Bersuit Vergarabat

The most famous act of censorship in Argentine rock of the nineties did not arrive as a veto or as a ban. It arrived as a figure: close to two hundred thousand dollars was what it could cost a radio station to put "Sr. Cobranza" on the air. The Comité Federal de Radiodifusión, the COMFER, Argentina's broadcasting regulator, did not call Bersuit Vergarabat and did not open a case against anyone in the band. It squeezed the radio stations, where it really hurt, which was the licence. And it did so on the same day the album hit the shops.

Someone else wrote it, and it was for the pedestrian mall

"Sr. Cobranza" is not a Bersuit song. It was written by Hernán "Cabra" de Vega, singer of Las Manos de Filippi, in 1994, and he wrote it with a very specific brief in mind: he needed a long, attention-grabbing number to draw a crowd on the pedestrian mall. He put it together by reading political commentary and jotting down loose phrases until he had assembled the whole thing. His method, in his own words, was that "you had to speak out and tell them to go to hell, and we did it with first and last names". And that is literal: the lyrics name President Carlos Menem, his Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, former president Raúl Alfonsín and Norma Plá, the figurehead of the pensioners, and they tie political power to drug trafficking. Las Manos de Filippi released it on their own album, Arriba las manos, esto es el Estado, that same 1998.

Bersuit took it into their repertoire in 1997 and recorded it for Libertinaje, where it is track six and appears credited to "De la Vega". The version is not a copy: they changed the title to the singular, moved it from that crossing of hip hop and funk into hard rock, cut it down from four forty-eight to four nineteen and built a backing under it that alternates D minor and B flat major with a hardcore bridge past the three-minute mark. What is not documented is that they touched the lyrics, and better not to say they did.

The COMFER did not call the band, it called the radio stations

On the twenty-fifth of August 1998 Libertinaje came out, and that same day the COMFER issued its directive. It threatened broadcasters with fines of close to two hundred thousand dollars, invoking four articles of law 22.285, the broadcasting law inherited from the dictatorship, the one that orders Christian morality to be preserved. The mechanism was explained without euphemisms by Enrique Prosen, programming manager of Rock & Pop — the same station that two weeks earlier had premiered the song exclusively on Cuál es?, Mario Pergolini's programme —: you had to censor yourself not only because of the financial damage, but because the station's licence was at risk. It was not a blacklist. It was an accounting calculation that each station made on its own.

And it came out the other way round from what the COMFER expected. Universal papered Buenos Aires with the complete lyrics, the band filmed a video at full speed, a "pipeada" version was released — with beeps over the flagged words, so covered up that it was almost inaudible — so that the radio stations could play something, and in May 1999 Spain's El País ran a headline saying that Bersuit were bringing songs that bothered President Menem. The episode also had a material cost that is almost never told: the success of the version opened a rights dispute with the original authors, and Universal went as far as manufacturing twenty thousand copies of Libertinaje that it could not distribute without authorisation. An agreement had to be negotiated, and Las Manos de Filippi were left angry with the label and with the band.

Here is the part that no heroic version of the story includes. The song's own author plays down the epic: De Vega distinguishes the commercial censorship of a multinational from the invisibility that independent artists suffer, and he holds that that censorship, told the way the industry told it, was "more commercial than real". Both things are true at the same time. The State threatened real stations with real fines; and the man who wrote the song says the scandal was of more use to the label than to the song. Years later, Las Manos de Filippi recorded a new version together with Bersuit and Connie Isla, which closed the quarrel.

Pyjamas borrowed from their grandfathers

Bersuit Vergarabat formed in 1988 in the neighbourhood of Barracas, in Buenos Aires, and took that name in May 1989; before that they had been Henry y La Palangana and Los Prehistóricos. The name does not mean anything, and it does not mean anything on purpose: it came out of a night of playing with words at Gustavo Cordera's house, which left "Bersuit Vergarabat Van de Ir", trimmed down to the first two. Cordera explained it like this: since words tend to wear out, they gave themselves a name that simply would not mean anything. The founding line-up was him on vocals, Juan Subirá on keyboards, accordion and vocals, Pepe Céspedes on bass, Carlos E. Martín on drums, Charly Bianco on guitar and Miguel Jara on bass.

The pyjamas have an explanation, and it is not the one that goes around. Cordera said that in 1988, rehearsing for a concert, they decided to build their own story "with an outfit that does not represent the hard side of what rock is": the pyjama is, before anything else, an anti-leather decision. The second reason he added himself: they used to go to the Hospital Neuropsiquiátrico José Tiburcio Borda, the psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires, to spend time with the patients, taking them biscuits and cigarettes and singing to them, and out of that came the idea of borrowing the pyjamas from their grandfathers. There is a more prosaic version, which is also worth saying: at the first show they are said to have worn pyjamas because it was the only garment they all owned, and the meaning was loaded on afterwards. What does have to be dismantled with no detours is the legend that Cordera was committed to the Borda. He never was.

Two albums a month apart

Libertinaje was recorded at Estudios Panda, in Buenos Aires, between the twentieth of April and the twenty-third of May 1998, and at La Casa, in Los Angeles, between the third of June and the fourteenth of July, with production by Gustavo Santaolalla together with Alfredo Toth and Pablo Guyot. It reached number one in Argentina and is multi-platinum. And it takes apart in passing another comfortable idea, the one that says Cordera wrote the lyrics on his own: on that same album "C.S.M." is signed by Subirá and Céspedes, "Se viene" by Cordera and Alberto Verenzuela, and "Sr. Cobranza" by De la Vega. Bersuit was a factory of shared authorship, and that is exactly the reason it was able to go on existing afterwards.

It is also worth putting each song on its own album, because they tend to be named as a block as if they came from the same moment and they are spread across six years. "Se viene", "C.S.M." and "Sr. Cobranza" are from Libertinaje, 1998. "La bolsa" is from Hijos del culo, 2000, although it was written at a barbecue in late 1998 and played that same night. And "Perro amor explota" was never on a Bersuit studio album: it appeared on the soundtrack of Amores Perros, in 2000, and its only release on an album of their own is live, on track nine of De la cabeza, the band's only live album, recorded at the Estadio Obras Sanitarias and at the ShowCenter in Haedo and number one on CD and on DVD in Argentina.

La argentinidad al palo is not one album either — the title is untranslatable, something like Argentine-ness at full blast. It is two, recorded between November and December 2003, released separately and each one with a title of its own: Se es came out in March 2004 and Lo que se es on the fifteenth of April of the same year. One hundred and four minutes, twenty-three songs, the Surco label, production again by Santaolalla with Céspedes and Oscar Righi, number one in Argentina and more than a hundred concerts that year. The singles were "La soledad", "Porno star" and the title track, signed between five: Cordera, Righi, Subirá, Céspedes and Martín.

The awards call for precision because they tend to get inflated. At the Latin Grammys of the first of September 2004 the album was nominated for Best Rock Album, Vocal, Duo or Group, and did not win: the award went to La Ley with Libertad. What it did win was the Gardel de Oro, at the ceremony of the thirteenth of April 2005, as well as Album of the Year and Best Rock Group Album, out of seven nominations, the most nominated of that year. On receiving the Gardel de Oro, Cordera dedicated the award to the victims of República Cromañón. The video for "La argentinidad al palo", premiered on the eleventh of June 2004, was produced by the journalist Jorge Lanata, and it runs through Argentine history to conclude that the country swings between ecstasy and agony.

June 2009, and the group psychologist

The smoothed-over version says that Cordera split from the group to pursue a solo career. What happened was something else. In April 2009 the band announced a run of shows at the Luna Park, in Buenos Aires, of which only two performances actually happened, because of the commitments of the singer's solo project. In June 2009 it was not Cordera who left: the whole of Bersuit broke up, for an indefinite period. He released Suelto that same year. The band came back in 2011 and he did not want to be part of it.

Then came the fight over the name. Cordera went as far as to say that, even though they were carrying on as Bersuit, he considered that they should not use that name, because he was the founder and had exposed himself in front of an entire country — although the records list him as a co-founder: the band was put together by him, Subirá and Céspedes. On the other side there was no diplomacy. Daniel Suárez, one of the two current singers, said it in 2016 in a sentence of total dryness: "We are not friends any more and we never saw each other again". And in 2018 the band let out the detail that sums it all up: when Cordera left, they started going to a group psychologist.

There is a later chapter that it would not be right to leave out. On Monday the eighth of August 2016, in a talk with journalism students at the TEA school, in Buenos Aires, Cordera maintained that there are women whom it is necessary to rape and, according to the prosecutor's filing, defended the idea that adults could have sexual relations with thirteen-year-old girls. A student circulated what he had said that same day; the date of the eleventh of August that is usually cited is not the date of the talk but that of the statement in which Bersuit expressed their "total and emphatic repudiation" and recalled that Cordera had not been part of the band since 2009. The case, for public incitement to collective violence, ended with no conviction and no acquittal: on the twentieth of August 2020 a federal oral court granted him the suspension of the trial on probation — a gender workshop, two free shows and a video of retraction — and in November of that year he was dismissed from the case after meeting the conditions. That retraction was not his last word: in September 2025 he described what had happened to him as an "organised persecution".

What to remember

The songbook stayed. It stayed because it was never one man's: the credits are spread around, the two singers of today, Suárez and Germán "Cóndor" Sbarbati, were already singing backing vocals on Libertinaje in 1998, and three of the founders of 1988 — Subirá, Céspedes and Martín — are still among the nine who make up the band, which released Cocoliche Life in January 2024 and has a date at the Movistar Arena for November 2026. The band that the story had given up for finished in 2009 has now spent more years without Cordera than with him.

And what stays is the story of that fine, which is better than the legend. A song written in 1994 to draw a crowd on a pedestrian mall, with the first and last names of politicians inside it, that a multinational turned into a hit; a State body that instead of banning it threatened the pockets and the licences of anyone who might play it; twenty thousand copies manufactured and held in a warehouse; and the author saying, years later, that that censorship was more commercial than real. When "Sr. Cobranza" plays on any Argentine radio station, with no beeps and no fine, there is the exact result of what the COMFER attempted.

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Sources

Bersuit Vergarabat is an Argentine band formed in 1988 in the neighbourhood of Barracas, Buenos Aires, which adopted its definitive name in May 1989 after being called Henry y La Palangana and Los Prehistóricos; some records place its founding in 1987, in Lanús. Founding line-up: Gustavo Cordera (vocals), Juan Subirá (keyboards, accordion and vocals), Pepe Céspedes (bass), Carlos E. Martín (drums), Charly Bianco (guitar) and Miguel Jara (bass); Alberto Verenzuela (guitar) joined in 1994. The current line-up, of nine members, is completed by Daniel Suárez (vocals, 1997), Germán "Cóndor" Sbarbati (vocals, 1997), Manuel Uriona (percussion, 2001), Mariano "Nano" Campoliete (guitar, 2012) and Juan Bruno (guitar, 2016); Oscar Righi was guitarist between 1990 and 2016. Gustavo Edgardo Cordera was born on 15 September 1961 in Avellaneda, province of Buenos Aires, was co-founder and singer between 1988 and 2009 and has lived in Uruguay since 2006; he released "Suelto" (2009) and the albums of the La Caravana Mágica project. "Libertinaje" was released on 25 August 1998 by Universal Music; it was recorded at Estudios Panda (Buenos Aires) from 20 April to 23 May 1998 and at La Casa (Los Angeles) from 3 June to 14 July 1998, with production by Gustavo Santaolalla together with Alfredo Toth and Pablo Guyot; it reached no. 1 in Argentina and is multi-platinum, with sources disagreeing between double and quadruple platinum. "Señor Cobranzas" was composed in 1994 by Hernán "Cabra" de Vega, of Las Manos de Filippi, with Hernán "Mosky" Penner credited on the original version, and released by that band on "Arriba las manos, esto es el Estado" (1998); on the tracklist of "Libertinaje" it appears as track 6, credited to De la Vega, at 4:19 against the 4:48 of the original and with the title in the singular. Bersuit took it into their repertoire in 1997 and premiered it two weeks before the release on "Cuál es?", Mario Pergolini's programme on Rock & Pop. On 25 August 1998 the COMFER issued a directive threatening broadcasters with fines of close to 200,000 dollars, invoking articles 5, 14, 16 and 17 of broadcasting law 22.285, passed during the dictatorship. Enrique Prosen, programming manager of Rock & Pop, stated that he had to censor himself not only because of the financial damage but because the station's licence was at risk. Universal manufactured 20,000 copies that it could not distribute without authorisation from the original composers and released a "pipeada" version for radio. In May 1999 El País ran a headline saying that the band were bringing songs that bothered President Menem. The song is number 72 of VH1 Latin America's 100 Greatest Spanish Songs of the 90s; in 2020 Bersuit relaunched it together with Dr. Shenka, of Panteón Rococó, and Las Manos de Filippi recorded a new version with Bersuit and Connie Isla. De Vega has held that the corporate version of that censorship was "more commercial than real". Authorship on "Libertinaje": "Se viene" (track 4, Cordera and Verenzuela), "C.S.M." (track 11, Subirá and Céspedes). "La bolsa" was released on "Hijos del culo" (2000) and was written in late 1998. "Perro amor explota" appeared on the soundtrack of "Amores Perros" (2000) and its only release on an album by the band is live, on track 9 of "De la cabeza" (2002, Universal/Interdisc), recorded at the Estadio Obras Sanitarias and at the ShowCenter in Haedo, no. 1 on CD and on DVD in Argentina. "La argentinidad al palo" is a double album released in two instalments each with its own title: "Se es", in March 2004, and "Lo que se es", on 15 April 2004; recorded between November and December 2003 for Surco/Universal with production by Gustavo Santaolalla together with Pepe Céspedes and Oscar Righi; 104:19 in length and 23 songs; no. 1 in Argentina, certified 5× platinum according to en.wikipedia and 6× according to es.wikipedia. Singles: "La soledad", "La argentinidad al palo" and "Porno star"; the title track is signed by Cordera, Righi, Subirá, Céspedes and Martín, premiered on 11 June 2004 and its video was produced by the journalist Jorge Lanata. At the Latin Grammy Awards of 1 September 2004 the album was nominated for Best Rock Album, Vocal, Duo or Group; the award was won by La Ley with "Libertad". At the Gardel Awards of 13 April 2005 it took 7 nominations, the most of the year, and won 3: Gardel de Oro, Album of the Year and Best Rock Group Album; Cordera dedicated the Gardel de Oro to the victims of the República Cromañón fire. In April 2009 the band announced the "Luna Llena en el Luna" run, of which only 2 performances took place, and in June 2009 it announced its break-up for an indefinite period; it came back in 2011 without Cordera. In statements collected by Télam on 21 November 2014, Cordera held that he felt he "had to refound himself" and that the band should not use that name because he considered himself its founder. Daniel Suárez told La Nación on 13 May 2016: "We are not friends any more and we never saw each other again". In Infobae, on 6 September 2018, the band recounted that after Cordera's departure it started attending a group psychologist. On Monday 8 August 2016, in a talk with journalism students at the TEA school, in Buenos Aires, Cordera made statements about the rape of women and about sexual relations with minors; the student Jonatan Dalinger circulated them that same day. On 11 August 2016 Bersuit Vergarabat published a statement of repudiation in which it noted that Cordera had not been part of the band since 2009. The case was opened on 12 August 2016 on a complaint by María Fabiana Túnez, president of the Consejo Nacional de las Mujeres, and by the INADI, for public incitement to collective violence, the offence under article 212 of the Argentine Penal Code, carrying a sentence of 3 to 6 years. The prosecutor Luis Ramiro González requested that it be sent to trial on 7 June 2018 and the federal judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral sent it to oral trial on 3 July 2018. On 20 August 2020 the Tribunal Oral en lo Criminal Federal no. 7 of the City of Buenos Aires granted the suspension of the trial on probation, with a gender workshop, two free shows and a video of retraction, and in November 2020 Cordera was dismissed from the case after meeting the conditions: there was no conviction and no acquittal. The case was for his statements and not for an act of sexual violence. In September 2025 he described his cancellation as an "organised persecution". The band's latest album is "Cocoliche Life", released on 6 January 2024 by Pirca Records; it has announced dates for 22 October 2026 in Neuquén, 3 November 2026 at the Movistar Arena in Buenos Aires and 27 November 2026 at the Teatro Mercedes Sosa in Tucumán. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from La Nación, Infobae, La Gaceta, La Tercera, Télam, El País, Ciudad Magazine, Cooperativa, El Destape, the Ministerio Público Fiscal of Argentina, rock.com.ar, bersuit.com, Wikipedia and other press coverage.