Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music
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Brazil, and Uruguay. Despite its location in southern South America, Argentina
has been strongly influenced by European music and culture due to an influx of
immigrants mostly from Spain and Italy in the late 1800s. The European presence
is still reflected in the population demographics in Argentina today, which is an
overwhelming 97 percent white, and just 3 percent mestizo, Amerindian, or other.
Argentina is not only more Westernized but also more urbanized than many
other countries in South America. It has several major cities including its capital,
Buenos Aires. As a result of this developed and autonomous character, it was one
of the first countries in Latin America to establish copyright for composers and lyri-
cists. Because of this musical environment, Argentina’s history of popular music
and its popular music industry is one of the longest, and comprises a variety of rural
and urban genres and styles. Argentine musicians were recording folkloric styles
from various regions of the country by the second half of the 1900s. Unique urban
and mass-mediated genres were inspired by and developed out of these folk mate-
rials and have played an important role in Argentina’s evolving national identities.
The tango , perhaps the best-known Argentine musical genre internationally, has
over a century of history that is both a fundamental part of the local musical and
cultural imagination and is also deeply intertwined with foreign musical tastes
and influences. Argentina has also been one of the leading contributors to the de-
velopment of rock en español , outselling the rock music of every other country,
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except the United States and United Kingdom. Perhaps just as importantly, from
the 1970s onward, many of the most prominent artists in each of these three major
genres, folk, rock, and tango, have crossed or blurred these genre boundaries, cre-
ating urban popular music that reflects a distinct local identity while, nonetheless,
engaging the processes and aesthetics of international rock and pop music.
While never attaining the international level of diffusion that rock or tango has, a
number of regional or local popular genres have attained a similar degree of popu-
larity and importance within Argentina. Most notable among these local styles are
cuarteto , a style of tropical music influenced by Caribbean genres and especially
popular in and around Córdoba province; the polka -influenced chamamé in the
northeastern provinces; and several local variants on the international cumbia .
Folkloric Music
One of the founding figures in transforming the rural and largely oral regional tra-
ditions of Argentina into a substantial commercial music culture nationally and in-
ternationally was Andrés Chazarreta (1876–1960). An impresario and principally
self-taught guitarist, Chazarreta formed a theatrical troupe in Santiago del Estero
to perform the folk dances and songs of the region, and in 1921 brought it to the
capital city with great success. He was also an active collector and included in the
company’s repertoire regional material he gathered on national tours.
Another early figure who would gain importance as a composer, singer, guitar-
ist, and lyricist was Atahualpa Yupanqui (1908–1992). Born in the interior of
Buenos Aires province, Yupanqui moved with his family to Tucumán province
as a young boy and developed a singular musical style that drew on various rural
traditions, particularly the zamba and milonga. Yupanqui’s affiliation with the Communist party and particularly his anti-Peronist leanings prevented him from
performing or recording for much of the decade of the 1940s, but upon renouncing
his party affiliation in 1952, he regained access to these media. He established an
audience for Argentine folk music abroad, living for a time in France and perform-
ing alongside Edith Piaf. His compositions have since been performed by nearly
every important figure in Argentine folk music of the subsequent decades.
Beginning in the 1940s, Argentina experienced a massive internal migration,
with populations from the rural areas moving toward urban centers. This popula-
tion of immigrant workers, many of whom had an indigenous or mestizo cultural
background, faced a strong degree of discrimination and racism and frequently felt
alienated from the city and its musical expressions such as the tango. As a result,
the changing demographics of the cities opened a space for a new urban and mass-
mediated genre drawing on folk genres such as the zamba, chacarera , and malambo.
Increasingly, the umbrella term folklore began to be used informally to describe this
genre, whether describing new, commercially oriented compositions or repertoire
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Yupanqui, Atahualpa
Atahualpa Yupanqui (1908–1992) was an Argentine poet, guitarist, and song-
writer who assimilated his country’s music and folklore into a unique musi-
cal style that infl uenced the nueva canción movement. Yupanqui sought to
revive traditional culture by infusing his music with the poetry, music, dance,
and folklore of the paisanos of northwestern Argentina and the Altiplano. Al-
though his poetry and songs were considered protest music, his subject mat-
ter was a tribute to the indigenous people he encountered. His music uses folk
rhythms like the chacarera, zamba, and estilo. In his guitar playing, he com-
bined a classically refi ned punteado (plucking) style with a right hand rasgueado
(strumming) technique infl uenced by folk guitarists as in the instrumental gui-
tar piece “La Estancia Vieja,” employing a resonant G major scordatura. His
infl uence is seen in the nueva canción repertoire, including works by Violeta
Parra, Victor Jara, and guitarists like Raúl García Zárate. Because of his
early affi liations with the Communist Party, Yupanqui was forced into exile; in
1967, Yupanqui moved to Paris where he lived until his death. He was a ground-
breaking artist, producing over 1,500 original poems and songs and remaining
infl uential among successive artists.
Further Reading
Luna, Félix, and Atahualpa Yupanqui. Atahualpa Yupanqui. Madrid: Ediciones
Júcar, 1974.
George Torres
from the oral tradition. More precisely, scholars and musicians sometimes differ-
entiate between oral folk-tradition music on the one hand, and the newer urban ex-
pressions based on these traditional forms on the other, calling the latter folklore
de proyección, música de proyección folklórica, or nativismo. Folklore received
the systematic support of the populist Peronist party, including radio distribution
and government-sponsored research institutions dedicated to the documentation of
musical folk culture. This support doubtless contributed to the growing commer-
cial success of the genre. By the mid-1950s, popular folk singer Antonio Tormo re-
corded the first album in any genre to reach one million copies in sales in Argentina.
The 1960s witnessed the greatest expansion and development in folkloric musi-
cal expression, as well as its increasing politicization. This so-called folklore boom
included important groups
centered in Buenos Aires, Mendoza, and Salta. While
the city of Buenos Aires itself was not the birthplace of any of the important figures
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in this movement, it was important as a population center and the home of the major
national recording studios and radio stations. It became the adoptive home from
which many musicians from the provinces could launch their careers and solidify a
regional identity. Some of the best-known groups that followed this pattern during
the boom were vocal quartets who would sing in parallel harmonies, accompanying
themselves on three guitars and a bombo . This model was established and made
most famous by the quartets Los Chalchaleros and Los Fronterizos, both originally
from the province of Salta.
Simultaneously, musicians and artists in other regions of the country formed
groups celebrating local musical and cultural identities. Two important groups dur-
ing this time period came together with this end in mind: in Mendoza a group of
writers, musicians, composers, and dancers formed the Nuevo Cancionero movement in 1963, while in Salta the group La Carpa, begun as a literary salon, later also
attracted musicians and formed a nexus from which many important songs were
created. The Nuevo Cancionero movement coalesced around the figure of poet
Armando Tejada Gómez (1921–1992). Strongly influenced by the work of Ata-
hualpa Yupanqui, the movement’s best known musicians were singer Mercedes
Sosa (b.1935) and Oscar Matus. La Carpa, a literary movement founded in 1944
and dedicated to a celebration of the culture and poetry of the northwest region, in-
cluded important lyricists such as Manuel Castilla and Juan José Botelli. Its impor-
tance in the history of Argentine music is due largely to the incorporation of pianist
and composer Gustavo “Cuchi” Leguizamón (1917–2000). Although Leguizamón
performed infrequently and recorded even less, as a composer he remains one of
the most prevalent influences on contemporary Argentine folklore. His composi-
tions employ daring and dissonant harmonies, showing a familiarity with jazz and
contemporary classical music. Leguizamón’s music has been recorded by nearly
all of the major figures in Argentine folklore, from Los Chalchaleros and Mercedes
Sosa to contemporary figures such as Juan Falú, Liliana Herrero, and Raúl Carnota.
One of the major vehicles for the distribution and consumption of folkloric music
in Argentina, and an arbiter of taste, has been the establishment of local and national
folklore festivals. The most important of these is the National Folklore Festival that
has taken place in Cosquín every January since 1961. It has served as a launching
pad for numerous musicians’ national and international careers, including Mer-
cedes Sosa and folk-pop singer Soledad Pastorutti (b. 1980).
Tango
Tango is a dance, song, and musical form that emerged in the poor suburbs of the
Uruguayan capital of Montevideo and the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires in the
late 19th century. By 1913, it had gained popularity in Paris and London as a salon
dance, and as a result eventually gained acceptance by middle- and upper-class
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Argentine society. It was the most prominent urban popular music and dance of
the Argentine capital from the 1920s through the 1940s, and is often identified as
the national musical symbol of Argentina. During the 1950s and 1960s, tango’s
popularity was eclipsed first by mass-mediated forms of folk music and later by
rock. Nevertheless, newer and more experimental forms of tango music continued
to emerge and be consumed locally and internationally, and there has been a resur-
gence of interest among young Argentines in tango music since 2000.
The tango as a distinct musical style began to consolidate in the last two dec-
ades of the 19th century. Demonstrating the influences of European popular song
and a prevalent rhythmic pattern derived from the Cuban habanera, tangos in this period were typically written in three contrasting sections with the last marked as
a trio . The most typical instrumental ensemble consisted of a trio of flute, guitar, and violin. It was not until the turn of the century that the instrument that would
come to play the most prominent role as the sonic and visual icon of the tango, the
German-made bandoneón, began to appear in tango ensembles. Many early tango musicians were not formally trained in music, and generally pieces were learned
and transmitted orally. Retroactively, this generation of musicians would become
known as la guardia vieja (the old guard), distinguishing them from the next gen-
eration and their stylistic innovations starting around 1920.
Rosendo Mendizábal’s “El entrerriano” (the man from Entre Ríos province) be-
came the first published tango in 1897. During the following decade, tango reached
an increasingly wider public. No longer was it heard only in the academias, public
dance halls in the poor outer suburbs of Buenos Aires that were closely associated
with prostitution, but in other spaces as well. From 1910 to 1920, the most impor-
tant musical innovations in the tango came in the form of new instrumentation: the
piano began to replace the guitar as the most common harmonic and rhythmic in-
strument, and the bandoneón gained prominence.
Pugliese, Osvaldo
Pugliese (1905–1995) was a pioneering composer, pianist, and orquesta
típica director who brought international attention to the tango through
his sophisticated and innovative style. Pugliese played in a variety of ensem-
bles until 1929 when he formed the avant garde group the Vardaro-Pugliese
Sextet. He formed his fi rst tango band, or orquesta típica in 1939, Orquesta
Osvaldo Pugliese, with which he made more than 600 recordings and toured
internationally.
Pugliese performed in the style of Julio Da Caro, incorporating a strong rhyth-
mic beat that inspired dancers. This evolved into his own style, el yumbeado, a
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musical designation taken from his 1943 composition “La Yumba.” It featured
a heavy fi rst beat and a very light second beat (YUM-ba). Still considered a
progressive sound by contemporary tango artists, el yumbeado is the favored
rhythmic pattern for today’s orquesta típcas. Pugliese was also a Communist; he
formed his band as a collective, and was banned from the radio and imprisoned
multiple times for expressing his political views. Despite his confl icts with the
Argentine government, he received many honors during his career.
Further Reading
Luker, Morgan James. “Tango Renovación: On the Uses of Music History in
Post-Crisis Argentina.” Latin American Music Review 28:1 (2007) 68–93.
Rebecca Stuhr
Bandoneonist Vicente Greco coined the term orquesta típica criolla, later short-
ened to orquesta típica, to describe the ensemble he formed in 1911. Greco’s group
included a flute, an instrument that would soon fall out of favor, but his basic con-
figuration of sections of bandoneones and violins, with a piano and contrabass pro-
viding rhythmic and harmonic support, would become the standard instrumentation
The year 1913 marked the explosion of the tango craze in Paris when a more
restrained version of the dance caught on among the elites. This in turn created a
greater interest in tango back in Argentina among the middle classes. By 1920,
tango was being mass produced and sold on a global scale, both on record and in
film.
While the earliest tangos may have had lyrics, few of them survive, and accounts
of the period suggest that they may have been improvised and frequently were
lighthearted and bawdy in character. This practice was to change radically with the
introduction of tango canción, or tango song, and the worldwide success of its best-
known exponent, Carlos Gardel . He created an emotive, dramatic style of singing
that reflected the melancholy, cynical worldview of this new genre.
The period between 1920 and 1940 witnessed a proliferation in all aspects of
tango art, and is frequently referred to as tango’s golden age. Orquestas típicas
grew in size, including sometimes up to five bandoneones and violins. Bandlead-
ers and arrangers worked to develop distinctive styles, and dancers would often
develop strong loyalties to a particular orquesta ’s style.
Public interest in tango waned in the late 1940s and 1950s due to economic
crises, increasingly militarized and authoritarian governments, and other social
changes. Some tango musicians developed smaller-ensemble sounds that were
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meant for the concert hall rather than for the dancer. The best known of these was
Astor Piazzolla (1921–1992), who combined classical training and an interest in
jazz with his background in tango to create a style he termed tango nuevo, or new
tango.
Following the economic crisis of late 2001, there has been a resurgence of inter-
est in tango among young Argentines. This generation of musicians often shows a
strong influence from rock music, and has included electric instruments, drum sets,
and other innovations into the traditional tango ensemble. Electrotango or tango
electrónico, a subgenre of electronic music using tango rhythms, samples, and in-