Jorge González (musician)
Encyclopedia
Jorge González is the former lead singer, main songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 and sole composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 of the Chilean band Los Prisioneros
Los Prisioneros
Los Prisioneros was a chilean rock band formed in San Miguel, Santiago, Chile in 1982. They began as a local band during the early 1980s, playing small shows in their neighborhood and high school...

, and is currently the frontman of Los Updates
Los Updates
Los Updates are a minimal dance group formed by Jorge González of Los Prisioneros. They began sometime in the summer of 2006 after Los Prisioneros had broken up. Throughout the year they recorded some songs which will be released as an EP .-History:...

. Los Prisioneros enjoyed a huge level of popularity and success initially in Chile and eventually all of Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

 beginning in 1984. The band called it quits in 1992, and González went on a successful solo career.

Dissolution of Los Prisioneros

In February 1989 Claudio Narea
Claudio Narea
Claudio Narea is a Chilean rock musician, singer, and songwriter who is best known as the guitarist and back-up vocalist of the Chilean rock band Los Prisioneros from 1982–1989 and from 2000-2003....

 discovered love letter
Love letter
A love letter is a romantic way to express feelings of love in written form. Delivered by hand, by mail or romantically left in a secret location, the letter may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation of feelings...

s from his bandmate Jorge Gonzáles to his wife. Jorge, also married, admitted the adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...

, and when Claudio had reconcilled with his wife Jorge proposed a threesome. Claudio refused. The day after Jorge attempted suicide by eating 16 valium pills and cutting his veins. In 1990 Narea left the band, and Jorge and Miguel Tapia
Miguel Tapia
Miguel Tapia is a Chilean musician and former member of Los Prisioneros together with Jorge González and Claudio Narea. During the first hiatus of Los Prisioneros, from 1991 to 2006, Miguel Tapia was engaged in other music projects among the Jardín Secreto....

 continued with new members until 1991.

In February 1989 Gonzalez finished mixing "Corazones", their fourth and most successful album. He stayed in L.A under Gustavo Santaolalla
Gustavo Santaolalla
Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla is an Argentine musician, film composer and producer. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score in two consecutive years, for Brokeback Mountain in 2005 and Babel in 2006.-Life and career:...

's guidance. Back in Chile he started rehearsing for an tour with Claudio Narea and Miguel Tapia. One month beforehand Narea quit amid rumours of the love triangle, embarking on a series of interviews with the Prisioneros hating right wing press, blaming his exit from the successful trio on a "sell out" by the band. But he later decided to ghostwrite a "tell all" book with a writer from El Mercurio
El Mercurio
El Mercurio is a conservative Chilean newspaper with editions in Valparaíso and Santiago. Its Santiago edition is considered the country's paper-of-record and its Valparaíso edition is the oldest daily in the Spanish language currently in circulation. El Mercurio is owned by El Mercurio S.A.P...

, the main dictatorship newspaper, an unexpected move coming from a musician until then considered a hero. In a heavily militarized Chile his juicy story got enhanced with Acid House
Acid house
Acid house is a sub-genre of house music that emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style, often with samples or spoken lines rather than sung lyrics. Acid house's core electronic squelch sounds were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago who experimented with...

 debauchery (Gonzalez being the first Latin artist to embrace House and Techno) and colourful tales of drugs and madness.
The band split and Jorge got signed by EMI UK and embarked on a successful career until he suddenly broke up a multi-million 6 album deal in order to look for musical freedom, saying goodbye to stardom for almost a decade. He became a cult figure for some and a "troubled" character to the mainstream.

Own projects

Immediately after the dissolution of Los Prisioneros, EMI offered Jorge a very costly solo record deal. Jorge signed and began work on his first solo album. The album was self titled, it was released in 1993. The album sold well in Chile, and received moderate airplay outside of Chile as well. EMI was internally disappointed with the sales, although the album was certified platinum, the record label was expecting higher numbers. Jorge himself in interviews recalls "In 1993, everyone was copying "Grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...

" something I was totally against" in reference to the short lifespan of the albums presence in the charts.

Under contract, Jorge went on to record another album with EMI, "El Futuro Se Fue". Jorge was in a London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 studio recording the album, carefully overseeing the production himself. "El Futuro Se Fue" was the antithesis of the lavishly produced first solo album. Jorge has admitted in interviews that during the songwriting process of the album he found himself under the influence of drugs and had recently discovered the folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 of Victor Jara
Víctor Jara
Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez was a Chilean teacher, theatre director, poet, singer-songwriter, political activist and member of the Communist Party of Chile...

. The result was a mix of folk rock with a tinge of electronic sequencers in the background. EMI was disappointed with the album, nonetheless it was released in 1994. The album did not reach platinum status and has been oout of print since approximately 1995. The album is now much more highly regarded than when initially released. Similarly, while in Los Prisioneros
Los Prisioneros
Los Prisioneros was a chilean rock band formed in San Miguel, Santiago, Chile in 1982. They began as a local band during the early 1980s, playing small shows in their neighborhood and high school...

, this happened with the album La Cultura De La Basura
La cultura de la basura
La cultura de la basura is the thirth album by Chilean rock band Los Prisioneros.Due to the heavy censorship of the military regime in Chile Los Prisioneros focused in promoting the album outside Chile in other Latin American countries, for this purpose a special Latin American edition was...

.

Around 1995-1997, Jorge moved to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Although he spent lots of time in studios, as well as having his own home studio, Jorge attended the Institute of Audio Research engineering school in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 to further his audio engineering
Audio engineering
An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...

 knowledge. He also worked with Dandy Jack to produce the duo "Gonzalo Martinez" which was a hit in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, the album is a mix of traditional Cumbia
Cumbia
Cumbia is a music genre popular across Latin America. The cumbia originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where it is associated with an eponymous dance and has since spread as far as Mexico and Argentina...

 music all done through electronic programs, synthesizers, and sequencers
Music sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...

. Around this time he reunited with Miguel Tapia
Miguel Tapia
Miguel Tapia is a Chilean musician and former member of Los Prisioneros together with Jorge González and Claudio Narea. During the first hiatus of Los Prisioneros, from 1991 to 2006, Miguel Tapia was engaged in other music projects among the Jardín Secreto....

 (former drummer of Los Prisioneros) and formed a group called Los Dioses. Argenis Brito joined in as well, and they formed a trio. The band was a vehicle to promote the "Gonzalo Martinez" album in Latin America. A couple of concerts took place in Chile and Peru and the group proved to be a short stint, nearly lasting a year. Jorge in interviews has gone on to say that the album was ahead of its time for Latin America, while he compares that in Europe the album immediately took off. In 2004 Jorge also sang lead vocals for the electronic minimal dance group Sieg Uber Die Sonne in the album "+1" which was a very well received album in Europe.

In 1999, Jorge signed with Chilean label Alerce. He began work on "Mi Destino: Confesiones de una estrella de rock" after various rehab treatments in Cuba. He completely produced the album himself in his home studio. The album was released in 1999. The album was much better received than "El Futuro Se Fue" and he promoted the album through various television program appearances and performances. However, he never toured with the album even though reviews for the album were positive. The album is considered one of his most consistent albums in his solo career and is currently his last solo album under his own name.

Los Prisioneros reunion

In 2001, Jorge had a reunion with former Los Prisioneros bandmates Miguel Tapia
Miguel Tapia
Miguel Tapia is a Chilean musician and former member of Los Prisioneros together with Jorge González and Claudio Narea. During the first hiatus of Los Prisioneros, from 1991 to 2006, Miguel Tapia was engaged in other music projects among the Jardín Secreto....

 and Claudio Narea
Claudio Narea
Claudio Narea is a Chilean rock musician, singer, and songwriter who is best known as the guitarist and back-up vocalist of the Chilean rock band Los Prisioneros from 1982–1989 and from 2000-2003....

. They agreed to put past differences aside and reunite as a band. Unlike most bands, Los Prisioneros reunited without any sponsorship from any company and promoted their own concert in the Estadio Nacional
Estadio Nacional de Chile
The Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos is the national stadium of Chile, and is located in the Ñuñoa district of Santiago). It is the largest stadium in Chile with an official capacity of 47,000, and is part of a 62 ha sporting complex which also features tennis courts, an aquatics center, a...

 of Chile scheduled for the 30th of November, 2001. Ticket sales sold out immediately. Due to overwhelming demand, a second night was announced for December 1, 2001. Both concerts sold out within hours of their announcements. Both nights in total brought in approximately 140,000 people in attendance. This historic moment in Chilean music was documented on a two disc DVD containing footage from the concert released in 2002 along with a separate audio only two disc CD set also released in 2002. Throughout 2002 a long tour in Chile was successful and in 2003 they played in various other countries in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, and the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 In early 2003 they began work on a new studio album, which was released by Warner Music Latina
Warner Music Latina
Warner Music Latina is a record label part of Warner Music Group that focuses on Latin music.-List of artists on Warner Music Latina:*Ahora*Airbag*Alejandro Sanz*Alex Ubago*Andres Calamaro*Bacilos*Banda Machos*Basse*Buika*Calo*Canteca De Macao...

 in 2003. The album was instantly certified platinum prior to release. Reviews for the album were mixed and after more touring, Claudio Narea announced his departure from the group through their official website. Various media outlets covered the story which caused a stir in the media. Jorge announced the band would continue without Claudio and in 2004 released "Manzana" which was well received when compared to the self titled album from 2003. A lengthy tour followed throughout 2004-2006 that included Latin America, the U.S. and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. Guest musicians featured Gonzalo Yañez on guitars and back up vocals and Sergio "Coty" Badilla on guitars, back up vocals, and synthesizers. Initially the band was going to relocate in Mexico to in a sense "start over" as Jorge put it. Reasons for relocating were simply because of the bad press in Chile who took sides with the former guitarist Claudio Narea. Miguel Tapia and Sergio "Coty" Badilla told Jorge they would not move from Chile. Jorge understood and through their official website announced the dissolution of the band which took place in March 2006.

Los Updates

In the summer of 2006, after relocating to Mexico, D.F., Jorge along with his wife Loreto Otero formed the duo Los Updates
Los Updates
Los Updates are a minimal dance group formed by Jorge González of Los Prisioneros. They began sometime in the summer of 2006 after Los Prisioneros had broken up. Throughout the year they recorded some songs which will be released as an EP .-History:...

. They began networking through Myspace and built a fan base which consists of various people around the world. Los Updates music is solely composed and produced by Jorge with Loreto providing back up vocals and playing the synthesizer for live concerts. Initially she only sang back up and was in charge of controlling the visuals on stage. The music is self described by them as minimal dance house music. They released an E.P. in Chile in the summer of 2007, and the E.P. was released in Mexico in 2008 with bonus remix tracks. In Chile, both singles from the E.P. were ranked number 1 since their debuts in the Chilean music charts. Jorge was invited to perform in the Cumbre del Rock Chileno (a huge festival featuring over 40 bands) in 2007 by himself in Chile, and negated rumors of a possible Los Prisioneros reunion. He performed a 20 minute set by himself in front of approximately 40,000 people with only a Fender Telecaster
Fender Telecaster
The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele , is typically a dual-pickup, solid-body electric guitar made by Fender.Its simple yet effective design and revolutionary sound broke ground and set trends in electric guitar manufacturing and popular music...

 strapped on. He later went on to perform on a few dates (again, by himself) of a small festival tour called Garage Music festival which featured a few national Chilean rock bands.

In 2008, Jorge decided to organize a short tour in Chile similar to his appearance in the Cumbre del Rock Chileno which was regarded in the press as one of the highlights of the festival. Around this time he was dubbed by various media outlets as the "Father of Chilean Rock" a title which Jorge has called flattering but at the same time nothing he's taking too seriously. The tour proved to be successful and promised to release a CD and DVD documenting the concerts. He appeared in a few television programs during the tour and claimed to have organized the tour in order to get out the idea of playing by himself in small venues before he lost the momentum to do so. He announced that with the tour over, he would go to work with Los Updates full time and on September 22 a full length studio album was released in Europe and was imported to the U.S. on September 30. Currently Los Updates have a few concert dates in Chile, Argentina, México, Ecuador, Colombia, USA, Peru, Berlin, Zürich, Paris, and London.

Discography

  • Jorge González
    Jorge González (album)
    Jorge González was the self-titled solo debut of former lead singer and songwriter of the Chilean band Los Prisioneros, recorded in 1992 and released in early 1993. It was produced by Gustavo Santaolalla with Anibal Kerpel's collaboration...

     (EMI
    EMI
    The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

    -Odeon
    Odeon Records
    Odeon Records was a record label founded in 1903 by Max Straus and Heinrich Zuntz of the International Talking Machine Company in Berlin, Germany. It was named after a famous theatre in Paris, whose classical dome appears on the Odeon record label....

     - 1993)
  • El Futuro Se Fue
    El Futuro Se Fue
    El Futuro Se Fue was the second album of former lead singer and songwriter of the Chilean band Los Prisioneros, released in early 1994. It was produced by González himself....

     (EMI-Odeon - 1994) (The Future is Gone)
  • Gonzalo Martínez y Sus Congas Pensantes (RCA
    RCA
    RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

    /BMG
    BMG
    Bertelsmann Music Group, , was a division of Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Japan's Sony Corporation of America on October 1, 2008. It was established in 1987 to combine the music label activities of Bertelsmann...

     - 1997) (Gonzalo Martinez and His Thinking Congas)
  • Mi Destino: Confesiones de una estrella de rock (Alerce - 1999) (My Destiny: Confessions of a rock star)
  • Los Updates EP (2007) in Chile released under: Feria la Oreja, in the U.S.: Nacional Records
    Nacional Records
    Max Glücksmann, born was an Argentine Jewish pioneer of the music and film industries.-Biography:Glücksmann was born in Czernowitz, then part of the Austrian Empire, and emigrated to Argentina in 1890....

    , in Argentina: Secsy discos, and in Mexico: Noiselab Records
  • First if you please part 1 (2008) 12" remix album on Cadenza Records
  • First if you please part 2 (2008) 12" remix album on Cadenza Records
  • First if you please (2008) (full length album CD) on Cadenza Records

External links

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