Although everyone is still talking about them forty years later, almost no one saw Las Vulpes on April 16, 1983. If Drum Machine had been popular today, the names Geny and the Boomerang or Metal and Ca would mean something to us and they don't even appear in Cachitos. In the Eighties, commercial music was on Aplauso and Tocata, and those who were up to date – a term that sounds as ridiculous today as PEC will sound one day, don't abuse it – were hooked up to Radio 3. That day we were there only in front of the TV, those of us who saw everything, because everything seemed and seems to be better than real life. Everything, even Pista libre, the show that preceded Tena's predecessor, a kind of “The Key” for children, in which they interviewed both a gynecologist and the director of Alcalá Meco 2. This Saturday they broadcast a Bulgarian film about the consequences of placing commas incorrectly, what young person would not like to spend Saturday morning following the vicissitudes of an orthographic symbol.
The performance of “Las Vulpes” brought the whole of Spain to a standstill because the four of us who had seen it live (the video had not yet arrived home) understood little to nothing – the thing about omitting vowels was not done by Bad Bunny – and invented by us – had a very good idea. The threshold for scandal is high. Schoolyards would scream Sinister Total's “Me pica un egg,” and soon Glutamato Yé-Yé's Iñaki would arrive in his Hitler look, singing, “All black people are hungry and cold down to the chicken leg.”
It was as if remembered those days, Abc, the little light of El Pardo of national decency that raised the cry to the sky, mind you, 11 days after broadcast, very concerned about the impact of this lyric on the psyche of children, although after listening there was no evidence of this There was a girl, Nancy threw herself out the window and ran off to apply for a job in an American bar. This performance, which almost no one saw, was talked about for months as if it were not a song to dance to a Litrona but a publication in the BOE, and it ended up costing its director Carlos Tena the job.
It's disheartening that a pop inconsequential is generating as much controversy today as a punk inconsequential was 40 years ago, and it's a relief that at least no one is being forced to resign over it.
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