Music of Argentina
Argentina is known mostly for the tango, which developed in Buenos Aires and surrounding areas, as well as Montevideo, Uruguay. Folk, pop and classical music are also popular, and Argentine artists like Mercedes Sosa and Atahualpa Yupanqui contributed greatly to the development of nueva canción. Argentine rock has also led to a defiant rock scene in Argentina.
Folk music
Folk music—called música folklórica or folklore in Spanish, from transliteration of the English folklore—comes in many forms, developed in different parts of Argentina with different European and indigenous influences. Traditional folk music increased in importance during the protest movement against the military dictatorship and the community divisions of the 1970s, with artists like Mercedes Sosa and Atahualpa Yupanqui contributing to the development of nueva canción. Soledad Pastorutti ('La Sole') has brought folklore to a new audience, and in the early twenty-first century Juana Molina has proposed a fusion between electronic music and folklore with ambient sounds, a gentle voice and short zambas.
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Andean music
Main article: Andean music
In northern Argentina, on the border with Bolivia and Chile, the music of the Andes reflects the spirit of the land with the sounds of local wind, percussion and string instruments. Jaime Torres is a famous Argentine charango player.
Chacarera
Main article: Chacarera
Santiago del Estero's Chacarera folk dance is accompanied by Spanish guitar and bombo legüero. The name originates from the word "chacra" ("farm"), as it was usually danced in rural areas, but it slowly made its way to the cities of that area.
Chamamé
Main article: Chamamé
Accordion-based Chamamé arose in the northeastern region Corrientes, an area with many settlers from Poland, Austria and Germany. Polkas, Mazurkas and Waltzes came with these immigrants, and soon mixed with the Spanish music already present in the area. Chamamé was not very popular internationally in the 20th century, though some artists, such as Argentine superstar Raúl Barboza, became popular later in the century. In the early twenty-first century Chango Spasiuk, a young Argentine of Ukrainian descent from Misiones province, has once again brought chamamé to international attention.
Popular music
Tango
Main articles: Tango music
Tango arose in the brothels, bars and port areas of Buenos Aires, where waves of Europeans poured into the country mixing various forms of music. The result, tango, came about as a fusion of disparate influences including:
- Old Milonga - songs of the rural gauchos (originating in Andalucia)[1]
- Habanera - Cuban music
- Polka and Mazurka - Slav music
- Contradanse - Spanish music
- Flamenco - from Andalucia
- Italian folk music
Those mixtures of various European rhythms, brought to the Río de la Plata (Argentina and Uruguay) by traders and settlers. [2] The Milonga dance was born of these influences, slowly evolving into mordern tango. By the 1930s, tango had changed from a dance focused music to one of lyric and poetry, with singers like Carlos Gardel, Roberto Goyeneche, Hugo del Carril, Tita Merello, and Edmundo Rivero. The golden age of tango (1930 to mid-1950s) mirrored the golden age of Jazz and Swing in the United States, featuring large orchestral tango groups too, like the bands of Osvaldo Pugliese, Anibal Troilo, Francisco Canaro, and Juan D'Arienzo. After 1955, as the Nueva canción and Argentine rock movements stirred, tango became more intellectual and listener-oriented, led by Astor Piazzolla. Today tango continues to produce new exponents, has experienced a major revival, and the rise of neo-tango is a global phenomenon with groups like Tanghetto, Bajofondo and Gotan Project.
Argentine rock
Main article: Argentine rock
Argentine rock, or Rock Nacional, is a distinctive form of Argentine rock and roll. It is said to have begun in about 1965, when a Beatlesque group called Los Shakers, from Uruguay, arrived in Argentina. At the time, popular music was a style called ritmo latino, a mainstream pop genre.
Bohemian hangouts in Buenos Aires and Rosario were the cradles of the genre, relying heavily on British rock influences, but in the mid-1960s musicians began exploring local musical roots, creating a local sound. Los Shakers brought a hard-edged form of rock to the country, and musicians like Litto Nebbia of Los Gatos began recording their own kind of rock. Los Gatos' La Balsa, released early in their year, established the distinctive sound of Argentine rock. By 1970 Argentine rock had become established among middle class youth (see Almendra, Sui Generis, Crucis). In the 80s, Argentine rock bands became popular across Latin America and elsewhere (Soda Stereo, Enanitos Verdes, Sumo, Fabulosos Cadillacs, Virus, Andres Calamaro). Today it is a staple of popular culture with many sub-genres: underground, pop oriented, and some associated with the working class (La Renga, Divididos, Los Redonditos). Some of those bands enjoy crossover popularity with listeners of cumbia villera. Current popular bands include: Los Piojos, Babasónicos, La Renga, Las Pelotas, Divididos, Attaque 77, Intoxicados, and Bersuit. Argentine rock is the most listened-to music among youth; its influence and success has expanded internationally owing to a rich and uninterrupted evolution.
Some of the most popular Argentine rock musicians of all time are Charly García, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Fito Páez, and Pappo.
Electronic
The electronic parties and shows as Creamfields calls for thousands of young men. Creamfields Buenos Aires hit a record in 2005, beating once more its global equivalents. The 75.000 people that attended to the fifth edition of the most important electronic music festival of the world enjoyed of more than 100 artists among DJs, producers and groups, distributed through 10 different spaces –between tents and Main Stage. Bands of indietronica as Entre Rios or others as Bajofondo Tango Club and Lourdes also they gained popularity. This musical genre is listened by young men of middle, upper middle and upper classes in Argentina.
Pop
Great quantity of pop bands have had a great success, being Bandana the great success of last years that still has not been overcome by any other group, then inside this category but with a touch more electro follows them Miranda! that still has not managed to overcome the success of their antecesors Babasónicos, combining experimentation with glam, Airbag, Juana la Loca and Arbol, combining hardcore with pop and violins; they are some examples of the current scene.
Cumbia
A very important part of recent and contemporary Argentine music, originally derived from the Colombian cumbia, adopted by the lower classes in the bailantas, widespread in the 1990s, and then turning more aggressive and explicit in the 2000s with "shanty town cumbia" (cumbia villera).
In the 1980s, South American migrants brought so-called tropical music to higher prominence in Argentina, a mixture of cumbia (Peruvian and Bolivian style, but originally Colombian), folk rhythms, and Caribbean styles. Around the same time cuarteto in Córdoba, became a major musical genre. Cuarteto and chamamé from Corrientes made it to Buenos Aires alongside tropical music and migrants from the north. All these various musical styles were played in the crowded ballrooms in lower class neighborhoods, and it would eventually give rise to cumbia villera.
The preferred musical style of the shanty towns, its lyrics sometimes parallel those of U.S. rap, concerning the poverty, drugs and crime which are facts of life there. They sometimes include derogatory references of women, but mainly deal with lost love and romance. (popular bands: Yerba Brava, Pibes Chorros, Damas Gratis,Nestor en Bloque).
Cuarteto
Main article: Cuarteto
Cuarteto, or Cuartetazo, is a form of dance music similar to Merengue. It became popular in Argentina during the 1940s, beginning with the genre's namesake and innovator, Cuarteto Leo, and was re-popularized in the 1980s, specially in Córdoba. Cuarteto had a national idol called Rodrigo in the late 90's. The most famous and popular cuarteto singer of all times is La Mona Gimenez, who recorded more than 100 albums (and continues recording), and inspired musicians such as Rodrigo and pretty much every cuarteto musician after him.
References
- Fairley, Jan and Teddy Peiro. "Vertical Expression of Horizontal Desire". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 304-314. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
- Fairley, Jan. "Dancing Cheek to Cheek...". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 315-316. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
- Fairley, Jan. "An Uncompromising Song". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 2: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific, pp 362-371. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
- Latin American Music Styles