The Reception of youth Music in Chile in the sixties: Americanization of the Young?

Abstract

This article analyses popular music addressed to young people in Chile in the sixties. In a decade characterized by changes and demands for social transformation, young people are important social actors who are incorporated as market consumers by cultural industries. From a critical perspective on interpretations about musical appropriation in Chile, and following a quantitative approach, we study the rankings of the most popular songs listened by youth between 1961 and 1970 on Chilean radios. Results show how popular music for youth reflects the condition of a dependent society, open to international influences, but also how young people of the time sieves the reception of new styles according to musical tastes and traditions, fully constituted as hybrid. This study argues that the musical preferences by youth in the second middle of twenty century are a complex hybridization of musical genres, which have constructed identities that interlaces modern and traditional elements.