Home · Albums · Almendra · Almendra

Almendra 1969
Album · by Almendra ↗ View artist

Almendra

When you listen to this album, you are engaging with something that was born in a very particular moment. It was released in 1969, a year filled with social and political changes worldwide, and also in Argentina. Imagine, the Cold War was setting the global pulse, with tensions between capitalist and socialist blocs, and the war in Vietnam was a harsh reality. In Latin America, national liberation movements were gaining strength, while in the United States, protests against the war were intensifying. In Argentina, the country had been living under a military dictatorship since 1966, and that same year, 1969, saw significant uprisings like the Cordobazo. In this very context, rock and roll was exploding globally with the counterculture, the hippie movement, and massive festivals like Woodstock.

Year
1969
Songs
9
Duration
37 min 31 seg
Listen to the album ★

About the album

Almendra, according to DoReSol

Amidst all this, rock in Spanish in Argentina was beginning to find its own voice. Until then, rock was mostly Anglo-Saxon, and when sung in our language, it often lacked originality or depth. But following successes like "La balsa" by Los Gatos in 1967, a "national rock" movement emerged that connected very directly with young people. And it is precisely in this scenario that Luis Alberto Spinetta appears, at just 19 years old, with the first album by Almendra, which would become a turning point for the genre and for popular song in the region.

This first work by Almendra, which on the cover only bears the band's name, had a fundamental impact on the formation of Argentine national rock and the creation of a new form of Rioplatense song. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it as the sixth best Argentine rock album on its list of the 100 best. The opening track, Muchacha (ojos de papel), is an undisputed classic of rock in Spanish, and has been recognized as the second best song in the history of Argentine rock. The lineup that recorded this album consisted of Luis Alberto Spinetta on guitar and vocals, Edelmiro Molinari on lead guitar, Emilio del Guercio on bass and backing vocals, and Rodolfo García on drums. Additionally, Pappo collaborated on backing vocals on Figuración, and on Laura va, Rodolfo Alchourron conducted an orchestra and Rodolfo Mederos contributed the bandoneon.