CULTURE-ARGENTINA: Pop Star’s Death Keeps Market Churning

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Jun 30 2000 (IPS) - Argentina’s entertainment industry, able to churn out stars as if they were assembly-line goods, in a matter of months turned the unknown Rodrigo into a chart-topping sensation, a singing career that ended when the 27-year-old died in an auto accident last weekend.

His tragic death, sudden though predictable, ensures his position as a pop legend. At the accident site, crosses, flowers and other offerings are piling up. Those making the pilgrimage seek solace, and – incredibly – work.

Two adolescent girls, ages 12 and 16, committed suicide in separate incidents this week, apparently because they were distraught over Rodrigo’s death.

“In February, when I returned from my summer vacation, I saw him on the cover of all the magazines and thought, Who is Rodrigo? I thought it was a media joke, that they were testing the audience’s reaction to a personality they themselves created,” a journalist, who requested anonymity, told IPS.

Rodrigo died when his car crashed along the highway that links the Argentine capital with La Plata, capital of Buenos Aires province. Autopsy reports indicate there was a high level of alcohol in his blood.

The singer’s career began 13 years ago, when he was the little-known Alejandro Rodrigo Bueno, in his home province of Córdoba. His father worked there as a recording producer for groups that form part of a half-century tradition of the ‘cuarteto.’

The cuarteto, characterised by its danceable rhythms and catchy lyrics, differentiates itself with its innocence, standing in contrast to the popular music of ‘bailantas,’ a more commercial style identified with the powerful music industry of ‘movida tropical.’

Bailanta was created as a vehicle for charismatic young performers, who producers seek out for recordings without paying much attention to musical talent.

In Córdoba, the cuarteto has its king, ‘La Mona’ Jiménez, another music industry phenomenon who now mourns the death of the young man who was next in line to be the throne.

But it seems Rodrigo just could not wait to make it to the top. Convinced there was no room for him in Córdoba’s dance clubs, where La Mona performed several concerts nightly, he decided to “export” the cuarteto to Buenos Aires, in an attempt to spread the music throughout the nation.

He died just as he reached his goal.

Rodrigo began his rise to fame 1999, and in the first months of this year he sold nearly one million CDs in this country of 30 million, filled Luna Park stadium in Buenos Aires 15 times over (capacity 8,000), and at one point was doing eight concerts each night in the dance clubs and as many as six interviews by day.

In 45 days last January and February, he gave 48 concerts at the resorts lining Argentina’s Atlantic coast. Returning to Buenos Aires, he performed 10 stages in one night – singing 20 minutes at each club. “In one night I sang in four different provinces,” Rodrigo boasted, playing up the lightning tour he completed shortly before his death.

Rodrigo was a star with a star physique – at his concerts he would take on the persona of a boxer. His blue eyes mesmerised his fans and he dyed his hair the colours of the sky, at times it was blue, and at times the colour of a sunset – red, pink or orange.

Just two months ago, the weekly ‘Noticias’ featured Rodrigo on the cover with the headline, “Use and Throw Away: Our Disposable Idols.” The magazine story made reference to the entertainment industry’s “idol-shredding machine.”

“Some savour him while others swallow him up without tasting him … Everyone is eating up Alejandro Rodrigo Bueno, and he is not complaining,” said the story.

“Without knowing it, he has become a paradigm of how the media-frenzied society, the music mafia, uncontrolled ambition and public pressures form a shredding machine that is difficult to survive.” Thus, Noticias predicted Rodrigo’s tragic death as he returned from a concert.

“He made it and now he has to keep himself at the summit before the ‘star system’ that invented him throws him in the garbage. He knows the price is high but he is willing to give his life for it,” concludes the story, which unintentionally announced the unfortunate demise – which has seemingly become the required ending following the hysteria of the race for fame.

Rodrigo was a success because he achieved what others could not. He took a musical style popular among the poor in Argentina’s interior and not only brought it to the capital, but expanded its popularity to all social classes.

Children and adults alike, including the adolescents in between, would sing along with his songs.

Football legend Diego Maradona was among Rodrigo’s famous friends, and the singer had recently visited the sports star in Cuba. The former number 10 of Argentina’s national team returned to Buenos Aires for the singer’s funeral, saying a final thank-you for the song he had composed in his honour.

Rodrigo’s career seems to have been cut from the same wood as Maradona’s. A life that begins in anonymity reaches the pinnacle of fame – a difficult trajectory for a person to assimilate, according to the football star as he explains his addiction to cocaine.

Rodrigo had said he did not take drugs, though acknowledged he drank several litres of beer to recover the fluids he lost in performing his concerts each night. He was also known to take a liquid serum recommended for children suffering dehydration.

Rodrigo’s sudden fame and the alleged jealousy circulating in the world of cuartetos and bailantas have fed suspicions that the accident that killed the singer was an attack by his rivals.

Police are investigating the owner of a truck that, according to the accident’s survivors, had crossed into the path of their vehicle without warning. So far – and to the disappointment of Rodrigo’s fans – there is no indication that the driver had any ties with the music industry.

The driver’s lawyer insists that his client had not done anything illegal, but had simply passed Rodrigo’s vehicle and then pulled into the lane in front of him, and then saw the accident in his rear-view mirror.

Regardless, the singer has already become a legend and, once more, the market gives its response. Rodrigo’s latest CD, which was selling at a daily average of 40 units per music store, sold 700 per store over the weekend of his tragic death.

The mayor of Berazategui, the town where the accident occurred, has convinced the highway’s contracting company to build a parallel road to prevent fans from killed by passing traffic as they cross to the site to leave their offerings.

The magazines, clothing, dolls, videos and television programmes continue to proclaim his name. It seems the phenomenon will continue, at least until his successor appears, arising from obscurity – just as the public and the market will demand.