Mourning fans queued for miles to pay tribute to a distinctly Argentine rock star, Carlos Indio Solari, who was virtually unknown elsewhere but revered at home as the countrys most popular musician. His death inspired a cross-generational devotion that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets.
Massive Turnout for Solari's Wake
The line stretched for more than seven kilometers, or about four miles. Mourners sang rock songs, waved banners, and carried speakers blasting music while smoke rose from makeshift barbecues and vendors sold T-shirts bearing the image of a bald man with sunglasses. As evening fell, a drizzle set in, but the queue remained. At the end of the line in Avellaneda, outer Buenos Aires, stood a chapel containing the body of the rock star.
Hundreds of thousands of people attended the wake on Sunday for the singer Carlos Indio Solari. Solari, who died on Friday from a stroke at the age of 77, was widely regarded as Argentinas most popular musician. His last concert in 2017 was attended by as many as 400,000 people. However, his popularity challenges assumptions about a shared Latin American cultural sphere. Solari was virtually unknown outside Argentina and neighboring Uruguay, which shares much of its cultural and linguistic heritage.
Lyrical Depth and Political Resonance
His lyrics, usually dense, cryptic, and laden with literary, political, and historical references, inspired a devoted following that cut across generations, though it is particularly strong among working-class young people. Songs like Ji ji ji, a frenetic anthem, or La gran bestia pop, a critique of the music industry, are ubiquitous at weddings, football matches, and parties across Argentina. Phrases such as every prisoner is a political prisoner or violence is to lie became mottoes for political resistance.
Solari co-founded the influential rock band Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota in 1976. After the group split in 2002, he continued performing with a new band until Parkinsons disease forced him to stop appearing live. He openly identified as a Peronist, and the far-right government of Javier Milei rejected permission for a wake in the congress building. The ceremony was instead held in Avellaneda, a district governed by Peronists.
The best things in Argentina were El Indio and Maradona, said Lorena Nunez, one of the mourners waiting in line. Nunez, an Uruguayan pharmaceutical worker, crossed the Rio de la Plata to attend the wake. He taught us the value of the word, by forcing us to think to interpret his lyrics, she said. Quoting verses from Solaris songs, her friend Matias Rodriguez, who traveled with her, said: El Indio isnt just a singer. To us, hes like family. To me, hes my old man.
Cultural Significance and Global Limits
Pablo Alabarces, a sociologist who studies popular culture, said the reason Solaris music did not travel was the poetic and musical language. It is a very distinctive style of rock that you dont hear elsewhere in Latin America. That cryptic yet working-class poetic style is very Argentine. There is no such thing as neutral Spanish in El Indios poetry, which makes it comprehensible only to a local audience, he said.
Alabarces said Solaris career exposed the limits of cultural globalization. While contemporary genres such as trap and reggaeton circulated easily across Latin America, rock music remained shaped by distinct national histories and political experiences. Making rock music under the PRIs perfect dictatorship in Mexico is not the same as doing so under Videlas terror regime in Buenos Aires, he said.
According to Pablo Perantuono, a journalist who co-authored a book about Solaris band, his music was rooted in a cultural synthesis that was cosmopolitan yet distinctly Argentine, drawing on disparate influences including tango, the beatniks, and Anglo-American rock music. It is an exceptional movement because it is very hard to track its bloodline, he said.
Self-Produced Music and Working-Class Image
Solari self-produced his music, refused major labels, rarely gave interviews, and cultivated an austere, working-class image even in his concerts. These things, Perantuono said, his fans at home appreciated as a very strong statement of principles but hampered his musics chances to be marketed overseas. Argentine audiences have a kind of visceral passion in their tastes that you probably wont find anywhere else, said Perantuono, arguing that foreign bands such as the Ramones or the German punk band Die Toten Hosen have had a bigger following in Argentina than in their home countries.
At Sundays wake, mourners threw flowers, shirts, and banners onto Solaris coffin. Daniel Roli Gonzalez, a 37-year-old maintenance worker, struggled to hold back tears. Its beautiful. Its a privilege to experience this, he said, gesturing towards the crowd, which kept singing. You cant experience this anywhere else. This is unique.
