The Age of Love – Alt Argentina (part 1) 88-92
by Maximiliano Englebert
Not much is known about Argentina around the world except economic crisis, Maradona, Messi, Tango and that during the ‘80’s, it became the epicenter of pop and rock in Latin America. The fact that Buenos Aires is largely considered a port city gave an advantage to distributors to filter or “gatekeep” the culture and import records that came in from the US, UK, Australia or anywhere in the world. If the lyrics were in English and it wasn't jazz, it would just fall into the category of “rock internacional”. In record stores there was never a distinction between genres, so influences were absorbed without much care. This phenomena would last until the new millennia, when the internet reached pre-teens and physical media became obsolete as websites/blogs became the sole news source for the entire world.
When discussing the growing interest in music in Argentina, it's important to consider that music is really not taught in public schools. You have them but they are basically an hour where students would drink mate and play cards after singing the national anthem or any of the othermarches you have to sing while raising the flag. If it was a more “sophisticated” school you would get a recorder and learn to play “happy birthday”. If you wanted to play an instrument you would have to seek that education on your own after school, be self-taught, or go to a private school with a proper music orientation. This was not a luxury that teenagers could afford or even want to take up. Once you were out of school you either went to college, worked, or did both.
If you had the luxury or chose to play music in Argentina, you had to find a way to play live. Very rarely would a bar pay a band to play. You don't make any money by touring the country unless you are an established act and even then your incomes are limited to gas, food and a mattress and that is if there is any money from ticket sales leftover. If no one shows up or the promoter decides to cancel because someone complained, you go back home empty handed. In Buenos Aires, the venues are separated in different categories based on size, but either way, paying a band to play is a foreign concept (there are some exceptions to the rule but they are few and far between.) When playing in a venue, you get a percentage of ticket sales and that's it. There are artists who can live off of royalties if they manage to have a song play in a TV show or become a staple in the playlist of a radio station that only plays "rock nacional", but that also can become tricky depending on who registered it in SADAIC (the institution that manages copyright laws) The process wasn't simple and would lead to many conflicts for some bands later on.
It's impossible to talk about the ‘90’s without mentioning the chaos that happened between 1988 and 1990. The country went through a huge economic crisis that resulted in years of hyperinflation. I was not living in the country at the time since my parents moved us to the United States until 1990, but would get to see the aftermath when we got back and it was not pretty. Similar to what would happen over a decade later, there was just no money. Most bands disbanded or had members leaving the country. The “darks” or goths were still around but you wouldn't see as many Robert Smith/Siouxsie clones in the streets as in the previous decade. The biggest band in the region who best represented this era and the country itself were Soda Stereo who at this point were too big to fail. In 1988 the trio lead by Gustavo Cerati released Doble Vida, an album recorded with the highest end gear in New York and even though they were completely disconnected from what was going on in the country while recording it, the expensive music video for the song “Ciudad de la furia” (possibly the best song on that record) managed to depict an accurate portrayal of life in Buenos Aires and would become the soundtrack for those tumultuous years. However as stated previously, people were too busy trying to eat to care about buying albums.
Still, something new managed to come out in that era. A compilation called Invasion 88 gathered material from the early punk bands that didn’t get a chance to record as well as songs from newer bands, further validating the punk underground that never got to surface. Among the new acts were Attaque 77 who would have a massive hit in 1990 with “Hacelo por mi'' bringing punk to the masses and the first punk heartthrob in it’s singer. Their music was basically Ramones worship but writing love songs helped bring success. The other band was Flema and they represented the total opposite. Loud, messy and ugly kids from the slums that would sing about drugs, getting wasted, being stabbed and all sorts of mayhem with no sugar coating or even attempts to make something commercial (they refused to rehearse for example.) The band would have a major impact later on until the bizarre death of Ricky Espinosa, the singer and leader of the pack. Two bands that were not included in that compilation since they already had their own material out, but would later become considered important were Massacre Palestina (later renamed just Massacre) with their attempt at surf-punk that accidentally spawned a unique brand of emo, and Todos Tus Muertos, who were part of the first punk movement and first to incorporate reggae to their sound. The latter had already released their s/t debut and even had a minor hit with “Gente que No”, but it took them almost 5 years to record their follow-up.
As the 1990s started, a charismatic new president took some extreme measures to stop the ongoing crisis and started bringing some stability with new hard measures (that would eventually bring disaster as the decade progressed). The dark depressing ‘80s were over, and a party had begun. Cheap newspaper style publications inspired by the NME started to appear, namely among them 13/20, the name alone made it clear that it was a teen magazine, but the staff was older and well aware of what was going on in the rest of the world. With this, print journalism started to introduce the idea of independent releases. The onset of an underground musical revolution, the tape trading scene became bigger than ever. The introduction of the concept of “produccion Independiente” (self released albums on tape) surfaced and because getting a proper vinyl release (or CDs later) was unthinkable, it became the natural route for bands from then on. Since it was easier to make your own demo tapes, make up a cover and sell them, it is estimated that more than 1000 albums made this way between 1988 and 1992 are lost forever. However it’s impossible to know an exact number, especially since the amount of bands formed after ‘92 was massive.
Journalists, DJs and scenesters started catching wind of UKs “summer of love” and wasted no time hyping this new movement in clubs, radio stations and new TV shows that would play music videos copying MTVs format. They would pick up the UK and European charts (with the inevitable US top 20, minus country and rap), and you would see videos for Technotronic, Happy Mondays, Prince, KLF, Paula Abdul, Ride, Bon Jovi, Jesus & Mary Chain, etc, all scrambled up. Even if each show tried to have it’s own personality, they would push the records that were being published by local labels, Inspiral Carpets and Jesus Jones (who still have a fan base here) being some of the best examples.
Meanwhile, an Ibiza connection was made and italo-house (that was always present but never explored), new-beat and the whole Ibiza sound flooded discos all over the country. A super campy pure Ibiza product like Loco-Mia had massive fan clubs and Confettis almost became locals as fast as possible. New labels like OidMortales would emerge and would focus on the genre. They would become crucial for the rave explosion in the later half of the decade, but they initially started out by releasing made up artists covering old obscure songs to 4/4 beats, even making a TV presenter the first Argentine “rapper” (Jazzy Mel) and publishing the first Latin house act The Sacados, who wrote their own material. Specifically their debut album is the epitome of the era, encapsulating everything that was going on during those years. As a matter of fact, this part could easily be covered using their lyrics that made references to “throwing away your Led Zeppelin t-shirts and dressing like a modern boy” or partying all night long as expressed by their biggest hit “Ritmo de la Noche”.
In the “rock” department you had the purists reviving blues with a renewed street bite like like Memphis la Blusera, some hilarious attempts at late hair-metal/Bon Jovi like Bravo and Los Guarros, leftovers from the 80s goth underground trying to re-adapt their sound (and mostly failing) and not much else in record stores. There just wasn’t a demand for local products since imports were flooding the market.
During this time more music publications emerged, even if they were just a couple of pages in Friday's newspaper where all the gigs for the weekend were published. They would post articles like “If you like Jesus & Mary Chain you will love these bands” or, “what is ethereal rock” that would list lots of shoegaze (or noise-pop as it was called back then) and other alternative acts, alongside entire articles about Pixies, Jane’s Addiction, Faith No More and of course The Cure and Depeche Mode.
In the meantime, Soda Stereo would regain popularity thanks to their 1990 album “Cancion Animal'' an album that would dominate the charts for that entire year. It went into a more straightforward rock direction with psychedelic touches (influenced by The Screaming Trees as Gustavo would later admit.) Many consider it their best album by far, and it transcended all audiences, even those who hated them and the lead single “De Musica Ligera” is still featured in every top 20 of best “rock en español” songs published. It was their best selling album and they would follow it up quickly with an EP that included the heavily influenced Stone Roses track “No Necesito Verte''. Its six minute music video consisted of a naked girl walking around and they demanded networks to play it in its entirety. Partially as an ego-trip, partially a way to piss off their label since they were moving to Sony Music.
Around this time TV shows that mostly focused on music-videos and/or youth culture started getting bands to play live. Most of them were the usual blues-rock affair, the pop-rock that dominated the years prior (Man Ray, Los Romeos, Fito Paez), alongside a reformed Todos Tus Muertos dressed like Jane's Addiction clones and playing “Se Que No Vas a Volver”, the closest to a pop song in “Nena de Hiroshima''. Their album had mixed some of the songs that didn't make it to the debut due to being too dark with repetitive heavy drone pieces and some strange attempts at “hits”. It’s a bleak album that manages to sound “off” and yet it might be the best post-punk record ever made in this country even if it wasn't their intention.
Illya Kuryaki and the Valderramas were still seen as a cute attempt to rap by the 14 year old sons of legendary musician Luis Alberto Spinetta and journalist Eduardo Marti. They had yet not become a “serious” band in the media and the scene, but that would later change. Among them was a band that seemed like a novelty act with a cheesy 3-chord song called “Kanishka” from a radio compilation. With two singers dressed in weird costumes breaking stuff in the studios and not taking interviews seriously, that band was called Los Brujos. A former gender-swapped B-52s inspired garage-pop group that lost their female singer and their bass player (who went to join Babasonicos) recruited a new one that came from a punk background and hardened their sound... a little. The song became a massive hit and they were everywhere during the summer of '91-’92. Knowing what was going on in the music scene worldwide (“Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the major success of The Red Hot Chili Peppers in the region), record labels looked at them with a big smile on their face.
It's necessary at this point to re-visit in depth how concerts functioned in Buenos Aires and pretty much all of Argentina back them. You had small pubs that could fit 100 people at max in one hand, and in the other you had the big venues like the legendary Cemento, El Dorado or Die Schule that were basically warehouses with a PA that started as alternative dance clubs. Those venues started hosting bands since they could fit more people inside them and started setting up “festivals” where between 5 to 10 bands would play as opposed to the 3 band rule of the smaller clubs. The shows would start around 2am and might end at 11am in the morning. The owners would try to book similar bands to avoid audiences clashing but inevitably there would be some crossover.
In early 91, an influx of veteran alternative bands started coming in who had started in the late ‘80s. This includes groups like the aforementioned Los Brujos, Las Canoplas, El Lado Salvaje and Juana la Loca (who just replaced their The Cure influences to become JAMC clones.) In addition, Todos Tus Muertos, Massacre Palestina (renamed just Massacre with a new lineup) and Los Visitantes appeared alongside new acts who were still in their teens. This includes the recently formed Martes Menta, Tia Newton, Demonios De Tasmania, Avant Press, and most famously Babasonicos, who could barely play but had the exact attitude needed to push a new genre to the media.
Gustavo Cerati and his partner in crime Daniel Melero who was considered “the godfather of techno” in Latin America (a fact that is absolutely debatable, and would eventually be proven false) since he was part of Los Encargados, one of the first “synth pop” bands to record an album back in the ‘80s. They would be at those gigs watching carefully while taking queues for “Colores Santos”, a collaborative album released for the summer of ‘92 that would not only mix electronics with rock, but would also spawn a hit single with “How ya no soy yo”, they acted as the gatekeepers of the new styles that were coming up (it’s not a coincidence that the girl in the music video, Ruth Infarinato would become the host of MTV Latinos own 120 Minutes and Alternative Nation) and their presence alone drew more people to go to check out those bands. Los Brujos got signed almost immediately and Melero wanted to produce them as they had just lost their original female vocalist and his wife wanted to start a musical career. She became the replacement on a few of the older songs they included on their debut Fin De Semana Salvaje. The album sold decently well but received mostly negative reviews, mainly because it was very noticeable that their old material (silly garage-pop tunes) just didn’t work as well as the ones with the new lineup. Still, they managed to have another hit with “Cancion del Cronopio” which was a better reflection of their new style and a proper introduction to the band's sound.
By the time the Nirvana phenomenon gained enough steam, Soda Stereo had already planned a series of concerts mid 1992 to promote their attempt at shoegaze and now popular album “Dynamo” (it was a complete flop at the time.) To open those shows they invited Babasonicos, Martes Menta, Juana La Loca (all who were already signed by Sony) Los Brujos and Tia Newton, who broke up before releasing anything. A few months later Nirvana came down from Rock In Rio and played their only show in Argentina. Los Brujos opened and got a great reception. Afterwards Kurt’s chosen band performed; an all-girl US band called Calamity Jane. The audience didn't like them and let them know (the rest is well documented in the Incesticide CD booklet.) To this day people would claim that as a revenge they would steal “kanishka” for “very ape”. There are similarities between both songs but if the story is true it's highly debatable.
Around this time the term Rock Sonico started circulating, a genre that mixed grunge, shoegaze and madchester together. The press loved it and the label that signed those bands relished in it even more. It took over teen fashion and everywhere you looked you would see guys dressed like skaters with flannel shirts, a My Bloody Valentine t-shirt, baggy pants with All-stars. Girls were wearing their grandmas clothes with colored hair and Stereolab pins attached to their already brownish vintage hats. It wasn't rare to see someone wearing a Jesus & Mary Chain t-shirt with Pearl Jam shorts and a batik RHCP hat. They were part of something new, even though the term was partially made up, it created a feeling of belonging to lots of teens.
The debut album from Martes Menta was released with a big promotion and it immediately flopped. Their sound was already dated by ‘92 and the band was already leaning to a much harder direction in their live shows. By the time it came out the much better second album was shelved since the band broke up as soon as it was finished. All of their members would go on to form new bands. Pez, Menos Que Cero, Nativo Radioactivo and a newly reformed Avant Press became just as relevant, if not moreso. Babasonicos’ debut “Pasto” did much better with barely any promotion. The music video for “D-generacion” was put into heavy rotation along with “Sobre la Hierba” from the same album. They became word of mouth generational anthems and few bands encapsulate that era like them. It's not surprising that they outlived all the other artists mentioned in this article and are still going strong.
During this period, marijuana was now available in the country and became immensely popular among teens. Cocaine was always available and dominated the music scene since the heyday of tango (Roberto Goyeneche, one of the few survivors of the first generation, did coke on stage until his death.) LSD and pharmaceuticals were available but reserved for experts and long time users that could teach new generations on how to obtain them. As much as rock documentaries try to make people believe, it was impossible to find and the hippie generation did not actually have access to it (except the artists with a very wealthy background), unlike the other drugs mentioned. But by the start of the ‘90s it was cheaper, safer, available for almost everyone and illegal, inspiring countless dumb lyrics.
The new “genre” just had a problem, it didn't have enough bands. It’s true that Los Brujos and Babasonicos sounded similar, but they had shared several members in the past. Juana La Loca and Martes Menta were softer and definitely not “grunge”. Simply put, there was not enough material to create a musical genre even if some artists took ownership and carried the torch for that sound. However, there were also a lot of bands that could potentially sell records but didn't fit the mold. A new name was created, Nuevo Rock Argentino to encapsulate them and start promotional tours or open for international artists that would be visiting the country on a constant basis. So many created in fact that The Sacados wrote an entire “rap” song in 1994 called “Paren de Venir” (stop coming) just naming all the bands that played here during those years. That list is quite long.
Soon enough there was new media out. Record stores, music shops and TV channels thrived from 1990 to ‘92. Cable lived mostly on networks from Latin America and you could catch a glimpse of what was going on in the rest of the continent, but in that year both MuchMusic and MTV Latino hit cable. The amount of media stimulation that a small town kid in the middle of nowhere experienced was insane. Add to that, the fact that parents could now buy their kids instruments for their birthday meant the amount of bands formed in 1993 alone must have been more than in the whole history of Argentina. The party was in full swing. All this was thanks to the economic plan that began in 1991 with a new currency that would be locked to 1 peso = 1 US dollar, creating a false sense of prosperity and the country was living an economic boom, one that would never be seen again, because it would slowly destroy the country as the decade progressed, but during the time period covered by this first installment, all seemed fine.