More handpicked essays just for you.
The impact on Cuba of the Cuban revolution
Cuba history brief since castro
The impact on Cuba of the Cuban revolution
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
More than eight million copies sold is a great figure for any music album. However, for a CD labeled with World Music genre, that number means an unprecedented success. The album, named Buena Vista Social Club, has changed the attitude of the world to Cuban music forever. Nonetheless, Buena Vista has been criticized for being a commercial product, and for causing negative effects to Cuban society. Let us discover the story behind this phenomenon from Cuba, and more importantly, explore the music inside this brilliant CD.
Released in 1997, Buena Vista Social Club immediately became an international success and won a Grammy Award in 1998. Around the world, especially in U.S. where the album was welcomed most heartily, Ry Cooder was considered the hero of Cuban music (Hernandez 65). Being the producer of the album, Cooder was assumed to discover a “lost treasure” in Cuban culture. However, Tanya Kateri Hernandez, in an article about Buena Vista Social Club, revealed that Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, not Cooder, was the person “who masterminded and facilitated the collaboration.” (Hernandez 62). Also in this article, it is noted that Juan de Marcos Gonzalez “implicitly acquiesced to Cooder’s propagation of the colonial myth for the purpose of ensuring the commercial success of the collaboration.” (Hernandez 64). Other musicians in the Buena Vista Social Club ensemble followed Gonzalez’s step, as there was hardly another choice for them.
As a result, Buena Vista is basically a commercial product aimed at foreign audience. The album provides fourteen songs of different genres, most of them originated from Afro-Cubans, including son, darzón, bolero and the so-called Latin Jazz. However, the CD should not be considered the representative ...
... middle of paper ...
...rsies surrounding the album, it has been successful in its mission—Introducing Cuban music. Let sum it up by a quote from Juan de Marcos Gonzales “What’s important is that Cuban music has reclaimed its place in the world.” (Corbett 47)
Works Cited
Buena Vista Social Club, Cooder. Buena Vista Social Club. Nonesuch. 1997. CD.
Corbett, Ben. This is Cuba: An Outlaw Culture Survives. Westview Press, 2002. Print.
Hernandez, Tanya Katerí, “The Buena Vista Social Club: The Racial Politics of Nostalgia.” Latino/A Popular Culture. Ed. Michelle Habell-Pallán, Mary Romero. New York: New York University Press, 2002. 61-72. Print.
McMullen, Steve. “Buena Vista Social Club review” AllMusic.com. Web. 27 November 2011.
Walker, Tim. “The Big Question: How did the Buena Vista Social Club become such a global phenomenon?” The Independent. 12 Feb 2009. Web. 20 November 2011.
For centuries, music has been defined by history, time, and place. To address this statement, Tom Zè, an influential songwriter during the Tropicália Movement, produced the revolutionary “Fabrication Defect” to challenge oppression as a result from the poor political and social conditions. On the other hand, David Ramsey discusses, in mixtape vignettes, the role of music to survive in New Orleans’ violent setting. Furthermore, “The Land where the Blues Began”, by Alan Lomax, is a film and perfect example to understand under what musical conditions profound ways of communication are made to stand the hard work of cotton plantations. As a result, music plays a crucial role in the sources’ cultures and its creation relies on particular conditions such as the social
Norma Elia Cantu’s novel “Canícula: Imágenes de una Niñez Fronteriza” (“Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera”), which chronicles of the forthcoming of age of a chicana on the U.S.- Mexico border in the town of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo in the 1940s-60s. Norma Elia Cantú brings together narrative and the images from the family album to tell the story of her family. It blends authentic snapshots with recreated memoirs from 1880 to 1950 in the town between Monterrey, Mexico, and San Antonio, Texas. Narratives present ethnographic information concerning the nationally distributed mass media in the border region. Also they study controversial discourse that challenges the manner in which the border and its populations have been portrayed in the U.S. and Mexico. The canícula in the title symbolizes “The dog days of 1993,” an intense part of summer when the cotton is harvested in South Texas. The canícula also represents summer and fall; also important seasons and concepts of that bridge between child and adulthood. She describes imaginative autobioethnography life growing up on ...
Alvarez demonstrates generational boundary when discussing,“The quince tradition has always been important, but there’s this retroculturation going on right now” (56). Alvarez illustrates that retroculturation is a pattern within the Hispanic community where loss of culture is present for a generation. Alvarez explains how the first generation wants to assimilate in America with their culture, while the second generation has adapted to American norms so they have lost their culture and no longer speak spanish; however, the third generation is born and bred in America and now wants to learn about their hispanic culture by learning Spanish. Teens shop at popular American malls but listen to Spanish radios to embrace diversity (56). Similarly, Munoz is confronted with the issue of generational boundaries when he admits, “I was born in 1972, a generation that learned both English and Spanish” (308). The generation before Munoz grew up speaking only Spanish which causes a barrier between one families generation to the next. Munoz speaks Spanish at home and English in public along with his other cousins who serve as translators for their household. While the second generation before Munoz have no way of following Spanish because they have already adapted to American norms and in some ways lost an important cultural aspect (308). Alvarez and Savan are interconnected because each
Contrary to the traditionalists who dominated the Brazilian music scene, Veloso and his friends wanted to “universalize” and modernize Brazilia...
The importance of these, is that it would bring the attention of the audience. The band performed about 13 songs in total. It was a mixture of Banda songs and Corridos. The band’s songs talked about a lover and the longing of a loved one. The audience reacted in a good way. They were dancing of the floor section and they were cheering on the band, others were singing along with the singers meanwhile, others were recording them on their cell phones.
Print. The. Fernandez, Lilia. "Introduction to U.S. Latino/Latina History. " History - 324 pages.
Martínez, Elizabeth Sutherland. 1998. De Colores Means all of us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century. U.S.: South End Press.
Crouch, Ned. Mexicans & Americans : Cracking The Cultural Code. NB Publishing, Inc., 2004. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 21 Nov. 2011.
There are untold numbers of songs and musical genres that have become rally anthems for political movements around the globe. One region in particular, due to a unique blend of passion for music and politics, has become a hotbed for politically-charged music: Cuba. The histories of music and politics in this tiny island nation are so intertwined that one cannot do any amount of research on one topic without finding information on the other. Music in Cuba has a long and rich tradition that can be traced back to Africa. Politics in Cuba also has a long and rich tradition that can be traced rearward to Spain. These traditions include a clash between two different cultures, predominately Spanish and African, that have dominated the island. Another important aspect of Cuban political history is the tradition of slavery and the fight for freedom from slaves. Due to the interlocking nature of music and politics on the island of Cuba, many political movements have been influenced by music and vice versa. Beginning with the early history of Cuban music and poli...
To conclude, this essay has looked at several ways in which the melting pot myth has been represented in Once Upon a Quinceañera by Julia Alvarez. Practicing one’s cultural beliefs is a very noble idea because it keeps ones culture alive and passed down from one generation to the next. This is what Alvarez describes in her book regarding the quinceañera tradition. However, these coming of age celebrations in America have encountered the MTV era where festivities focus more on the extravagance than on the real coming of age Hispanic culture. Quinceañeras have now become corrupted because they teach girls how to behave irresponsibly when they become women. Furthermore, the ritual itself has now become a show off. It is for these reasons that Alvarez fears the future generation will totally deviate from the original intent of holding quinces.
Moreover I think isolation can be a good thing for the Cuban people because it permits the music they know and create to be truly their own. In addition, the music the Cuban people create causes a desire for others, especially American’s, to learn and use the sounds that have evolved from the Cuban culture. Isolated proximity allows Cuba’s culture to be sustained; however it can also prevent opportunities. The Cuban people crave American culture, however due to a lack of Internet access, and government
There was once a great man named Elio Ignacio, who was the most talented, handsome, respected musician and dancer of all South America. There was no one who could disagree, even his fiercest competitors. He was the ideal man that all women swooned for and all men thrived to be. And Elio was extremely aware of all of this. However, despite the benefits of fame, money, and privileges, it made him busy and stressed. One of the two people he loved and trusted in his life who made it all bearable and worth it was his best friend, Vasco Emilio, who wasn't famous but occasionally allowed Elio to use his beautiful voice to accompany Elio’s music. There wasn't anyone else who could compare to Vasco, with his amazing voice and the great friendship they shared.
...re, Robin D, (2006) Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba. University of California Press: New York
The rhythm of social life is changing, language is changing, tastes and preferences are changing too. A writer, who suddenly thought of using the gallant novel language of XVIII century, in our time would have seemed a ridiculous. Something similar happened in the views on musical art. Pop infrastructure dominates among the many musical styles today with its producers, performers, groups, image makers, fan clubs and all the necessary components. It has become an everyday sound-visual reality with an endless number of charts, popularity ratings, brands, music videos; with constantly appeared shocking rumors, star showdowns, scandalous articles in newspapers and magazines. Being a music producer, Bennie Salazar, one of the main characters of “A Visit from a Goon Squad”, could not accept the changing of tastes on the music. Seemed he just should be a part of this movement. But for him "the problem was precision, perfection; …digitization, which sucked the life out of everything that got smeared through its microscopic mesh. Film, photography, music: dead. An aesthetic holocaust!" (Egan, 24). Probably, many
Havana is the largest city in the Caribbean, with 2.1 million people living there and 728.26 km² (281.18 square miles) of land. It’s a very humid place, which means it has a warmer temperature there. Havana is the city of music, there is music everywhere you go. Also to all the tourists, people speak Spanish in Havana. Cuba's history is reflected in its food, language, art, and, most of all, its music. All year round, it seems as if bands are everywhere in Havana. The main musical form is called son, which combines