Nostalgia for a Narrative: The 100 Most Beautiful Songs of Colombia. Canon, Nostalgia, and Hegemony in Colombian Popular Music

Abstract

One of the most influential figures in the history of 20th-century Colombian popular music was Hernán Restrepo Duque—a folklorist, record industry executive, and author of works such as A mí cánteme un bambuco (1986) and Lo que cuentan las canciones (1971). In 1991, following a high-profile media event, Restrepo published Las cien mejores canciones de la música colombiana y sus autores. This publication presented a song list that served as the foundation for a five-CD collection, which significantly influenced the definition of a Colombian popular music canon and has acted as a benchmark for subsequent revisions on the subject. This article analyzes these songs to demonstrate that their selection, on the one hand, reproduces a national narrative that had been hegemonic since the 19th century—particularly centered in the Andean region. On the other hand, due to the timing of its release, it also represents a form of resistance to the crisis this narrative faced at the end of the 20th century. The fact that the canonization of these songs coincided with the promulgation of the 1991 Political Constitution allows for an examination of how cultural expressions can both accompany and resist socio-political processes, not only through discursive or pedagogical alignment but also through diverse modes of storytelling—namely, giving life to a narrative through intermedial forms of cultural construction.