Rompan Todo Explores A Turbulent History Of Latin America Through Rock Music By Betto Arcos | NPR
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Sergio Arau (center) poses with fellow Botellita de Jerez bandmates. They were one of the most influential groups in the 80s after rock re-emerged in Mexico following 15 years of censorship and repression.
Lourdes Grobet
In the 1960s, as rock and roll became America s most popular music, the genre also began to take hold in countries like Argentina, Mexico and Chile. Netflix s new six-part documentary series,
Break It All: The History of Rock in Latin America, explores the music from the 60s to the present.
Oscar-winning composer talks Latin rock & making timeless music with his band Bajofondo.
Being a prolific musician in an era of streaming has become par for the course. But Gustavo Santaolalla is not your run-of-the-mill prolific artist.
At 69 years old, the Argentine Grammy-winning producer and double Oscar winner (for the scores to
Brokeback Mountain and
Babel) is in the midst of creating music for many screens and mediums. Santaolalla is the executive producer of the docuseries
Rompan Todo: La Historia del Rock en América Latina (Break Everything: A History of Rock in Latin America), which premieres Dec. 16 on Netflix. Together with Paul Williams and Gary Clark, he penned the original song Valley of Last Resort from the documentary
The result has given Break It All (or Rompan Todo in Spanish) a level of drama, depth and consequence few rock docs can match. Amid its dense, six-episode expanse, the show tells of “missing” or murdered musicians during the fascist regimes of the 60s, 70s and 80s, including Victor Jara in Chile; widespread censorship, including a decade-long ban on rock in Mexico in the 70s; and a steady characterization in the press of the bands as depraved subversives. At the same time, Latin America has managed to produce a virtual goldmine of guitar-driven bands since the 60s that, in Santaolalla’s view, “sometimes surpassed the content of rock that has been produced in the Anglo world”.