During the 1960s and 1970s, some countries in Latin America went through significant social and political changes. In particular, in the Southern Cone, i.e. Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, democratic governments were overthrown by military force. In those countries, coups d’état took place from the beginning of the 1970s until 1990. These changes were reflected in the cultural practices of the countries, and music production was no exception. Therefore, a new phenomenon emerged. It was a new musical genre, called New Song. The New Song Movement, as it has been known in some of these countries, acquired its singularities in each country. For the Chilean, Uruguayan and Argentinian cases, Pablo Vila has decided to call it the ‘Militant Song Movement’. Among the different authors' chapters, this label has not received an overall agreement and some of the authors of the book prefer to call it ‘Protest Song’. In his introduction, Vila explains that the Militant Song Movement addresses a peculiar movement, revealing a committed political position.

The essays collected in this book examine the history of the Militant Song Movement in these three countries since the mid 1960s. Divided in to nine chapters, the first three are dedicated to the Chilean case; the next three chapters deal with the Uruguayan one; and the last three chapters examine Argentina.

There were many songs, composers and musicians pointing to the beginning of this movement. For example, the Chilean ‘Cantata Santa María de Iquique’, composed by Luis Advis, became a milestone because, as it is analysed in the book, it expanded the form of the song, raised urgency, denunciation and propaganda in its lyrics, and innovated in its instrumentation, removing the boundaries between ‘art’ and ‘popular’ music.

The three chapters dedicated to Chile examine the Chilean New Song Movement from the 1960s until now, the history of the ‘Cantata Santa María de Iquique’ and the cueca, the most prominent genre, which relates musical traditions and political discourses within the Chilean New Song repertoire. The key role of figures such as Quilapayún, Victor Jara and Patricio Manns, among others, is also weighty within these articles. This phenomenon is studied not only from a social perspective, but also from musical and literary ones.

In the Uruguayan case, on the other hand, the focus is on the different phases of modern popular music. Thus one of the authors has studied the fusion of urban folk music and rural folk music. This process produced a distinctively musical identity for Uruguayans. Another important phenomenon in this small country was the link between vanguard international music and urban popular song. Especially, there was a generation of musicians that bridged the gap between popular and avant-garde music, and this was possible because of the creation of some institutions that promoted aesthetics programmes, included compositional strategies, and developed a political programme. The connection between music, poetry and a political movement is analysed. In this case, Los Olimareños, Alfredo Zitarrosa and Daniel Viglietti have added music to the texts of famous poets such as Mario Benedetti, Líber Falco and Washington Benavides. These musicians and many others had a relevant role in the phenomenon called ‘Uruguayan Popular Song’ (Canto Popular Uruguayo).

Finally, Argentinian music is examined through its very famous musicians such as Atahualpa Yupanqui, Mercedes Sosa and Horacio Guarany. The first was considered as a foundational musician because he started to write and sing songs from the late 1930s and early 1940s, and there is one chapter dedicated to him. Perhaps, among those musicians, Yupanqui's figure is the most studied by Argentinian musicology but musicological work about the others is lacking. Guarany, as it is shown in one of the articles, is part of the leftist branch of the militant song movement. In the mid 1960s, the New Songbook Movement (Movimiento del Nuevo Cancionero) was without a doubt the principal movement that hatched in the scene. In the chapter on the history of the Militant Song Movement, the interviews done with some of the musicians belonging to the New Song Movement allow the readers to have closer references in the reconstruction of this period.

There is a special space for the treatment of the issues of gender, and how ‘popular’ and ‘revolutionary’ subjectivities played a significant role in the utopian political imagination in the 1960s and 1970s. The range of issues examined is extended by utilising the tropes of femininity and masculinity. Another cantata, in this case, ‘Montoneros’, recorded by Huerque Mapu for the leftist Peronist guerrilla group Montoneros, is also an example of this militant song.

Many of the musicians analysed in the book were exiled during the phases of military coups, and a significant part of their productions in their exile are examined too. What was central in this movement was the way they expressed their political position outside of their countries.

In conclusion, it is important to remark that the only cases of Latin American music studied in this book are Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, but that during the 1960s and 1970s the social and political changes involved many other countries of Latin America. Such limitations notwithstanding, it is certain that this collection is a first stage that will help to interweave other cases of the region. The study of these popular musics needs analyses like this because the phenomenon was singular but spread across the entire region. Although in our time the political and social context has changed, far from being an out-dated music genre, the New Song (and its variants) remains present in those countries.