Madrid's Movida under Franco: censorship and rich kids

Madrid's Movida would have survived Franco: the regime's own records

Few facts are as uncomfortable for the mythology of Spain's counterculture: Genesis, Santana and Queen performed in Spain while Franco was still alive. The regime tolerated international rock while censorship cut into other areas. So would the Movida have survived the general's scissors? The answer is far from unanimous.

The regime already embraced rock (on conditions)

Those who argue the Movida would have survived Franco point out that the 60s and 70s saw festivals antiestéticaturing top-tier foreign bands. The general allowed art, as long as it did not question established customs. The most transgressive performances - such as the scene of Alaska urinating on Carmen Maura - would surely have been cut, but the musical movement, at its core, would have carried on.

Rich kids with electric guitars

Another school of thought applies a class analysis. The Movida was driven by the children of the regime, the only ones with the means in 1980 to buy an electric guitar, an amplifier and a rehearsal space when a pair of Nike trainers was a luxury. Access to foreign music was a privilege: a young man who had worked in London got a job at a radio station in Bilbao simply because he brought records no one had heard. Without that economic and cultural capital, the scene would never have taken off.

With Franco in power, those same children of the regime would have had the money and connections to bring the London sound over, with the twist that the regime would have wanted to tame it. The question is not whether the Movida would have existed, but how much of it we would have been allowed to see.