Abstract:
Only sixteen years have passed since the new movement baptized as rock bravu´ was conceptualized during the ‘‘Castan˜azo Rock’’ festival of 1993 in the remote Galician village of Chantada. Still, commemorative celebrations have already been taking place in what we can consider an example of what Pierre Nora referred to as the ‘‘acceleration of history’’, understood as one of the cultural signs of our times. At the recent ‘‘Castan˜azo Rock’’ festival in November of 2007, contemporary Galician bands played a tribute to the leading band of the bravu´ movement, Os Diploma´ticos de Monte-Alto, led by Xurxo Souto. A studio album with covers of their songs by some twenty new and regrouped Galician bands was also simultaneously released as a double CD (120 capadores). These facts suggests the lasting legacy of this band and their songs reflect their symbolic capital as founders of the tradition of Galician ‘‘rock with roots’’, but also the ‘‘rurbanizing’’ normalization of rock in Galician, and the development of a cultural industry able to turn collective nostalgia into a cultural commodity, even today when the bravu´ movement is considered a closed chapter in Galician popular music history. It is for these reasons that a critical reassessment of the bravu´ movement and its achievements is particularly timely.
