La rubia tarada

Sumo recorded «La rubia tarada» in 1985, but its seed was in a 1983 demo titled Corpiños en la madrugada. Already there, the title «Una noche en New York City» peeked out, which would later mutate into the one we all know. The song not only started as just another track on the album Divididos por la felicidad, but it became the push that took the band out of Buenos Aires pubs and onto the stage at the Astros theater. At three minutes and forty-three seconds, the song claimed the top spot on the album and remained the hit that defined that era.

The lyrics, written by Luca Prodan, Germán Daffunchio, and Diego Arnedo, don’t refer to just any blonde: they depict that figure embodying the superficiality of the eighties, when Argentina was beginning to open up to the world after the dictatorship. Prodan, who had lived in Scotland and kept an eye on the post-punk scene of Joy Division, used the song to highlight the contrast between those swept up by emptiness and those—though few—who remained awake. The album’s very name is a nod to that search: a tribute to the British band that, like them, blended darkness with melody. Recorded at CBS Studios in Buenos Aires, the album was released in May 1985 and marked the start of a career that, unwittingly, ended up redefining Argentine rock.