Review of Popular Culture as a Source For the Historian: Carlos Gradel

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Review of Popular Culture as a Source for the Historian: Carlos Gradel

Popular culture as a source for historian recognizes Carlos Gardel as an important contributor to the cultural and social development and recognition. The article identifies the origin of Tango to Gardel in 1890 and through this, he is recognized as a symbol in the society. However, there is a difference between Gardel the real man and Gardel the symbol of culture recognition. The article explains the difference between the origin of Tango and the development of the real man from rags to riches and being an icon that is celebrated to date. Tango is identified as both a musical form and a socio-cultural phenomenon. With development of music, tango provided a foundation to its exposure. The music based on the cultural and /social experiences in the society, affecting people hence creating the interrelation between tango, music, and phenomena. However, as much as Gardel popularized tango to the world, he is a different party. People’s memory of tango may relate to him but there are also other early musicians who joined him as he diversified to other themes.

The Argentine Porteno popular culture was the basis for the tango music development. Gardel was part of the culture hence took part in influencing people to embrace tango hence quickly spread. As the influence grew, tango music also evolved with various stages. First the music-dance form which was not highly accepted by people. The second stage attached to the era of smoking jacket, which cut across all the social classes. Gardel contributed more to the second stage of the evolution hence attached to tango development. With the development of electronic media, tango familiarity increased to a larger audience. This is through the development of dance halls, theatre, vocalist and films hence music could be recorded. In 1929, emergence of sounds led to more popularity of tango as both a dance and music. Therefore, the developments in the society, of music and technology led to tango popularity and not an individual person.

Tango music theme was based on the political, social and cultural phenomenon in the Argentine culture. The economic depression in 1920’s led to poor living conditions of the urban people with salary and price fluctuations hence disrupting the economy. The experience at this time led to the development of yira yira tango, based on the depression caused by the form by the economic state. Also, the economic and political changes during this period differentiated the city from the old known city. The changes affected peoples mind and increased the restlessness already caused by the disruption of the economy as there was a lot of destructions in the city. The changes to the city led to development of another tango calling to the mind the old simpler city bringing a sense of a nostalgic tango. During the environmental changes, Gardel was highly known hence the tango became popular through him. However, the scenario of the political environment is what led to emergence of the theme of the tango.

In the basis of social life, prostitution increased in the 1920s with emergence of entertainment venues. This social phenomenon introduced a new theme of prostitution to tango, giving a sense of a lonely man looking for love. The social influence was founded on the smoking jacket symbol, which Gradel was not directly associated with it. Therefore, this shows the independence of Tango to individualism. To add on, the author describes the development of Gradel as a person. He starts from being a street singer, to duet then becomes a cultural representative in the political grounds. Other individuals also join him in music, all singing the tango hence if it should be attached to a person, then all the musicians would be tango just as Gradel. As Gradel moves to the united states, he records more songs and diversifies to more than tango. At this stage, Gradel shows that he is not tango as he also could produce other songs that are not tango. Also, the musicians that joined him earlier continued with tango even when he was away.

Tango represents both the socio-cultural and music concepts. It acquires its themes from the phenomena that occur in the society both politically and socially. Gradel takes part in the popularization of the style but its publicity is because it addresses issues affecting people and familiar to the population around the society. Therefore, tango relates to the experiences of the society hence spread easily. Gradel brings out the smoking jacket concept and emergence of musical form tango, which enhances its popularization among people. The tango songs theme also represent a mournful sense of frustration than the normal real, political or protest songs. Hence tango is not Gardel. He was a means to popularize tango music, which has its independent themes.

Reference

Castro, D. (n.d.). Popular Culture as a source for the historian: Why Gardel Carlos. California state Polytechnic university, pp.144-158.