Música para pastillas

Música para pastillas sounds like a sharp blow in the middle of Oktubre, the album that Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota recorded in mid-1986 amid a climate of political change that still smelled of transition. The song doesn’t ask for permission: it opens with a riff that sticks like a hook and won’t let go, while Indio Solari’s voice delivers lyrics that blend sarcasm with warnings. It’s not about pills in the literal sense, but about that voracious consumption society gulps down without chewing: cosmetic surgeries, miracle diets, empty promises sold as salvation. Yet the masterstroke comes in the second stanza, when irony turns into a knife: “the good ones are back, and they’re making horror movies.” Here, there’s no metaphor—just a mirror held up to Argentina as it emerged into democracy with hands still stained by its darkest years.

The track lasts 4:35, just enough time for Skay Beilinson’s bass—co-author alongside Indio—to anchor the song in a groove that oscillates between post-punk and new wave, with that dystopian air the album took to another level.