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La Nueva Canción Chilena

La nueva canción provided the musical soundtrack to Chile's experiment with socialism and its struggles against the tyranny of military dictatorship. Featuring poetic, socially-conscious lyrics sung to music performed on Latin American folkloric instruments it became emblematic throughout Latin America as the sound and style of the political left in the 1970s and 1980s. To learn more about the musical genre known as the Chilean New Song, click on the links below.

Nueva Canción Chilena, by Juan Pablo González.   Entry from  Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World, Volume IX, Genres: Caribbean and Latin America, ©2014 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. Posted with permission of the publisher.

“The New Song: A Fruit of Its Times,” by Marisol García

Recuerda con amor y odio, German documentary on the Chilean New Song, produced in 1974 (in German and Spanish, with Spanish subtitles)

Listen to some emblematic songs performed by the leading New Song artists.

Quilapayún: El pueblo unido jamás será vencido/The People United Will Never Be Defeated

Inti-Illimani: Himno de la Unidad Popular/Hymn of the Popular Unity Movement

Isabel Parra: Al centro de la injusticia/At the Center of Injustice

Rolando Alarcón: Si somos americanos/If We Are Americans

Patricio Manns: Arriba en la cordillera/Up in the Mountains

Isabel y Ángel Parra: Yo defiendo mi tierra/I Defend My Land

Illapu: Candombé para José/Candombé for José

Inti-Illimani : Vuelvo/I Return