"Gitanos"

“La faraona ha muerto” (The Pharaoh has died); these words covered the front pages of all the Spanish newspapers May 16, 1995. The death of Lola Flores, a gipsy flamenco singer, was the turning point of a cultural process that ended with the ignorance of the gipsy folk culture in Spain. Currently, Spanish pop music is riddled with a wide amount of music groups that have sold their gipsy influences to the tastes of the mass audience. A few years ago, it was inconceivable that thousands of mindless screaming teenagers would pack football stadiums to see their gipsy idols. Groups like “Andy y Lucas”, “Los Caños” or “Fondo flamenco” with a clear gipsy and flamenco influence constitute a huge pop phenomenon in Spain. Other artists such as Sara Baras and Joaquin Cortés sell tickets to their shows for more than two hundred dollars all over the world, and they have exalted flamenco as a “high” cultural expression. Is this dialogue between the mass audience and the gipsy folk an enriching experience or is just another consequence of the capitalist standardization?


The Romani people, most known as “gitanos” (Spanish word for gipsy) migrated out of the Sindah, Rajasthan and Punkjab regions of the Indian subcontinent into Europe during the eleventh century. Although this is true, their life and their culture was highly influenced by the Moorish, Arabic and Sephardic Jewish traditions. All over the ages, political institutions in Spain have ignored the gipsy community and their culture. For about three hundred years Romanis were subject to a number of laws and policies designed to eliminate them from Spain as an identifiable group.


In his article “Publics and Counterpublics”, Michael Warner presents the counterpublic as the group that is conflicting with the dominant public; they are fully aware of their subordination to the dominant class. We can clearly consider the Spanish gipsy community as a counterpublic due to the centuries of social, economical and cultural marginalization. Warner also states that the counterpublic is a self-organized group where the members feel a sense of belonging. The gipsy community has always cultivated some distinctive signs from the rest of the Spanish society; for example, they usually call white Caucasian Spanish people “calés.” The idea of their racial and cultural differences is very important to them. The gipsy community has used their own signs to use a particular style. For example, they consider that only gipsy people can properly dance and sing Flamenco; white Caucasian people do not have the ability to perform it; they don’t have the “duende” as they say.


However, during the last decades we have witnessed an integration process of the Romani culture into the popular Spanish culture. Dick Hebidge presents two methods to restore “subcultures” into the dominant culture. The first method is the most effective in a capitalist society; it consists of taking the subcultural signs and converting them into the dominant culture. The second one consists of having dominant, authoritative groups identify any short of deviant behavior.


If we analyzed the musical characteristics of the now so-called “flamenco” groups (“Andy y Lucas”, “Los Caños”, “Fondo Flamenco” or ”Kiko y Shara”) we cannot tell the difference between this music and regular pop music. These groups’ music, apart from some of the classic flamenco guitar harmonious or some gipsy slang, has no difference from some other pop international groups. In fact, the quality of this music is low. Their lyrics tend to be cheesy and the melodies repetitive. We could take the structure of an international famous pop song, add some guitar harmonious, some clapping and a little bit of audible footwork and we would have a pop flamenco song. Nowadays, that is the formula for creating music hits in Spain.

Although they consider themselves as the new flamenco representatives, they have sold their roots to the trade interests. Flamenco and gipsy patterns have been widely simplified in order to satisfy the demands of screaming teenagers. Their music is a great example of what Adorno calls the “standardization” proper of the capitalist system. Once a musical and or lyrical pattern has proved successful it is exploited to commercial exhaustion, culminating in the “crystallization of standards”. Some rhythmical, catchy flamenco patterns and some outlines of the gipsy traditions that have proved successful are repeated again and again by these groups.







This success that some of these Romani artists have at the moment in the pop music industry in Spain could lead us to the conclusion that social and racial boundaries have been overcome. However, this repetition of conformed patterns and attitudes just help to build wrong stereotypes of the gipsy community. Although these stereotypes have nothing to do with the image that the white Caucasian community of Spain use to have centuries ago, the general acceptance of the “gitanos” has improved a lot during the last decades. There is still a general idea about what gipsy people can do. People think that the only thing they can do is sing and dance Flamenco. They have the role of entertaining the rest of the population. This stereotype is being fed by the capitalism and mass production of standardized flamenco music. If the industry sells pop Flamenco new star as a gipsy singer it will for sure have more success than if he is not sold as a gipsy, even though this artist has not gipsy background at all.

On the other hand we have the so called elite of gipsy artists, Joaquín Cortés, Sara Baras, Falete, Farruquito artist that have managed to perform in some of the most famous and prestigious theatres around the world and have exalted flamenco as a “high” cultural expression. Tickets’ prices can vary from 200$ to 500$. In my opinion, it is important to recognize their talent and the importance of the export of the gipsy culture; however, they also standardize these artistic expressions in order to make them more accessible to a wider international audience. For example, although Joaquin Cortes’ talent as a dancer is undeniable his performances tend to give more importance to the visual or audible aspects of the performance rather than proper Flamenco patterns.

In conclusion, I think that it is important to analyze the relationship between an ethnic group and a cultural expression and how this art can influence the social position of this ethnic group. If we want to understand real flamenco we should not look into fancy theatres all over the world or the last summer hit list. We have to search the streets of Andalucia and look at the way gipsy people dance or sing before these cultural expressions are totally contaminated by capitalists principles

The Beatles, part of the capitalist machinery?

A critical review of the music video “Rain”


No way. That is the first thing that comes into my mind after reading this: "The Beatles did about as much to represent the interests of the nation's young people as the Spice Girls did in the 1990s." I cannot stop shaking. Posh Spice can be compared with John Lennon? No… Things get worse when I find out who has talked about such nonsense, David Fowler, a renowned Cambridge University historian. A cold sweat comes over my forehead.

Fowler supports the idea that The Beatles exploited fan worship, mindless screaming and nothing more than a passive teenage consumer, as away of gaining acclaim and notoriety. They were part of the capitalist machinery and their success was a result of the economic abundance that favored this passive consumption.

Here lies one general binary. We can consider The Beatles as part of the capitalist structure that established the patterns of the following commercial music trends or as a revolutionary band broke the structures of the common sense that ruled during the 1960s. In my opinion, The Beatles led a cultural revolution that broke the structures of society and the way music was understood. However, we can also tell that the Beatles imposed standardization in music that exploited successful musical features to commercial exhaustion (Adorno). I am going to analyze the music video “Rain” from the Beatles that was first shown in 1967. I am aware that during the 1960s music videos did not have the same aims that they started having after the 1980s but this video is one of the first conceptual music videos in pop music history.





The video starts with general shots of the members of the band walking around a green garden. They are all dressed in black modern ¨1960s styled¨ suits. These shots are followed by some close-ups and low angles of all the members of the band. The clip does not tell any story, it is just focused on the members of the group. The importance of the “stars” plays an important role in this video. I would also like to emphasize the great number of extreme close ups of some of the accessories of the members of the group (sunglasses, rings, anklets…). After reading Professor Fowler’s article, I cannot stop thinking about the commercial purpose of this video. These kind of video clips helped to establish a revolutionary fashion style that was followed by millions of young people around the world. This led us to the commercial purpose of the music video. Who were the interpretive communities of these kind of videos? Critical thinkers or just screaming and passive consumers?

I think that an infinite number of conclusions can be deduced from this music video. This is the beginning of a process that has led popular music to a wild consumption market where music producers only understand about profits and marking plans. Were the Beatles aware that they were founding this phenomenon? We will never know…however I will always enjoy listening to their songs again and again.