Sounds of Spain – day one: a history of Spanish pop in 10 songs

Following our guides to French, Polish and Dutch pop, our exploration of the sounds of seven European countries continues with Spain. Here's everything you need to know about Y Viva España, plus the song that inspired an indie classic by Pulp, and Spanish post-punk techno – with more to follow tomorrow

Although Spain isn't the only erstwhile colonial power to have been thoroughly upstaged by its brash former charges when it comes to pop, the scale of Latin American domination of Spanish-language chart music outstrips even the US's hold over Britain. With isolated exceptions, such as the Miami-based Enrique Iglesias, Spain has produced few international stars to compete with Shakira and Don Omar since the days of Iglesias senior.

The fact that Spanish singers have found success outside of Spain harder to come by shouldn't be taken as a sign the country has created little of appeal to a wider audience, just that there's more for the rest of us to retrospectively catch up with.

The history of Spanish chart music is inseparable from the politics of the country. Necessarily safe and conformist in the long years of fascist dictatorship, the release of pent-up creativity in the late 70s and early 80s gave the country a scene every bit as exciting as the more acclaimed British new wave or German neue Deutsche welle. Unpredictable and outlandish to this day, there's an awful lot more to Spanish pop than ageing lotharios doing the Macarena. Here are 10 classic clips.

Raphael – Amo (1966)

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His plaintive balladry might have paved the way for nine tenths of the most boring music Spain would produce over the course of the next 50 years but Raphael deserves to be remembered as much more than a precursor to snooze-inducing crooners such as Julio Iglesias andAlejandro Sanz. Songs such as 1966's Amo, on which his tremulous voice is paired with understated organ and guitar, updated traditional folk themes with a crispness that his saccharine imitators have rarely come close to matching.

Marisol – Corazón Contento (1968)

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A singing, dancing screen superstar since the age of 11, few performers captured the buoyant mood the Franco government was desperately trying to impose on the nation like Pepa "Marisol" Flores. Working within the ye-ye style Spain had imported from France, the strutting Corazón Contento contains enough unrestrained joy to compete with anything the neighbours across the Pyrenees were producing at the time. Flores, a lifelong socialist, despised Franco and is reported to have donated all awards he gave her to the Communist Party of Spain for auction.

Jeanette – Porque Te Vas (1974)

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While Britain lapped up songs with Spanish trappings, such as George Baker's Una Paloma Blanca and Sylvia's Y Viva España, throughout the 70s, ones actually recorded by Spanish artists found little favour. Perhaps the biggest and best pan-European hit the UK missed out on was Porqué Te Vas by London-born singer Jeanette. A masterpiece of downbeat easy listening, its mixture of fatalistic lyrics and incongruously jolly trumpets works like an Iberian take on the beautiful bleakness of the Carpenters and proves once again there's often more depth of emotion in derided MOR pop than other, more fashionable, genres.

Alaska y los Pegamoides – Horror en el Hipermercado (1979)

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The most significant turning point in the history of modern Spanish pop wasn't a concert or the release of an album – it was the demise of General Franco. Freed from the weight of state censorship, the bands of the progressive "movida Madrileña" that sprang up after his death wasted little time in going marvellously off the rails. Helping set the stage for a music scene that remains one of the strangest and most fantastical in Europe, acts such as Alaska y los Pegamoides mixed punk, disco and horror-movie references to startling effect. Lead singer Alaska went on to front a variety of other projects, including the wonderful Fangoria.

Mecano – Me Colé en una Fiesta (1982)

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By the early 80s, the more abrasive edges of la movida Madrileña had started to be smoothed by the integration of stronger electro-pop, Italo disco and new romantic influences. Nobody achieved more success with this new direction than the excellent Mecano, still the biggest group Spain has ever produced. Their self-titled debut, which included the shimmering Me Colé en una Fiesta, may have lacked the outre flamboyance of their contemporaries but compensated with some of the greatest synth-pop Europe was blessed with at the time. Alongside the legion of Spanish and Latin American bands they inspired are Pulp, whose Common People bears more than a passing resemblance to 1988's Los Amantes.

La Unión – Hombre Lobo en Paris (1984)

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While half of the acts that grew out of la movida were embracing electronic pop, a second branch adopted new wave with equal fervour. Spain may have arrived at punk late but bands such as La Unión, Danza Invisible and Radio Futura made sure that it fully participated in the angular post-punk indie scene spreading across the continent. One of the most memorable songs of the era, La Unión's Hombre Lobo en Paris had a sweeping grace that would have made Echo and the Bunnymen proud. Spain's indie culture remains one of the strongest in Europe.

Miguel Bosé– Salamandra (1986)

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The son of a famous bullfighter, Miguel Bosé brought a toreador's controlled showmanship to dramatic pop songs that were classical enough to appeal to the old guard but had enough bite to win over younger listeners. Although he started the decade as a fluffy salsa pop star, by the mid-80s he was fusing dynamic synth music to Spain's traditional slow-burning ballad style with unmistakable gravitas. Salamandra, reminiscent of Bryan Ferry or France's superb Étienne Daho, stands out as one of the finest singles of the era.

Chimo Bayo – Asi Mi Gusta a Mi (1991)

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For a country that plays host to the summer-long madness of the Ibiza club season, Spain has developed surprisingly few superstar producers of its own. There has always been more to the nation's commercial dance music than DJ Sammy reanimating the corpses of iffy 80s power ballads, though. A pulsating techno anthem with a debt to Belgian new beat, Chimo Bayo's brilliant Asi Mi Gusta a Mi topped the charts from Greece to Japan in 1991 and retains a cult following that has been enhanced by Soulwax mixing the song into their sets at Barcelona's Sonar festival.

La Casa Azul – Superguay (2004)

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With the exception of usual suspects Britain and Sweden, nobody in Europe has produced more twee jangle-pop than Spain in recent years. Whether a reaction to a dominant culture of machismo or simply the result of a batch of discounted Belle and Sebastian records winding up in Madrid in the late 90s, quaint sweetness rules. While little in music has the potential to be as counter-intuitively aggravating as relentless pleasantness, it's impossible to find the puppyish charm of La Casa Azul's Superguay anything other than utterly endearing.

Mala Rodriguez – Nanai (2007)

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In the face of strong competition from Puerto Rican and Mexican stars, most Spanish rappers have struggled to make much of an impression domestically, let alone globally. It has been left to Mala Rodriguez to carry the torch for the old country. Picking up Latin Grammy awards and collaborating with the likes of Nelly Furtado and Romeo Santos, La Mala might be Spain's most internationally visible female pop star of the last decade. Her combination of accessibility and obstreperousness on Nanai makes it easy to see why she is so well regarded at home and abroad.