Nueva ola

The nueva ola (Spanish for "new wave") was a cultural phenomenon that took place in several Hispanic American countries between the late 1950s and the mid-to-late 1960s, linked to the spread of new musical styles aimed at young people—such as pop, rock and roll and the twist—which "constituted the fundamental channels for the transformation of consumption, leisure, and youth fashions" of the time. It was a regional manifestation of a phenomenon occurring in much of the Western world: the emergence of a new market segment made up of young people with their own habits and shared codes that set them apart from their parents' generation. In countries such as Argentina, young people were introduced to rock and roll music through films like Blackboard Jungle (1955) and Rock Around the Clock (1956)—both featuring music by Bill Haley & His Comets—and quickly adopted it as one of the traits identifying them as an independent social group, along with the use of blue jeans (locally "vaqueros"). The nueva ola was not a homogeneous musical style but encompassed a wide range of genres, including rock and roll, pop, surf rock, romantic ballads and even Latin American music such as bolero and cumbia, constituting a musical scene in which artists, record buyers, record labels, and mass media interacted. Noticing the growing popularity of American rock and roll and pop among young audiences and the commercial potential of adapting them into Spanish, multinational labels—mainly RCA Victor and Columbia Records—promoted the nueva ola in countries such as Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Peru, creating a new set of teen idols while relying on the expansion of mass media, especially radio and television. The figure of these new youth idols followed an international pattern, analogous to the yé-yé phenomenon in France, as well as the cases of Rita Pavone...