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Journalist Carlos Tena, the face of music television, dies

2023-04-14T21:48:28.657Z


The communicator, who died at the age of 79, worked on RNE and TVE since the sixties with famous programs such as 'Popgrama' and 'La caja de los ritmos'


Carlos Tena, in a file image. Ceded by Radio Cadena Española

When Spain needed new sounds, Carlos Tena, who died this past Thursday in Madrid at the age of 79, was there to tell and explain it.

He was there, as a good cultural journalist, to spread the word.

In that country still in black and white that was advancing towards color after the end of the Franco regime, he was not the only one nor the best, but perhaps the most recognizable face of a public television that he found in this man from Madrid, always dressed in his big glasses , the face of change: a type of marble gesture, deep voice, acid humor and strong personality.

He was the guy who showed music from everywhere, without distinction or prejudice.

Tena was so missing in recent years that his death has emerged through the social networks of the musician Álex de la Nuez, a former member of Zombies, Tequila and Álex & Christina.

The deceased's sister, Yolanda, told him this Friday after he was cremated in a Madrid funeral home.

Tena had returned from Cuba eight years ago and was living in Ronda until he had a problem with his vocal cords and lost his voice.

Shortly after, he was diagnosed with cancer and he moved to Madrid to be close to his daughter Verónica.

He died yesterday without anyone making it public.

“He was one of the greatest pioneers.

He was there from the very first moment, ”says Álex de la Nuez, who shared many years of friendship in Spain and Cuba with Tena.

My dear Carlos Tena has passed away.

I cannot express the pain it entails, nor am I going to elaborate in an obituary.

45 years cannot be summed up in a sentence

– alex de la nuez (@alexdelanuez) April 14, 2023

With an imaginative mind and an unspeakable character, Tena became known on the radio at the end of the sixties.

His name began to sound strongly on RNE when in 1973 she presented

Para vosotros jovenes,

a program that won the National Radio Award and in which he already showed his search for new formats to reach the incipient youth audience.

However, it was the

Popular Classics

space where in 1976 he was able to develop innovative and carefree work.

He already appeared as the journalist with a colloquial style and his own criteria that would mark his passage to television.

A step that came immediately on TVE and that, seen from the perspective of time, was a small milestone in the history of our television:

Popgrama

, presented together with Diego A. Manrique.

It premiered in 1977 and lasted until 1980. An informative program with two charismatic and independent music journalists.

The new era had arrived and the Spain of the NODE was already left behind to the rhythm of fresh and alternative sounds and driven by knowledge and freedom.

Freedom is in its deepest meaning.

So, Tena could present a group complaining about the commercial pressure exerted by the record companies or doubting their quality or success.

It seems impossible today, but that television or radio, like that musical journalism, existed.

Tena was called to star in the musical television of the hectic scene.

His next program was

Música Maestro

and, later, in 1983,

The rhythm box

, for which he is best remembered due to the controversy that the Vulpes starred in.

The presenter faced a criminal complaint, after the performance in 1983 of the female punk band Vulpes with their song

I like being a fox

, one of the most remembered scandals in the history of the public channel.

The case was dismissed three years later, but Tena resigned just days after the scandal.

He said he felt "defenseless" in a persecution sponsored by the right.

His resignation did not separate him from the sets.

He also presented

Pop What?

and, between 1985 and 1986,

Auanbabulubabalambambú,

another well-remembered space, very entertaining, which included video clips, news,

sketches

, reports and live performances by emerging Spanish groups.

awkward character

In the nineties, he jumped to private channels and became very popular as a judge of

Lluvia de estrellas

, on Antena 3. In what was the original version of

Tu cara me suena

, made with anonymous participants, made a television couple with the copla expert Lauren Postigo.

His career as a popularizer of music was already going downhill and, at the turn of the century, he decided to go live in Cuba, where he always had good ties to Castroism.

He said that he had gotten tired of television giving the door to all the presenters of the previous generation.

Without ceasing to be partly right, with a public television each year further from its informative postulates and a private one promoting trash TV, it should be noted that the person had also been eaten by that uncomfortable and free-thinking character, excessively confronted with the world.

For Álex de la Nuez, that “curmudgeon” was still a “greatest of Spanish music”.

“He was a person of enormous knowledge and very accurate criteria.

And a wonderful curmudgeon.

She liked to be contrary.

He was an unbelievable big head, but he had a heart of gold."

Until he withdrew from music journalism and from Spain with his move to Cuba, Carlos Tena also combined radio and television for three decades with his role as a music critic for the newspapers Pueblo, Diario 16

and

El

Mundo

.

One of his last contributions was in the magazine

Efe Eme,

where he recommended his essential albums.

In the last two decades, it had disappeared and almost this disappearance symbolized that of a music journalism on public television and radio very different from the current one, where pure and simple entertainment has crushed cultural criticism.

An independent and biting journalism, much less accommodating, more devoted to cultural construction and not so much to commercial or audience interests.

Today it would be impossible and Martian to see

Popgrama

on a public television subordinated to

Operaciones Triunfos, Benidorms Fest

and

Eurovisions.

Not only because of what they recommended, criticized and disseminated, but also because of how they did it and who they addressed.

The gyrfalcons of today do not want thinkers.

They want subordinates.

Of all the Byzantine battles that Carlos Tena got into, in this one he was right in the end: we have gotten worse.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-04-14

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