| Argentina's ruthless Proceso dictatorship (1976--1983) used censorship, abduction and torture in an Orwellian attempt to establish absolute control over public expression and eradicate all dissent. The Proceso intended to supplant the "culture of subversion" with a new national mono-culture and accompanying redefined language. In contrast to this extreme attempt to eliminate diversity, popular music is generally a nucleus around which diverse discursive practices can form, providing alternatives to official discourse. Given this potential of popular music for the creation of meaning and identity, what happens when such an extreme form of authoritarian power attempts to completely eradicate unofficial discourses and practices and thus completely re-write the national culture?;This study focuses on Argentina's rock nacional music genre in the context of the Proceso dictatorship, and explores the struggle between the country's state and its citizens for control over identity, language and memory. The study is based upon: testimonial sources (interviews with journalists, producers and artists, and listeners); archival sources (music magazines and surveys of the period); and analysis of primary texts (musical and lyrical). I highlight the potential of popular music for the creation of meaning and identity, and the extent to which popular music and its associated practices are intertwined with other elements of society. I argue that rock nacional texts were a nucleus around which to form alternative identities, that they constituted an alternative medium in which to reappropriate language, and finally in the post-dictatorship, became a cathartic storytelling mode that enabled the re-imagining of a new, demilitarized, Argentina.;I further posit that the rock nacional phenomenon had a collaborative authorship, articulated through the (often unintended and unwilling) interaction of many individuals and institutions, including state, artists and public. Both the military men so demonized by many Argentines as well as the rock musicians they so idolized, were in reality all actors in the same social drama. Rock nacional was a product of the interactive "contributions" of all the actors. |
