Signs of Latin America in Spanish Pop Music
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Abstract
Within Spanish pop music we find an interesting picture of the perception and acceptance of the Latin-American “other” on the part of Spanish youth. Musical manifestations, whether they are on disc or on video, offer a wide spectrum of dialogues among young people on the both sides of the Atlantic. Beyond the commercial motivations underlying the Hispanic and Latin music markets, inviting high school students to reflect on these forms of representing and/or accepting the "Latin American other" is a valuable exercise in introducing and reinforcing their perception of the multicultural society in which they live, and in nurturing their appreciation of how messages are codified in commercial music.
To this end we present a didactic approach in which we shall make use of musical semiotics, based on the work of authors such as Tagg, Tatit, Klein, and Monelle, as a tool which will enable us to address the analysis of musical expression as a phenomenon of sound that is inescapably cultural. This kind of approach also opens the door to the study and understanding of technical aspects of music that might otherwise be particularly theoretical.