We don’t know what motivated Jorge Drexler to want to set his time-machine arrival date to 1987, but we can speculate it must have some personal nostalgic value for the Uruguayan singer-songwriter. Why would he want to relive that year? What was going on?
Internationally, it was a pretty significant year for Latin music crossovers. The year’s biggest hit single was Los Lobos‘ “La Bamba” off the soundtrack of the Ritchie Valens bio-pic. Meanwhile, Madonna was asking everybody “quién es esa chica?” trying to score a second bi-lingual hit after “La Isla Bonita” propelled her to Latin American stardom the year before.
In 1987, Spain gave birth to Héroes Del Silencio first self-titled EP. Across the ocean (and light-years away in rocker cred), Maná also had their self-titled debut that year. In Argentina, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs scored their first massive hit with “Yo Te Avisé,” while Buenos Aires’ underground mourned the death of its most influential figure, Sumo‘s Luca Prodan.
What was going on in Uruguay that was so memorable? We have no idea. We only know that a festival with six local rock bands resulted in Rock En El Palacio, the first live rock album in Uruguayan history. Maybe Drexler was there in the crowd scoring first base with his teen girlfriend. Who knows?
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