| Nueva canción | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | Latin American folk music, Guitar music |
| Typical instruments | bass guitar, charango, drums, guitar and panflute |
| Mainstream popularity | 1960s–1980s |
| Regional scenes | |
| Argentina; Bolivia; Chile; Colombia; Cuba; Mexico; Nicaragua; Paraguay; Peru; Portugal; Spain; Uruguay; Venezuela | |
Nueva canción (Spanish for 'new song') is a movement and genre within Latin American and Iberian music of folk music, folk-inspired music and socially committed music. Nueva cancion is widely recognized to have played a powerful role in the social upheavals in Portugal, Spain and Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s.
Nueva cancion first surfaced during the 1960s as "The Chilean New Song" in Chile. The musical style emerged shortly afterwards in Spain and other areas of Latin America where it came to be known under similar names. Nueva canción renewed traditional Latin American folk music, and was soon associated with revolutionary movements, the Latin American New Left, Liberation Theology, hippie and human rights movements due to political lyrics. It would gain great popularity throughout Latin America, and is regarded as a precursor to Rock en español.
Nueva canción musicians often faced censorship, exile, forceful disappearances and even torture by right-wing military dictatorships, as in Francoist Spain, Pinochet's Chile and in Videla and Galtireri's Argentina.
Due to Nueva canción songs' strongly political messages, some of them have been used in recent political campaigns, the Orange Revolution, which used Violeta Parra's Gracias a la vida. Nueva canción has become part of the Latin American and Iberian musical canon but is no longer a mainstream genre, and has given way to other genres, particularly Rock en español.
"La Nueva Canción" also known as the "New Song Movement" or "Trova" is a type of music which is committed to social good.[1] Its musical and lyrical vernacular is rooted in the popular classes and often uses a popularly understood style of satire to maneuver within certain political spaces.[1] characteristically talk about poverty, empowerment, imperialism, democracy, human rights, and religion. There are some hundreds of songs with influences from British and American pop rock that was popular with college youths.
Nueva canción largely draws upon Andean music, Música negra, Spanish music, Cuban music and other Latin American folklore. One of the most important sources for nueva canción is Chilean cueca, a guitar based rural song-form.
The '73 Chilean coup affected the genre's growth in Chile, the country where it was the most popular, because the whole musical movement was forced to go underground. During the days of the coup, Víctor Jara, a well known singer, songwriter and maybe the most popular figure of Nueva Canción, was tortured and killed by the new rightist military regime under General Augusto Pinochet. Other musicians such as Patricio Manns and groups, such as Inti-Illimani and Quilapayún, found safety outside the country. The military government under General Pinochet ruled until 1989 and went as far as to ban many traditional Andean instruments, in order to suppress the Nueva Canción movement. Following the deposition of Pinochet, the Estadio Chile in Santiago de Chile where Víctor Jara was murdered bears his name.
Most songs feature the guitar, and often the quena, zampoña, charango or cajón. The lyrics are typically in Spanish, with some indigenous or local words mixed in.
While Chile has produced the largest number of Nueva Canción artists, its popularity has been great in almost all Spanish speaking Latin American countries, and it enjoyed some popularity in Spain during the 1970s, where it was initially fueled by the political oppression of the Franquist regime, see Nova Canco.
Nueva canción was first identified under its current name in the 1960s in Chile. That movement was pioneered by Violeta Parra and Víctor Jara among others. In Argentina Mercedes Sosa became a prominent exponent of the musical style in the 1960s, although her first album was recorded in 1959. In Cuba Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés and Noel Nicola rose as the foremost figures of the movement in the late 1960s.
In Spain from 1965 onwards Joan Manuel Serrat were among the first musicians embrace the movement. In the Eurovision Song Contest 1968 Serrat attempted to sing in Catalan instead of Spanish which led him to be became banned from Spanish radio for a long period.
During the 1970s Nueva canción musicians and music reached their height of popularity. While Spanish Nueva canción musicians with the fall of the Franco regime finally overcame censorship in the late 1970s musicians from the Southern Cone faced severe censorship and even exile and death by the ruling right-wing military juntas. In 1971 Serrat participated for a second time in the Viña del Mar International Song Festival, this time giving a free concert in favor of the Unidad Popular government in Chile. The Unidad Popular government had enormous support among Nueva canción musicians who composed the campaign song Poder Popular for the presidential election of 1970 and recorded El pueblo unido jamás será vencido in June 1973.
The 1973 Chilean coup d'état marked a break point in the history of Nueva canción, Víctor Jara was murdered by elements of the military, Inti-Illimani, Quilapayún and Patricio Manns went into exile and most Nueva canción music outlawed. Joan Manuel Serrat and Silvio Rodríguez would not play in Chile until the return of democracy in 1990.
After the military junta of Jorge Videla came to power in 1976, the atmosphere in Argentina grew increasingly oppressive. At a concert in La Plata in 1979, Sosa was searched and arrested on stage, along with the attending crowd.[2] Their release came about through international intervention.[3] Banned in her own country, she moved to Paris and then to Madrid.[2][3]
During the 80s, as countries like Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil returned to democracy, many bands would return to their countries. In the case of Chile, however, more groups would continue to go into exile, such as Illapu who left Chile in 1981.
The spread of "new" Caribbean styles like cumbia and merengue and the rise of Spanish language rock in the 80s would not help to improve Nueva canción popularity during the 80s. However, Nueva canción would remain popular in the internal conflict-plagued Central America and in the long-lived military dictatorships of Chile and Paraguay.
While countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay were dictatorships that censored elements of Nueva canción in in the late 1970s and early 1980s the Sandinista movement that rose to power with the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979 welcomed Nueva canción, and several artist gave support to the movement like Mercedes Sosa and Silvio Rodríguez who played in the Abril en Nicaragua concert in 1983.
During the 80s even the protest music niche of Nueva canción would be invaded by bands from other genres like punk-inspired Los Prisioneros, although Latin American music would in general move away from political topics.
Nicaragua Nueva canción musicians are attributed with transmitting social and political messages, and aiding in the ideological mobilisation of the populace during the Sandinista revolution.[1]
In Spain, Nueva Canción reclaimed back the popular folklore of each Spanish region and it had several variations, such as: Nueva canción castellana/Canción del pueblo (Madrid and Castile), Nueva canción aragonesa (Aragón), Nueva canción canaria (Canary Islands) and Manifiesto canción del Sur (Andalusia).[4]