Rock in Argentina

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 14

Rock in Argentina

PA Buenos Aires An Argentine brand of rock and roll has upstaged the country’s mournful tango as the theme tune of its postwar blues. “Rock national,” the music of the teen-agers who bore the brunt of the Falklands war with Britain, has become a mass phenomenon after being shunned by the tightly-controlled media for years. “Before the war, young . people apparently didn’t exist but then the war came and they had to be recognised because it was young people who fought and died. And when they were recognised, everything they had surfaced, including, rock’n’roll,” said the coun-

try’s best-known rock star, Charly Garcia. Radio disc jockeys, obliged by the war to eliminate English lyrics from programmes, resorted to Span-ish-language rock and converted into overnight celebrities singers formerly branded as long-haired subversives. A human rights campaigner said of the phenomenon: “It’s only natural after a total vacuum of expression for seven years that the kids should expect from rock stars something that goes beyond the musical sphere. They are making demands that would normally be satisfied by political a’ctivity.” , ’’