Music and social change in Argentina and Chile 1950-1980 and beyond

Music has long been a social activity for change in all of the Americas. However, this work focuses on two cases as examples of the enormous contribution of Canto Popular to the development of a critical thinking able to catalyze social change. The two examples are Argentina and Chile which offer compelling musical corpora. This work attempts to briefly illustrate the important role of music as a mass communicator for social change and social development in both countries. The cantoautor assumes the voice of the voiceless; the composer, singer, or singers assume a highly moral stance to denounce and mobilize. Even within this restriction it is impossible to do justice to all the musicians, composers, interpreters, troubadours, themes and styles developed in those two countries; therefore this paper deals only with a selection of those composers, musicians, singers and poets committed to have a social dream, a vision for humanity and their particular realities.