El vals

The melody of El vals, with its melancholic air, has an interesting root in the sound of The Stranglers. This piece, 3 minutes and 9 seconds long, was one of the first where guitarist Claudio Narea took on the role of lead vocalist, although neither he nor sound engineer Alejandro «Caco» Lyon were completely satisfied with the final result. Despite this, El vals was included as the twelfth song on La cultura de la basura, the third album by Los Prisioneros.

This album, originally released on December 3, 1987, addressed the prevailing neoliberal culture in Chile during the eighties. La cultura de la basura had different editions; the original Chilean one contained 14 tracks and was published on cassette and vinyl, being reissued on CD in the nineties. In 1988, a Latin American version reached Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and Venezuela with 10 songs, many of them remixed or new versions, and in Ecuador that same year another vinyl edition was released with different tracks. Los Prisioneros, formed in the commune of San Miguel, Santiago, in the 1980s, initially composed of Jorge González, Claudio Narea, and Miguel Tapia, explored a style that combined pop-rock and punk with socially conscious lyrics.