Awards in 1999, only one woman had won the Gardel de Oro—Mercedes Sosa, in 2000—for what was the first time in 19 years that the Gardel de Oro was awarded to a woman, but it was also the first time in history that it was awarded to a female rock artist, to an underground female artist, and (something that Marilina personally celebrated Bertoldi in his speech) for a lesbian artist.
The Bertoldi sisters took different positions with respect to Palazzo, the organizer of the Cosquín Rock festival, when he made controversial statements in February 2019 against the female quota. Marilina responded by announcing that she would never play at the Cosquín again, and urged her female colleagues to do the same. Instead, Lula declared that Eruca Sativa would continue performing at the Cosquín, arguing that, in her vision, once Once a space is conquered, all its facilities must be used in order to spread a message.
In November 2018, when the female quota law was just beginning to be discussed in Argentine festivals, there was only one festival in Argentina that complied with the standards established by the bill: the La Nueva Generación festival, which in its November 18, 2018 issue even surpassed the promoted number, reaching 46% female artists.
The following month the first edition of the GRL PWR festival was held, with the almost exclusive participation of female artists. In a short time the festival proved to be a success, and throughout the following year it had editions in the three main Argentine cities: Córdoba, Rosario and Buenos Aires.
After the quota law was promulgated on December 18, 2019, it was celebrated that the first festivals that adjusted to the new regulations appeared: the National Chamamé Festival, the Rock en la Casa festival (San Luis), and Cosquín Rock. However, as most of the summer 2020 festivals had established their contracts throughout 2019, when the law had not yet entered into force, that summer of 2020 most of the festivals continued to have insufficient numbers of female participation.
Regarding Cosquín 2020, it was particularly notable, since in the 2019 edition there was controversy over certain statements by its organizer Palazzo, when he stated that there were not a sufficient number of female artists to cover the proposed quota. However, after that episode he made a mea culpa , acknowledging his own ignorance about the female artists of the moment, and heeded the messages that told him to look for more women. He contacted Hilda Lizarazu, who for being a member of & # 34; For more women musicians on stage & # 34; she had access to information on female artists. Palazzo spent the next few months researching and communicating with female artists, and for the 2020 edition he managed to schedule the grid with 31.96% female—in fact, exceeding the promoted norm.
Although, a concern that arose was that now the radios were the ones that broadcast more women's bands, according to Rosario Ortega's opinion.
At the beginning of 2020 and given the panorama with the recent enactment of the female quota law, critics affirmed that the next generational change in national rock would take place with the leading role of women. There was a lot of expectation for the 2020 season, because there would begin to be seen who would be the female artists who would continue the long tradition of Argentine rock.
Cosquín Rock expands to other countries
The new stage of Argentine rock was particularly positive for the Cosquín Rock festival, which, for the first time for an Argentine mega-festival, began to be exported, in the manner of international festivals such as Lollapalooza and Rock in Rio.
The first version abroad was Cosquín Rock México, held on February 18, 2017.
The first editions followed in Peru (October 14, 2017), Colombia (October 21, 2017), Bolivia (November 4, 2017), Uruguay (October 6 and 7, 2018), Chile (October 6 and 7, 2018), Paraguay (November 24, 2018) and the United States (July 13, 2019).
On January 5, 2020, José Palazzo, organizer of Cosquín, stated that they had in mind to export the festival to Spain, Costa Rica, France and Portugal.
Other festivals
Apart from Cosquín, the other three major festivals of the Argentine scene Lollapalooza, Movistar Free Music and Personal Fest, had prominent spaces. While the Movistar Festival changed its name to Movistar FRI Music, it began to do more than one edition per year, for example, in 2018 they did a summer season with shows in Pinamar and Mar del Plata in January and February, and then an edition in October in the capital with various bands paying homage to Sumo, and from 2019 its summer edition became a mega-festival: that year 135,000 people saw Ciro y los Persas, and in the following year 140,000 saw Divididos.
Regarding the Personal Fest, after fourteen years of activity on the scene it had its last edition in 2018, and by 2019 it was replaced by Flow Music XP, a multimedia project with extensive technological deployment that began with a recital by Muse in October of that year at the Palermo Hippodrome, and that he had scheduled to perform different musical shows in different parts of the country in the following twelve months.
The other trends outside the women's scene
On December 17, 2016, La Beriso played at the Monumental Stadium of River Plate in front of 55,000 people, consecrating itself as one of the main numbers of the Argentine rock scene.
Regarding precisely this band, Salta La Banca, their career was at a very good moment in the very first parts of this stage of Argentine rock. He had critical acclaim, a growing audience, and had filmed a DVD titled Somos in a recital on March 18, 2017 at the Malvinas Argentinas Stadium. In addition to the Malvinas, Salta La Banca had played at other important venues, such as the Gran Rex and Luna Park. The legitimacy of the band had been built on the fact that its singer, Santiago Aysine, was a survivor of the Cromañón tragedy, making his lyrics carry greater weight, and being seen by his followers as a living testimony of the deadly effects of the corruption and neglect of the state.
However, the complaint of September 20, 2017 against Santiago Aysine for harassment put an end to the promising career of the neo-neighborhood rock band, and in turn demonstrated the change of era in Argentine rock: even the "sacred cows" like Cro-Magnon's survivors no longer had immunity from criticism from sectors of the left. It was another sign that the post-Cro-Magnon stage of Argentine rock had ended and it was already in another stage, with greater repercussions from the activity of women.
Indio Solari was the protagonist of a historic event in Argentine rock: on March 11, 2017, he gave a recital in Olavarría in front of 300,000 people, which became a record attendance at an Argentine rock recital, both paying as free, in all history. This was the peak of a trend that came from his recital in Tandil in 2010, where year after year he broke his personal attendance record. However, in that recital the recurring violence in his recitals reappeared. There were numerous interruptions in the recital due to stampedes in the public. At one point Indio Solari announced "I no longer feel like playing", and, although he continued with the show as scheduled, with those words he made it clear what his future would be.
The following days, El Indio was the object of numerous criticisms in the Argentine rock scene that was replicated by all the media and social networks, since the recital left 2 deaths due to suffocation (Javier León, 42 years old, and Juan Francisco Bulacio, 36 years old), in addition to numerous wounded and lost. Pages were created to search for people who went to the recital and who were missing. The start of the recital was a complete disaster between the quagmire, the darkness and the overcrowding. Roads were clogged and vehicles were trapped. Numerous investigations revealed how the city's health system was completely collapsed. Criticism arose against El Indio for playing for 300,000 people, when the venue was scheduled for only 150,000 —an argument that alluded to the Cromañón tragedy, where an audience overcrowded that overflowed the capacity of the venue was a fatal element for the outcome of that fire- it was learned that, like previous Indio recitals (and as happened in the time of the Redonditos), there were thousands who entered, without entry.
Los Caligaris became another of the outstanding groups of the era: not only did they become one of the main numbers on the Argentine scene (for example, at the 2016 Gardel Awards they were nominated for 4 categories) but, surprisingly,, became a crowd phenomenon in Mexico only comparable to that of the most internationally popular Argentine bands in the Aztec country, such as Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Los Enanitos Verdes or Soda Stereo. This story had begun in the first recital of Los Caligaris in Mexico, on May 17, 2007. Then over the years they continued to have presentations in different countries in Latin America, the United States and Spain, but always making a stopover in Mexico. On March 18, 2017, they played for 50,000 people at the Mexican Vive Latino festival, something that had great repercussions in both the Mexican and Argentine media. And as the crowning glory of the decade, on November 9, 2019 they played their own number in the Foro Sol before 60,000, bringing their show entitled The happiest night in the world, with a notable stage and circus display. The media referred to the recital as the most important show of his career, and emphasized that it broke a historical record for the most popular show in the world for an artist or group from Córdoba.
Airbag also established itself as one of the main bands on the scene. The case is notable because in its beginnings the band received some criticism from the hardest core of Argentine rock, for being adolescent boys who played pop rock and who had an audience mostly of schoolgirls: they believed that they were a marketing invention of the record industry. However, in 2009, the Airbags started a conflict with their manager that caused them to resign from their record company and were off the stage for the next 2 years. Starting in 2011, the Airbags decided to make a clean slate with their career, and they undertook a task to become from below. One of their new initiatives was to start having a socially committed message in their songs and to participate in protest activities, for example, for the Tragedy of Once. After a few years their work paid off: they were nominated for the 2014 Gardel Awards for "Best Rock Album" for Freedom. In 2016 they were chosen to be the band for the re-opening of the Argentine rock temple, the Obras Sanitarias Stadium, which had not presented rock recitals since February 2009. The band had never played in Obras, so with this recital they were confirmed as one of the main numbers of the scene. The recital was on December 22, 2016 and received very good reviews. Airbag also began to be chosen as the opening act for international visits: by Guns and Roses on November 5, 2016 at the River Stadium, by Bon Jovi on September 2017 at the Vélez Stadium, and Muse on October 11, 2019 at the Palermo Hippodrome. On February 15, 2020, they played for 35,000 people at the Rock festival in the Casa de Villa Mercedes (San Juan).
Cirque du Soleil performed a show in honor of Soda Stereo. The project had been announced on June 15, 2015, revealing that the show would be called Sép7imo Día - No Descansaré. To produce the sound part, the former members Zeta Bosio and Charly Alberti and the former sound engineer Adrián Taverna got together again and worked with the masters of the band's songs. On March 9, 2017, the show debuted at Luna Park in the Argentine capital, with very good reviews and attendance. It was followed by a tour that lasted between 2017 and 2018, performing in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, the United States, Paraguay and again Argentina.
This reunion with Soda Stereo made a deep impression on Zeta Bosio and Charly Alberti, seeing how current the band was throughout the continent. He began to dance around the idea of getting back together. Zeta stated this on June 4, 2018, in the last days of the tour of the Cirque du Soleil show: "It would make me very happy to play the songs of Soda Stereo one last time". Without Gustavo Cerati, who died on September 4, 2014, the recitals would have several guests from various countries (Chris Martin, Rubén Albarrán, Juanes, Adrián Dárgelos, Julieta Venegas, Mon Laferte, Gustavo Santaolalla, Andrea Álvarez, Fernando Ruiz Díaz, Álvaro Henríquez and León Larregui) on the other, tracks with Gustavo's voice would be used while his image would appear on screens. The tour would go through: Colombia, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Panama and the United States. On February 29, 2020, and in a very emotional climate, the tour debuted, appearing at the El Campín Stadium in the Colombian capital. The tour schedule underwent major changes: the Chilean recital went from 7 from March to May 14 due to the protests in Chile of 2019-2020; on its date a recital was scheduled in the Mexican city Tijuana, but this in turn was canceled due to logistical difficulties; and due to the coronavirus pandemic, on March 13, they announced the postponement of all dates to the second semester.
On January 17, 2020, for the first time, an American mainstream artist used samples from an Argentine rock artist, when rapper Eminem released the song "Stepdad", which samples "Petiribí" by Pescado Rabioso, originally released in 1973 in the album Fish 2.
On March 7, 2020, Indio Solari sang in a recital without being in it. The band that accompanied him, Los Fundamentalistas del Aire Acondicionado, continued to play after leaving the stage, but they had the idea of showing a 3D hologram with the figure of Indio Solari while playing. The hologram was always used for deceased artists: Solari's was the first case with an artist who was still alive.
Coronavirus Pandemic (2020—present)
Scene freeze
On March 12, the Government of the City of Buenos Aires held a press conference announcing that due to the coronavirus pandemic, which was beginning to have its first fatal cases in Argentina, activities with a massive concentration of public were prohibited, including sports and musical shows. This led to the suspension of all scheduled festival activity in Buenos Aires, including the concerts of Soda Stereo, Fito Páez and Lollapalooza. With this measure, the Buenos Aires government took a resounding turn with respect to his position 3 days before, when he had said in another conference that they would not make changes to the programming of recitals and massive festivals.
The measures were extended to the entire country shortly after: on March 20 at 00:00 the quarantine began to apply at the national level, announced by President Alberto Fernández in a conference the day before. It was scheduled to last until March 31, but as the days went by it became clear that the quarantine should be extended indefinitely.
So, since March 20, 2020, the Argentine rock scene has been paralyzed. The outlook was that for an indeterminate time there would be no movements and the artists' careers would be put on hold.
Recitals via streaming
To get around the problem of not playing due to the coronavirus, the artists started a new practice: doing recitals via streaming (internet transmission). In March 2020 alone, during the first month of the quarantine, there were recitals by Argentine rock artists such as Los Pericos (on two occasions, the first on Instagram and the second on YouTube), Airbag, Fito Páez, Pedro Aznar, Alejandro Lerner, Coti, Gabriel Pedernera, Diego Frenkel, Karamelo Santo, Palo Pandolfo, among others. Critics commented that this modality was a good alternative to the typical "compose-record-album-tour" sequence.
Reactivation of the scene and new normality
In October 2020, the Government of the City of Buenos Aires authorized the reopening of outdoor concerts, with a maximum capacity of 100 people, with social distancing, use of chinstraps and other protocols necessary due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 19. The duration of the recitals for each artist had a maximum duration of 90 minutes from Monday to Friday, while on weekends they work without time restrictions.
Several Argentine rock artists continued with their recitals via streaming, thus creating a bimodality that no one goes to.
Throughout 2021, a progressive lifting of the restrictions related to massive events and entertainment venues took place. In this way, around October of the same year, all prevention measures in this regard ceased to be issued, at least in the City of Buenos Aires.
2022 was the year of the definitive return to normal activities. The most important music festivals, such as Cosquín Rock, Rock in Baradero, Lollapalooza Argentina and Quilmes Rock were held again. The latter was also led on its last date by Catupecu Machu, who returned to the stage after their temporary break in 2017, in a tribute show to Gabriel Ruiz Díaz, a former member of the band, who had died in 2021 after staying for almost 15 years. without mobility after a tragic car accident that occurred in 2006.
This reactivation of cultural activities opened the doors in the underground circuit to bands such as Buenos Vampiros, Mujer Zebra, El Club Audiovisual, Las Tussi and Dum Chica, projects that were taking shape during and shortly before the pandemic and that saw their number of followers grow after the return to live shows, forming a new scene highly influenced by the British punk, post-punk and shoegaze subcultures of the 70s, 80s and 90s. On April 16, 2023, the New Day Festival will be held at the Vorterix Theater, that will have the participation of said bands and will be headed by the Minor Leagues.
Cultural heritage
In October 1996, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the release of the single Rebelde by Los Beatniks, which for some historians was the beginning of Argentine rock, it was held at the Centro Municipal de Exposiciones the Rock Nacional 30 Años event, with a gigantic display of photos and objects belonging to Argentine rock figures, presentations by artists from the early days of the scene, an international recording by telephone between Santaolalla (in Los Ángeles) and Gieco (in Buenos Aires), and computers to surf the internet, which at that time was a great novelty for the Argentine public. Accompanying the event, a double compilation album was released with emblematic songs of Argentine rock, an encyclopedic book as a dictionary with the bands and artists, and a documentary film with the support of the MTV channel, all products entitled National Rock 30 Years. In November, most of the show moved to the Recoleta Cultural Center, where there continued to be free recitals until the summer of '97.
In 2006 there were once again tributes for the 40th anniversary of Rebelde: the film Let it be rock was released and the documentaries Argentina Beat: chronicles of the first Argentine rock and National Rock: History, the latter produced by Pepsi Music and premiered at that year's edition of said festival.
In 2007 there were tributes for the 40th anniversary of the release of the single La balsa, by Los Gatos, which for another group of historians was the beginning of Argentine rock. Thus, in 2007 Rolling Stone magazine launched a ranking with the best 100 albums in the history of Argentine rock, and the Rock.com.ar site launched one with the best 100 songs.
Between May 21 and 25, 2010, the 200th anniversary of the Argentine Republic was celebrated, in an event that brought together more than a million people on a large stage in front of the Obelisk. Some of the great national rock artists performed at this massive event, such as Lito Nebbia, Ricardo Soulé, Miguel Cantilo, Fito Páez, among others.
On February 23, 2016, the recovery of 1500 Argentine rock, tango and folklore albums belonging to the famous Music Hall label, among other sub-labels, was announced. INAMU bought the rights to all those albums for 2,750,000 pesos.
The Institute bought these rights, among other things, to allow the musicians, who throughout this time could not work with these records, nor to perceive the rights of interpreter because they were not on sale, to decide how and when to re-edit them, staying with the economic benefits that arise from them.Diego Boris, musician and president of INAMU (National Institute of Music).
In January 2017, La Perla del Once closed to become a branch of the La Americana pizzeria chain. The event caused consternation in the Argentine rock audience, ending a crucial place in the birth of Argentine rock.
In 2017, various events were held to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of the single La balsa. To begin with, that year's edition of Cosquín Rock had a thematic stage called "Rock 50 years", with presentations by classic and established national rock artists. On September 2, a tribute recital was held at the Tecnópolis property, which also served as a promotion for the release of a compilation album of national rock made by FM radio 93.7 Nacional Rock. Then in October a new edition of the B.A. Rock, although there were controversies over the organization, the grid, and the non-inclusions of Ricardo Iorio (who in 1982 had already suffered a negative episode with the BA Rock festival when a gang of hippies attacked his band at the time, V8, while they played), Salta La Banca, Héctor Starc, Los Twist and Horcas. Then he had another tribute in November in the Plaza Moreno de La Plata, at the festival of the 135th anniversary of the founding of the city; However, the inclusion of artists with almost no relation to national rock such as Lali Espósito, Agapornis and Soledad Pastorutti caused controversy in the rock scene.
On November 21, 2018, congressman Mario Arce sent a bill for Argentine rock to be declared "of national interest". If the initiative is successful, UNESCO could eventually declare Argentine rock "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity".
As of the mid-2010s, a new trend emerged within the historical investigation of Argentine rock, its main argument is to place the beginning of Argentine rock in the '50s, including the artists and records record labels that had been omitted by classical historians (since they had considered, as the beginning, the release of the single La balsa in 1967). In 2016, the online publication Universo Epigrafe emerged, which made progress by finding and restoring numerous singles and albums from the 50s and 60s, creating new chronologies, biographies and analysis, mainly with the way in which the Argentine jazz of the '50s naturally evolved into Argentine rock. In December 2018 another breakthrough was produced in this new current, with the launch of the book Catalog of Argentine rock vinyls 1958-1996, which also includes artists until then omitted by classical historians.
Books, movies and bookazines
Throughout the decades in which his life has elapsed, Argentine rock has been the object of study in numerous investigations, biographies and encyclopedias, which have been published in the form of books, films or bookazines (special editions of magazines, made with higher quality and with thematic content—for example, the Soda Stereo race). Especially, starting in the 2010s, the number of releases of Argentine rock books increased enormously, a phenomenon to which the Clarín newspaper dedicated a note, which the journalist Marcelo Fernández Bitar (author of the most complete work, 50 years of rock in Argentina) concluded by saying "today, when you walk into bookstores, it is a joy to see that you now have a shelf in sight that did not even exist before".
In order to understand the very first moments of Argentine rock in the mid-50s, a book is essential, which is actually about Argentine jazz, entitled Memories of Argentine Jazz: Decades of the '40 and '50: Argentine jazz musicians and orchestras, by Ricardo Rosetti, published on December 13, 1994. The importance of the book lies in the fact that the first rock and roll artists in Argentina they came from jazz, and this is one of the few written testimonies that have remained of those figures. The Universo Epigrafe website, which has done extensive research on Argentine rock, came to the conclusion that Argentine rock, in its beginnings in the '50s, was a natural evolution of Argentine jazz. Victor Tapia, from the Universo Epigrafe website, commented:
Argentinian jazz orchestras took rock as one more subgender (...) rock was part of the musical acquis of Argentinian jazz of the 1950s. The Jazzland magazine was the first to spread to rock and roll, feeling totally comfortable when it comes to covering both Louis Armstrong and Elvis Presley. Dancers like José María Paniagua told us that the rock dance did not catch them unsuspecting, as the youth who danced the boogie woogie was the one who embraced the nascent genre. Musicians like Oscar Linero told us that the orchestras played dixieland when the themes of rock were finished, due to the accelerated rhythm of both musical aspects in common. Jorge Mario Rodríguez, singer of the orchestra of Lalo Schifrin and member of the vocal group Los Gin Fizz, insisted that all jazz orchestras incorporated a repertoire of rock for which specific singers were hired (...) A note from January 1961 read: “Rock is a new style of jazz (...) The extraction of musicians like Eddie Pequenino should be sufficient evidence to recognize jazzers' role in the creation of local rock. Whether for conviction or economic necessity, the first Argentine rock musicians were jazzers.Victor Tapia, February 15, 2018.
The movie Venga a bailar el rock (1957), with the participation of important figures of the '50s such as Eber Lobato, Alberto Anchart, has remained a testimony of this primitive era of Argentine rock., Nélida Lobato, Eddie Pequenino, Pedrito Rico, Alfredo Barbieri and Amelita Vargas. He scored the film Lalo Schifrin. Come dance to rock is the first film of Argentine rock, of all rock in Spanish, and shows some of the very first original songs created in the Spanish language in rock, such as the song of the same name, which is played twice in the film (the second time, for the final scene) and which is sung and danced as a duet by Eber Lobato and Alberto Anchart.
The first book to be released on Argentine rock is Agarrate!!! Testimonies of young music in Argentina, by Juan Carlos Kreimer, published in 1970, that is, already in the post-"La balsa" scene. Again, the book is not only about rock, since in reality He talks about the contemporary Argentine beat music scene, which also included pop artists. The book, however, is a work that is the son of its era, in which Argentine society was highly polarized and politicized, which is why Agarrate!!! is tainted with ideological biases, and differentiates between the two aspects. of the beat, naming the countercultural wing as progressive music and the pop wing as complacent music. As it was the first book that investigated Argentine rock, later works continued to have this politicized vision, considered only progressive rockers as the true creators of Argentine rock, and denied all rock activity in Argentina prior to "La balsa".
The first documentary on Argentine rock post-«La balsa» is Rock until the sun sets (1973), with filming from the B.A. Rock III, and with the participation of several of the main artists of the rock scene (Pappo's Blues, Pescado Rabioso, Vox Dei, etc.) and even Sui Generis, the folk rock duet that was just starting at that time and it was completely unknown.
In 1977 a book was published that would be the basis of numerous subsequent investigations: Argentine progressive music (how the hand came), by Miguel Grinberg, by Convergencia publishing house. Longer and easier to obtain than Agarrate!!! (which was never reissued), with interviews with artists and several passages with Grinberg's reflections, later Argentine rock researchers were guided by using the story told in this book. And since Grinberg shares the same opinions as Kreimer, the position of denying and disregarding all pre-"La balsa" Argentine rock was consolidated. The book had several reissues, already with the title How the hand came to dry, and with more and more additions: in 1985 by Mutantia publishing house, in 1993 by Distral publishing house, and in 2008 by Gourmet Musical publishing house, and in 2014 for the same.
In 1983 the film Buenos Aires Rock was released, with filming from the festival of the same name that was held at the Obras Stadium in November of the previous year. The film bears witness to the very first Argentine rock scene post-revitalization with the Malvinas War: the scene was still highly politicized, with acoustic artists such as Piero, León Gieco and Miguel Cantilo among its main figures; The curious thing happens with the inclusion in the film of V8, a seminal Argentine heavy metal band that was unknown at the time and had not recorded anything.
In 1986 the first encyclopedic book on Argentine rock was published: Rock in Argentina: history and its protagonists, by Osvaldo Marzullo and Pancho Muñoz. Most of the book is occupied by a dictionary of Argentine rock bands and artists, a format that would be repeated more extensively in later works. The inclusion criteria is the most flexible of all the Argentine rock encyclopedias that have been written: all bands enter, regardless of whether they have lasted a couple of weeks or have never performed at a recital or have not recorded or recorded. a demo, and all the subgenres enter, making important analyzes of genres at the time underground in Argentina such as punk rock, heavy metal, ska and neighborhood proto-rock, thus leaving one of the few testimonies that have remained on those genres at that time. Rock in Argentina also has brief analyzes of the different subgenres, a summary of the history of Argentine rock up to that moment, a list with the complete discography of Argentine rock up to the publication of the book, a list of albums together and list of festivals.
In 1987 another enormously important encyclopedic book was published: History of rock in Argentina: a chronological investigation, by Marcelo Fernández Bitar, by Editorial Distal. The approach is totally different from the previous ones: the book is divided by years, and in each one he recounts the events that occurred that year in Argentine rock, with depth and detail, something that earned him great critical acclaim. The action of leaving the facts in writing when they were still recent and fresh in memory was also celebrated, since with the passage of time it becomes difficult to carry out investigations of these characteristics: the facts are forgotten or distorted. The book had several reissues, each time with more years added: in 1992, 1997, 1999, and finally in October 2015, already with the title 50 years of rock in Argentina, by editorial Sudamericana and with the entire story from 1964 to 2014. 50 years of rock in Argentina is a book that satisfied the author's intention to profoundly modify the structure of the book, something that the previous publisher (Distal) prevented him from, and that was the reason why the book was not republished for many years. 50 years of rock in Argentina is, therefore, a book with a deluxe edition, with superior quality materials, numerous additions such as a photo gallery in the middle of the book and images of the albums on the discography section of each year, and a level of detail that is even superior to that of the previous versions, for which it was acclaimed by critics as the most complete work of investigation of Argentine rock.
In 1992 Miguel Grinberg published a work on Argentine rock again, the bookazine 25 years of Argentine rock, by Editorial Promundo. The bookazine follows the same line as his previous work, How the hand came , but it adds little: Grinberg fails to update his analysis after the events of 1982 and hardly talks about it. the evolution of Argentine rock after that year.
In 1993 the film Tango feroz: la leyenda de Tanguito was released, whose plot was a free account of the life of Tanguito, one of the emblems of the countercultural wing of Argentine beat music of the '60, and co-writer of the song “La balsa”. Despite controversy over the accuracy of the facts shown, Fierce Tango was a huge box office success, its own soundtrack album was a bestseller, and reinvigorated interest in rockers of the day.. As a consequence of this boom for Tango feroz, the careers of these musicians were reactivated, either through reissues of albums, or through a growth in sales and offers to be presented. The boom of interest in the history of Argentine rock had several effects: the newspaper La Nación launched an encyclopedia of Argentine rock in fascicles, the newspaper La Razón launched another titled Loco - tu forma de ser (like the song of the Auténticos Decadentes), Gente magazine published an edition entitled Living history of rock and roll, FM radio station La Boca began broadcasting 24 hours of only Argentine rock (first time that a radio did it), and the Rock Museum was opened in the San Telmo neighborhood, after an agreement with the Undersecretary of Youth.
In 1993 Argentine Heavy Metal was also published, the first book that investigated this musical scene, with the key of leaving testimony of it when the facts were still fresh in the memory. Written by Frank Blumetti and Carlos Parise, and published by Karma editions, it has a mixed style: there are parts that recount the events of the scene year by year, there are analyzes of specific bands, there are reports on figures of the genre and there is a record list.
In October 1996, the event Rock Nacional 30 Años was held at the Municipal Exhibition Center, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the release of the single "Rebelde" by Los Beatniks (which some historians of that moment they pointed out as the beginning of Argentine rock, in opposition to others who took 1967 as the beginning with "La balsa"). It had a gigantic display of photos and objects belonging to Argentine rock figures, presentations by artists from the early days of the scene, an international telephone recording between Gustavo Santaolalla (in Los Angeles) and León Gieco (in Buenos Aires), and computers. to browse the internet, which at that time was a great novelty for the Argentine public. Several works were released from that event, all under the name Rock Nacional 30 Años: a double compilation album with emblematic songs of Argentine rock, a documentary film divided into 4 chapters, and an encyclopedic book as a dictionary with the bands and artists. The book Rock Nacional 30 Años combines the dictionary format of the book by Marzullo and Muñoz with the detail and length of that of Fernández Bítar: it is large and covers the entrances of bands and artists, no matter If they achieved transcendence or not, there are fragments of interviews and images, which add up to know their figures. As a result, the book is one of the most accomplished works of all those who have analyzed Argentine rock. It was for years the best Argentine rock book, even despite the passage of time that left his story until 1996 increasingly behind. Only when the definitive edition of Fernández Bitar's was published in 2015 did an even better book appear.
In 1996 the documentary film Better talk about certain things was also released on the MTV television channel. The documentary is divided into 2 chapters.
In 1998 Rolling Stone Argentina magazine was launched, inaugurating a whole new saga in the investigation of Argentine rock, with the special editions and bookazines that it would publish. In March 2002 he launched a special edition with a list, prepared together with the MTV channel, with the 100 best Argentine rock songs. In April 2007 he released another, with the 100 best Argentine rock albums (which he would reissue in June 2013, with some variations in the positions, and already with the bookazine format that they had managed to consolidate). Precisely, his bookazine saga with the careers of Argentine rock bands and artists would be highlighted, with issues dedicated to: Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota (November 2012, reissued in May 2019 with the addition of a Top 40 of his songs), Luis Alberto Spinetta (November 2013), Pappo (October 2015), Charly García (August 2016), Soda Stereo (February 2017), Sumo (December 2017) and Gustavo Cerati (March 2020).
In December 2005 the encyclopedic book Argentine Rock Dictionary was published, published by Musimundo and having as authors: Javier Aguirre, Mariana Roveta, Martín Correa and Gabriela Tijman. The book is a good continuation of the previous encyclopedias, although it does not reach the magnitude of those, but it presents a unique advantage: it includes among its entries the stages and venues of Argentine rock.
In 2006 the documentary Que sea rock was released, which has remained as testimony of the first post-Cromañón Argentine rock scene.
In 2006 the documentary Argentina Beat: crónicas del primer argentino rock was released, recounting the Argentine countercultural beat scene of the '60s.
In 2006 the documentary National Rock: History was released, made by the Pepsi Music festival, premiered in that year's edition of the festival, and divided into 13 chapters.
In 2009, the Encuentro channel began the documentary television series Quázás porque, where in each episode they would explore the careers of Argentine rock artists. In 2013 they released a new format, Perhaps because: Specials, with a longer duration to review the artists' work.
In October 2010, the book Estadio Obras: el templo del rock, by Gloria Guerrero, was published by Editorial Sudamericana. The importance of the book lies in the fact that, for the bands and soloists, the first recital at the Obras Stadium meant their consecration as one of the main numbers on the scene. Seeing which artists played in Obras gave an idea of what trends and what changes there would be in Argentine rock. This, therefore, helps to specify more accurately the evolution of Argentine rock and its various trends over the years. The book is of a mixed format: in parts it recounts the historical events of the stadium since its opening in 1978, in others it presents reports with the shows, events and recitals that Obras had in a year, and in others it shows an interview with an artist.
In December 2011 the book Destroying the pink house: myths and legends of the first punks in Argentina was published, by Piloto de Tormenta publishing house and having as authors: Daniel Flores, Alfredo Sainz, Adriana Franco, Diego Ladrón de Guevara, Patricia Pietrafesa, Leandro Uría and Marcelo Pocavida. The book recounts the first 10 years of Argentine punk, from 1978 to 1988, that is, from the first experiences of the future members of Los Violadores to the release of the compilation album Invasion 88 that opened a new era. in the history of Argentine punk. In addition to the stories, it has interviews with figures who were on the scene.
In the 2010s, television series returned to interest in Argentine rock: in 2012 Graduados was broadcast, and between 2014 and 2015 Widows and children of rock androll; both series had Argentine rock as an essential element of their theme and soundtrack, and both were a great success in the Argentine audience.
In October 2015 the book Cuando éramos reyes: memoria del heavy argentino de los '80s, by Rubén Cañízares, published by Jedbangers, was published. Since Blumetti and Parise's 1993 book there has not been one of this type. It is divided into chapters where figures from the scene of the time are interviewed, and presents unpublished photographic material illustrating the notes. As negative points (due to the author's amateurism) the writing is repetitive, with phrases about the difficulties of the bands that are repeated chapter by chapter, and there are weak points in the chapter titles and the author's conclusions when closing the notes.
In 2015, and also in the field of heavy metal, the documentary Dirty and messy: heavy metal in Argentina was released, investigating the history of the genre from its beginnings to 2015, passing through the various bands and subgenres that the scene had.
In December 2018, the book Argentine rock vinyl catalog 1958-1996, by Claudio Zuccala and Fernando Brener, was published. It shows the covers of the released vinyls, following a dictionary-type alphabetical order for the artists, and then a chronological order when showing the vinyls of these. But what makes it unique is that it includes the first rock and roll artists in Argentina, ignored and belittled by classical historians. The book is definitely the son of a new revisionist current in Argentine rock, which questions the established belief that Argentine rock was born in 1967 with "La balsa."
Top Song Lists
On the Edge: the 500 best songs of Ibero-American rock
On March 9, 2006, commemorating 50 years of Ibero-American rock, the American magazine Al Borde published a list with the 500 best songs of Ibero-American rock. Argentine songs.
| Position | Song | Artist | Authors | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.o | «The sun is rising» | Intoxicated | Pity Alvarez and Zeta Bosio | 2005 |
| 2. | «The Killer» | The Fabulous Cadillacs | Flavio Cianciarulo | 1993 |
| 5.o | «Demolishing Hotels» | Charly García | Charly García | 1984 |
| 7. | «American blind» | Soda Stereo | Gustavo Cerati and Jorge Antonio Daffunchio | 1986 |
| 9. | «The Green Wall» | Green dwarfs | Marciano Cantero and Daniel Piccolo | 1986 |
| 13. | «The Love After Love» | Fito Páez | Fito Páez | 1992 |
| 18. | «No Documents» | Los Rodríguez | Andrés Calamaro | 1993 |
| 23. | «Rasp the Stones» | Sui Generis | Charly García | 1973 |
| 28.o | «When Great Seas» | Miguel Mateos/ZAS | Miguel Mateos | 1986 |
| 31.o | «La Leyenda del Hada y el Mago» | White rat | Walter Giardino | 1990 |
Rolling Stone Argentina and MTV: the 100 best songs
In March 2002, Rolling Stone Argentina magazine and the MTV channel published a list of the 100 best Argentine rock songs. The top 10 are below:
| Position | Song | Artist | Authors | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.o | «La Balsa» | The Cats | Litto Nebbia and Tanguito | 1967 |
| 2. | « Many Paper Eyes» | Almond | Luis Alberto Spinetta | 1969 |
| 3.o | «Rasp the stones» | Sui Generis | Charly García | 1973 |
| 4.o | «Light music» | Soda Stereo | Zeta Bosio and Gustavo Cerati | 1990 |
| 5.o | "Jijiji" | Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota | Indio Solari and Skay Beilinson | 1986 |
| 6.o | "I only ask God" | León Gieco | León Gieco | 1978 |
| 7. | «Present (The time you are)» | Vox Dei | Ricardo Soulé | 1970 |
| 8. | «Seminare» | Serú Girán | Charly García | 1978 |
| 9. | «And give joy to my heart» | Fito Páez | Fito Páez | 1990 |
| 10. | «The Killer» | The Fabulous Cadillacs | Flavio Cianciarulo | 1993 |
Rolling Stone Argentina: the 10 best video clips
On December 2, 2010, Rolling Stone Argentina magazine published a list of the 10 best Argentine rock video clips.
| Position | Song | Artist | Year of the song |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.o | «Masacre in the Puticlub» | Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota | 1988 |
| 2. | "Microdancing" | Babasonics | 2008 |
| 3.o | « New haircuts» | Charly García | 1984 |
| 4.o | «Zoom» | Soda Stereo | 1995 |
| 5.o | «You know» | The Fabulous Cadillacs | 1999 |
| 6.o | «Inmature» | The Other Me | 2002 |
| 7. | «Storms» | Attack 77 | 2003 |
| 8. | «Bi bap um dera» | Visitors | 1996 |
| 9. | «Captain America» | The Balls | 1996 |
| 10. | «Day of the Dead» | He killed a Motorized Police | 2008 |
Rolling Stone Argentina: user voting for the 10 best video clips
On September 1, 2011, Rolling Stone Argentina magazine published a list, made with the results of a user vote on its different portals and social network profiles, with the 10 best video clips of the Argentine rock.
| Position | Song | Artist | Director of videoclip | Year of the song | Year of videoclip |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.o | «In La Ciudad de La Furia» | Soda Stereo | Alfredo Lois | 1988 | 1989 |
| 2. | «The Hots» | Babasonics | Emiliano Ferrando | 2001 | 2002 |
| 3.o | «Abarajame» | Illya Kuryaki and the Valderramas | Alejandro Hartmann | 1995 | 1995 |
| 4.o | «Masacre in the Puticlub» | Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota | Guillermo Beilinson | 1988 | 1988 |
| 5.o | «The Killer» | The Fabulous Cadillacs | Pucho Mentasti | 1993 | 1994 |
| 6.o | «Cheques» | Spinetta and Desert Partners | Eduardo Martí | 1997 | 1997 |
| 7. | «Hi How Tal» | The Balls | Rodrigo Espina | 1995 | 1995 |
| 8. | "And what I want is that Pises Without Soil" | Catupecu Machu | Gianfranco Quattrini | 2000 | 2000 |
| 9. | «We are» | The Authentic Decadents | Pablo Armesto | 2006 | 2006 |
| 10. | « Aztec Stadium» | Andrés Calamaro | Rafa Sañudo | 2004 | 2004 |
Top Album Charts
Al Borde: the 250 best Ibero-American rock albums
In December 2006, and along with the list of 500 songs, the American magazine Al Borde published another list with the 250 best Ibero-American rock albums. In it there were a total of 78 albums Argentines. Here are the 10 best Argentine albums on the list:
| Position | Disco | Artist | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2. | Animal Song | Soda Stereo | 1990 |
| 3° | Modern films | Charly García | 1983 |
| 7° | Vaccines | The Fabulous Cadillacs | 1993 |
| 10° | Almond | Almond | 1969 |
| 15. | Comfort and Music to Fly | Soda Stereo | 1996 |
| 16° | Life | Sui Generis | 1972 |
| 20° | High dirt | Andrés Calamaro | 1997 |
| 26° | Serú Girán | Serú Girán | 1978 |
| 29° | The Bible | Vox Dei | 1971 |
| 32° | Infame | Babasonics | 2003 |
Rolling Stone United States: the 10 best Latin American rock albums
On November 22, 2012, Rolling Stone USA magazine published a list of the 10 best Latin American rock albums. Below are the Argentine albums that made the list:
| Position | Disco | Artist | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2. | Fabulous Calavera | The Fabulous Cadillacs | 1997 |
| 4° | Dream Stereo | Soda Stereo | 1995 |
| 5° | Infame | Babasonics | 2003 |
Rolling Stone Argentina: the 100 best albums
In April 2007, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the release of the song "La balsa", Rolling Stone Argentina magazine published a list of the 100 best Argentine rock albums. Here are the top 10:
| Position | Disco | Artist | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.o | Artaud | Rabid fish | 1973 |
| 2. | Modern applications | Charly García | 1983 |
| 3.o | Manal | Manal | 1970 |
| 4.o | Oktubre | Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota | 1986 |
| 5.o | Split by happiness | Sumo | 1985 |
| 6.o | Almond | Almond | 1969 |
| 7. | The era of the Boludez | Split | 1993 |
| 8. | Thirty Minutes of Life | Moris | 1970 |
| 9. | Animal Song | Soda Stereo | 1990 |
| 10. | High dirt | Andrés Calamaro | 1997 |
Rolling Stone Argentina: the 10 best live albums
In October 2007 Rolling Stone Argentina magazine published a list with the 10 best live albums of Argentine rock.
| Position | Disco | Artist | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.o | Live rocks | Miguel Mateos | 1985 |
| 2. | Grandfathers in the Opera | The Grandfathers of Nothing | 1985 |
| 3.o | Vivo | Virus | 1986 |
| 4.o | In action | Riff | 1983 |
| 5.o | White noise | Soda Stereo | 1987 |
| 6.o | I don't want to go so crazy. | Serú Girán | 1981 |
| 7. | Direct | Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota | 1992 |
| 8. | From the head with Bersuit Vergarabat | Bersuit Vergarabat | 2002 |
| 9. | Exacts | Luis Alberto Spinetta | 1990 |
| 10. | Unbearably alive | The Renga | 2001 |
Rolling Stone Argentina: user vote for the 10 best albums
On June 3, 2007, and as a continuation of the aforementioned list, Rolling Stone Argentina magazine published another list, made with the results of a vote by users of its website, with the 10 best albums of Argentine rock.
| Position | Disco | Artist | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.o | Oktubre | Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota | 1986 |
| 2. | Animal Song | Soda Stereo | 1990 |
| 3.o | Artaud | Rabid fish | 1973 |
| 4.o | Love after love | Fito Páez | 1992 |
| 5.o | High dirt | Andrés Calamaro | 1997 |
| 6.o | Modern applications | Charly García | 1983 |
| 7. | The Bible | Vox Dei | 1971 |
| 8. | Split by happiness | Sumo | 1985 |
| 9. | Brutal honesty | Andrés Calamaro | 1999 |
| 10. | Almond | Almond | 1969 |
The 100 Greatest Guitarists According to Rolling Stone Magazine
In its September 2012 issue, Rolling Stone magazine made a list of the 100 best Argentine rock guitarists, where different voices of the genre voted, such as Carca, Flavio Cianciarulo, Juanse, Lito Nebbia, Gustavo Santaolalla, among others.
- Pappo (The Grandfathers of Nothing, The Cats, Pappo's Blues, Aeroblus and Riff).
- Ricardo Mollo (Sumo y Divididos).
- David Lebón (Pappo's Blues, Human Color, Rabid Fish and Serú Girán).
- Luis Alberto Spinetta (Almond, Rabid, Invisible Fish, Spinetta Jade and Desert Partners).
- Claudio Gabis (The Grandfathers of Nothing, Manal and Billy Bond and La Pesada del Rock and Roll).
- Skay Beilinson (The Confraternity of the Solar Flower, Patricio Rey and its Redonditos of Ricota and Skay and Los Fakires).
- Gustavo Cerati (Soda Stereo).
- Claudio Marciello (Almafuerte).
- Ricardo Soulé (Vox Dei).
- Gustavo «Chizzo» Nápoli (La Renga).