Rock Urbano

Rock urbano is Spain's working-class urban rock, formed in the late 1970s as the country's rock underground met the realities of the post-Franco city. Sung in Spanish and played by stripped-down guitar bands, it reports on unemployment, heroin, police, prison and neighbourhood life in colloquial, slang-heavy language. The first wave — *Burning*, *Asfalto*, *Leño* — set the template; *Barricada* and *Los Suaves* hardened it in the 1980s; *Extremoduro* and *Platero y Tú* gave it a poetic, literary voice in the 1990s, and *Marea* carried that voice into the 2000s mainstream.