Los Prisioneros
Los Prisioneros (Spanish: The Prisoners) was a Chilean rock band formed in San Miguel, Santiago, in 1983 by schoolmates Jorge González (bass, lead vocals, principal songwriter), Claudio Narea (guitar) and Miguel Tapia (drums). Regarded as one of the most influential bands in the history of Latin American rock, the trio pioneered Rock en español and became one of the most politically and socially influential bands in Chilean history. The band developed a new wave sound rooted in British punk rock — chiefly the Clash — and later incorporated rockabilly, reggae, ska and, from the mid-1980s onward, synthpop. Its lyrics, written almost entirely by González, criticized the social, economic and educational structures of dictatorship-era Chile, leading to a partial media ban between 1985 and 1990 that failed to stop the band's music from spreading by word of mouth on homemade cassette tapes.
Between 1984 and 1990 the band released four studio albums — La voz de los '80, Pateando piedras, La cultura de la basura and Corazones — achieving unprecedented commercial success across Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia despite being effectively banned from Chilean state television and radio for much of the decade. The group split up in 1992 following the 1990 departure of guitarist Claudio Narea, then reunited with its original lineup in 2001, playing to nearly 150,000 people across two record-breaking shows at Santiago's Estadio Nacional. Narea left again in 2003 amid acrimony that spilled into the press and the courts, and the group — with a succession of guest and full-time musicians, including Álvaro Henríquez of Los Tres — recorded a final studio album, Manzana (2004), before disbanding for good in February 2006 following a farewell tour of Latin America.
Musically, Los Prisioneros marked a decisive break from the folk-influenced Nueva canción chilena of artists such as Víctor Jara and Violeta Parra and inaugurated the era of Nuevo Pop Chileno (New Chilean Pop), opening the way for bands such as Aparato Raro, Electrodomésticos and Fulano. Songs such as "La voz de los '80", "Muevan las industrias" and "Tren al Sur" rank among the most influential songs in Latin American popular music, and "El baile de los que sobran" became an anthem of the 2019–2022 Chilean protests as well as demonstrations elsewhere in Latin America. In 2023, the American edition of Rolling Stone ranked Corazones among the 50 best Latin American rock albums of all time.
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