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40 albums · 1945–2025

Music of Paraguay, from the harp and the guarania to Berta Rojas, the rock of Asunción and today

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

Trío Los Paraguayos on a stage in the Netherlands in 1956, harp and guitars
Berta Rojas seated with her guitar, a black and white portraitIsmael Ledesma playing the Paraguayan harp on stage
Trío Los Paraguayos on a Dutch stage in 1956, the harp behind the guitars. Photo: Fotopersbureau De Boer, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Berta Rojas with her guitar, 2017. Photo: Rodrigo Da Silva, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Ismael Ledesma at the Paraguayan harp, 2015. Photo: Lety Peralta, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Paraguay's popular music has the harp at its heart and two forms of its own, the polca and the guarania that José Asunción Flores made of it, played and sung here by Félix Pérez Cardozo, Agustín Barboza, Luis Alberto del Paraná y Los Paraguayos, Luis Bordón, Digno García, Quemil Yambay and the duos of the Buenos Aires years, then Agustín Barrios Mangoré's guitar in the hands of Sila Godoy and Berta Rojas, Ricardo Flecha and Lizza Bogado, the rock of Asunción since the nineties, Rolando Chaparro, Flou, Paiko, Revolber, the ska and cumbia of Kchiporros, the rap of Mente Sabia Crú, and Purahéi Soul and Ismael Ledesma's harp today. The list has 40 records from 1945 to 2025, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; Los Indios and Demetrio Ortiz have only undated reissues or single songs on Deezer, and the song of the Guaraní-speaking countryside and the Chaco beyond a few records, the music of the churches and of the cathedral of Asunción, and the many records of the sixties and seventies that never reached streaming would each need a list of their own. About 31 hours of music, 4 days of a few records each.

By genre

Folk & Country 10%Rock 10%World 5%Other 75%
  • Folk & Country 10%
  • Rock 10%
  • World 5%
  • Other 75%

The genres named most: paraguayan, folk, guarania, polca, harp, classical guitar.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: Paraguay 40. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.