WHAM BAM thank you, Depeche Mode.

This post I will dedicate to the love affair between Buenos Aires and American 80’s music. When I say 80’s music I really mean "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode, the Cure, and occasional sprinklings of Madonna. It’s slightly unsettling the way "Enjoy the Silence" and Blondie covers populate the airwaves of everything from empanada stands to high volume clothes shops to bus stations and the busses themselves. Unsettling in the way finding someone dressed head to toe in Ed Hardy turns the stomach with an artful overdose of the potently tacky. Recently, whilst walking the artisan-craft-lined streets of San Telmo on a Sunday I heard a familiar riff, but it was a tango song. I didn’t think I knew any tango songs, until I realized I did—the ones covering the Greatest Hits of Depeche Mode on (instrument). I understand now that the pulsing 80’s electric dance vibe outside our Mendoza hostel window was not part of some novelty aesthetic, it was in fact the current pulse of Argentine taste in music. I didn’t feel assaulted by the Argentine 80’s binge until our bus ride back from Puerto Madryn which offered firstly a jackpot of amusing videos from either youtube or old, decent comedy sketches, and secondly a nauseating compellation of 80’s music videos, capping out with an hour-long sampling of soft focus videos from who seemed to be the Argentine lovechild of Barry Manilow and Josh Groban.
At this juncture I’ll introduce my two favorite musical assaults to the senses—Bomba del Tiempo and Fuerza Brute. Bomba del Tiempo is the place to be on Monday nights in Buenos Aires if you’re either a) a hippie porteno b) looking for hippie portenos c) an expat looking to dance c) part of the urban grungy/hipster fusion crowd or hoping to score drugs on a Monday. The show is a improvised and explosive 12 person Brazilian drum circle in something like a bombed out WWII warehouse clouded with smoke and the smell of dirty dreads and savory fried foods. IT doesn't really matter the mood you come in, as the drums escalate, the rhyth becomes this inescapable infectious universal pulse that sucks you in, but if you're not careful you'll probably end up a ragdoll in the central moshpit.



Secondly, Fuerza Brute. "Brute Force." Something between a Euro electro-rave and Cirque du Soleil, Fuerza Bruta’s explosive acrobatic, fog-filled participatory spectacle invites its crowd to dance as much as they do. Like that pitch? I wrote if for a company that doesn't want it anymore so I'm going to use it to market myself. Plus, they dump a swimming pool on you.

The beginning—

And the weird part—