Popular Music in Spanish Cinema

Popular Music in Spanish Cinema analyses the aesthetics and stylistic development of soundtracks from national productions, considering how political instability and cultural diversity in Spain determined the ways of making art and managing culture.

As a pioneering study in this field, the chronologically structured approach of this book provides readers with a complete overview of Spanish music and connects it to the complex historical events that conditioned Spanish culture throughout the 20th century to the present day, from the Second Republic, the Spanish Civil war, and the dictatorship through to democracy. The book enables an understanding of the relationships between the recording and film production industries, the construction of collective imagination, the formulation of new stereotypes, semiotic meanings within film music and the musical exchanges between national and international cinema.

This volume is an essential read for students and academics in the field of musicology, ethnomusicology and history as well as those interested in the study of diverse musical styles such as copla, zarzuela, flamenco, jazz, foxtrot, pop and rock and how they have been used in Spanish films throughout history.

1. Cinema and National imaginary: the musical representation of Andalusia in films at the beginning of the 20th century.


2. Copla and Flamenco in Spanish Republican cinema: the cantaor Angelillo and the director Luis Buñuel in the film production company Filmófono.


3. Forces of Freedom: Carmen Amaya in La Hija de Juan Simón (1935).
Evasion and entertainment. Jazz, Pop, and musical films during Civil war and Franco's Dictatorship years.


4. From Spain to Germany (and back to Spain): songs in the Spanish musical films of the 1930s.


5. Singing in Misery: Jazz and Popular Music in Spanish Postwar Comedies.


6. Popular music and ideology in the Spanish musical films of the 1950s.
Building Bridges towards modernity. Copla and Flamenco revisited in the search for a Spanish national identity.


7. Pop Music in the Spanish musical cinema of the 1960s.


8. The kids take to the screen. A review of the formulas used in cine con niño and its main protagonists in 1960s musical cinema.


9. Canción española in cinema: Manolo Escobar, between tradition and modernity.
Democracy and change of Century. New musical perspectives and nostalgia forgathered.


10. From mythification to eroticism: copla on the big screen.


11. The spirit of (almost) forgotten Spain: music and women in the early films of Pedro Almodóvar
21st century Spain. Sonic influences and transmedia productions.


12. Through the eyes of the new Century. Music and collective memory in contemporary films set in the Spanish Civil war.


13. Pop songs in Spanish musical films during the 21st Century.


14. Exploring transmedia storytelling through original songs in award-winning Spanish films.