Counterculture and Pop-Rock Music in Spain during Late Francoism (1954-1975)

The aim of this thesis is to provide a re-evaluation of the relationship between pop-rock music and the Spanish counterculture during late Francoism. I seek to explore four main areas of research: the reception of pop-rock music in Spain, considering the convoluted socio-political context of the period; the correspondence between the Spanish and the Anglo-American countercultures; the interaction between the music industry and the counterculture; and the reading of pop-rock music as a countercultural artifact.

By analysing the cultural networks and oeuvres of some of the most representative artists of the period, this study examines the factors that shaped the nuances of the Spanish counterculture, establishing how far it can be seen as an independent phenomenon from its Anglo-American counterpart, and in which ways it was affected by the constrictions of the right-wing authoritarism of the Francoist dictatorship. My study focuses in exploring of the career of artists such as Los Brincos, Vainica Doble, Pau Riba, Jaume Sisa, Smash and Triana, who epitomize the contradictions, successes and failures of the Spanish counterculture.

It is in my contention that there was a counterculture in Spain during late Francoism and that pop-rock music constituted one of its cultural pillars, acquiring a prominent symbolic role and becoming one of the central tools for the dissemination of the countercultural ideas. While its extent and social relevance cannot be compared to that of its Anglo-American counterpart, Spanish countercultural pop-rock got to build its own set of iconic artists and events, permeating through the points of contact with a transnational movement.