Modernity and Colombian Identity in the Music of Carlos Vives y La Provincia

Travels to the Land of Oblivion

Manuel Sevilla; Juan Sebastián Ochoa; Carolina Santamaría-Delgado and Carlos Eduardo Cataño Arango - Translated by Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, a great number of TV shows and music acts blossomed in Colombia, all of which resorted to regional identity as the narrative core for a renewed idea of national identity. Among them was “Clasicos de la provincial,” an album by Colombian singer Carlos Vives and his band La Provincia (1993), which marked the beginning of a successful career that has spanned nearly three decades. Vives´s work not only earned much deserved recognition in the musical industry from the beginning, but most importantly, has come to be renowned as a landmark in the cultural history of Colombia. This book is the first in-depth analysis focused on the creation and production process of Vives´s work, its main musical and literary features, and its influence on other musicians and in the construction of a narrative about national identity that is still relevant today. More than fifty interviews with Vives and members of the band, musicians, journalists, radio programmers, musical producers, and other key players of the process, together with an extensive review of hundreds of documents, are the sources for this book, which earned its authors a national award in Colombia (2015).

Lexington Books

Pages: 360 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-1-7936-2141-2 • Hardback • July 2020 • $133.00 • (£102.00)

978-1-7936-2142-9 • eBook • July 2020 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: Music, Culture, and Identity in Latin America

Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Caribbean & Latin American Studies, Music / Genres & Styles / Latin, Social Science / World / Latin America, Social Science / Culture

Modernity and Colombian Identity in the Music of Carlos Vives y La Provincia

Travels to the Land of Oblivion

Hardback

eBook

Summary

By the late 1980s and early 1990s, a great number of TV shows and music acts blossomed in Colombia, all of which resorted to regional identity as the narrative core for a renewed idea of national identity. Among them was “Clasicos de la provincial,” an album by Colombian singer Carlos Vives and his band La Provincia (1993), which marked the beginning of a successful career that has spanned nearly three decades. Vives´s work not only earned much deserved recognition in the musical industry from the beginning, but most importantly, has come to be renowned as a landmark in the cultural history of Colombia. This book is the first in-depth analysis focused on the creation and production process of Vives´s work, its main musical and literary features, and its influence on other musicians and in the construction of a narrative about national identity that is still relevant today. More than fifty interviews with Vives and members of the band, musicians, journalists, radio programmers, musical producers, and other key players of the process, together with an extensive review of hundreds of documents, are the sources for this book, which earned its authors a national award in Colombia (2015).

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 360 • Trim: 6½ x 9½

978-1-7936-2141-2 • Hardback • July 2020 • $133.00 • (£102.00)

978-1-7936-2142-9 • eBook • July 2020 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

Series: Music, Culture, and Identity in Latin America

Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Caribbean & Latin American Studies, Music / Genres & Styles / Latin, Social Science / World / Latin America, Social Science / Culture

Author

Manuel Sevilla is professor in the Department of Art, Architecture and Design at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali.

Juan Sebastián Ochoa is professor in the music department at Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín.

Carolina Santamaría-Delgado is associate professor in musicology and ethnomusicology at Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín.

Carlos Eduardo Cataño Arango is PhD student at Universidad Nacional de La Plata.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: Concepts and Context

Chapter 1: Conceptual Aspects

Chapter 2: Travel Itineraries: The Eight Albums

Part II: Analysis of the Production Process

Chapter 3: The Sonic and the Musical

Chapter 4: Texts, Images, and Mise-en-Scène

Part III: Echoes

Chapter 5: Carlos Vives and La Provincia “On the Air”: Youth-Oriented Radio Stations

Chapter 6: Some Appropriations: “New” Columbian Music and Tropipop

Chapter 7: Conclusions

Epilogue

Appendix: Methodological, Technical, and Ethical Aspects

Works Cited

About the Authors

Reviews

Meticulously researched and ambitiously multidisciplinary, this long-overdue study examines Carlos Vives and La Provincia, one of the most seminal and influential musical projects in the recent history of Colombian music, from a broad variety of approaches, from social history and cultural studies to sound technology and marketing. Sure to become a central text in the academic scholarship of popular music in Latin America.
— Michael Birenbaum Quintero, Boston University