Music as Political Actor in Latin America

• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X17742899
• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Rose Muzio
• Date: 01 November 2018
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 223, Vol. 45 No. 6, November 2018, 171–174

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X17742899

© 2017 Latin American Perspectives

171

Book Review

Music as Political Actor in Latin America

by

Rose Muzio

J. Patrice McSherry Chilean New Song: The Political Power of Music, 1960s–1973.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015.

Lauren Shaw (ed.) Song and Social Change in Latin America. Lanham, MD: Lexington

Books, 2013.

Pablo Vila (ed.) The Militant Song Movement in Latin America: Chile, Uruguay, and

Argentina. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014.

“Poetic, combative, lyrical, militant, romantic, committed, idealistic, inspirational,

and hauntingly beautiful . . . la Nueva Canción Chilena, or Chilean New Song, is all of

these.” J. Patrice McSherry’s opening words in Chilean New Song: The Political Power of

Music, 1960s–1973, capture the sentiments of millions of people around the world. Her

compelling book introduces readers to the emotional and political power of the cultural

movement that stirred generations of people in Latin America and the world during a

revolutionary period in Chile (see also McSherry, 2017). It is unique among the works

under review in that it focuses on the interaction of music and politics from the 1960s

to the coup that overthrew the Allende government in 1973. The edited volumes of

Lauren Shaw, Song and Social Change in Latin America, and Pablo Vila, The Militant Song

Movement in Latin America: Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina, expand both the temporal and

the geographic scope of analyses of the music known variously as nueva canción, canto

nuevo, canción popular, and canción protesta with essays by scholars of the arts, culture,

literature, sociology, political science, and history. Their common focus, similar to

McSherry’s, is the work of multigenerational artists who create and perform for social

change. The socially conscious music that has evolved in both urban and rural settings

speaks to the conditions of the poor and working classes—indigenous people, Afro-

descendants, industrial workers, and peasants—and reflects the cultural and demo-

graphic particularities of the nations in which it emerges. For most of the contributors

to these books, the protest music born in the mid-twentieth century was a vehicle for

including marginalized voices and histories in social and political dialogue, inspiring

movements for radical change and socialism in Latin America despite the best efforts

of brutal regimes to censor and eradicate its influence. (A notable exception is Pablo Vila

[in his introduction], who seems far less enthusiastic about the movements inspired by

what he calls the “militant song movement” in Latin America.) The creation of music as

social protest persists in the work of contemporary artists in old, new, and hybrid forms

as the soundtrack for movements for social justice today.

McSherry’s book is theoretically insightful and empirically grounded in the struc-

tural and historical conditions that gave rise to New Song and the popular, socialist-

leaning movement that brought Allende to power in 1970. The music was not only a

reflection of social conditions but a main actor in the mass movement for economic,

political, and social justice. McSherry intertwines a chronological view of the music’s

Rose Muzio is an associate professor of politics at the State University of New York College at Old

Westbury. Her book Radical Imagination, Radical Humanity (2017) traces the origins and evolution

of El Comité-MINP, one of the most enduring organizations of the Puerto Rican left in the United

States in the 1970s. She thanks the editors of Latin American Perspectives for their reviews.

742899LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X17742899Latin American PerspectivesMuzio / Music as Political Actor in Latin America

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