Rumbas and the acoustic experience of marginality in cine quinqui

• Autores: Tom Whittaker
• Localización: The Routledge Handbook to Spanish Film Music / Laura Miranda González (ed. lit.), 2024, ISBN 9781003174974, págs. 284-293
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This chapter addresses the prominent role of rumbas or rumbas vallecanas—in particular, those of the Gypsy groups Los Chunguitos and Los Chichos—in cine quinqui, an enormously popular cycle of films that centred on the experience of juvenile delinquency during Spain's Transition. In spite of the significant role that these groups played in marginal youth subcultures of the Transition, their music has been mainly dismissed by flamencologists and overlooked by scholars of popular music more generally. Coming from the similar kinds of marginal spaces that were depicted in the films, the music of these groups enacted a particularly close relationship between geography and sound.This chapter shows how the music of these Gypsy groups dramatized a spatial mobility that was similar to that of the delinquents and their families in the films. In particular, the chapter explores how the cross-promotion of music and film contributed to the commercial success of cine quinqui, something that is particularly played out through their popular soundtrack albums. The chapter explores the extent to which through sound, the delinquents were able to actively produce a space of their own, both inside and outside the film text, something that was aided through the relatively new invention of the radio cassette player. At the same time, through their live appearances in prisons where delinquents such as Juan José Moreno Cuenca “El Vaquilla” were being held, the songs created an important sense of acoustic community and solidarity among marginalized people.