Chilean Nueva Ola ('new wave' in Spanish, unrelated to British new wave) is the 1962–72 Chilean teen-pop generation that translated English and American rock 'n' roll and pop ballads into Spanish for early television. The centre was Santiago's Radio Minaría and the TV programme Nueva Ola. Peter Rock (born 1943), Cecilia Pantoja (1943–2020), Los Ángeles Negros, Los Ramblers, and Fresia Soler cranked out singles. Ensembles were two electric guitars, bass, drums, occasional sax, plus sweet lead vocal and bright backing chorus.

Influenced by the parallel Argentine Nueva Ola (Palmira Rubio etc.), the Chilean scene took off around 1962 with Peter Rock and Los Ramblers hitting radio. Cecilia's 1962 national hit 'Puré de papas' made her the era's only enduring female star; her low singing register and provocative stage presence deliberately unsettled Chile's conservative culture. Los Ángeles Negros (formed 1968 in San Carlos) built keyboard-driven ballads that became huge in Mexico. The 1973 Pinochet coup effectively ended the wave — apolitical entertainment lost its infrastructure — and nueva canción and rock took over.

Cecilia's 'Puré de papas' (1962) has her singing at male-vocalist depth, which was her deliberate choice rather than a norm for early-60s Chilean pop. Los Ángeles Negros's 'Y volveré' (1968) shows the keyboard-led ballad that took over the Mexican market. Peter Rock's tracks are direct Spanish translations of contemporaneous English-language rock 'n' roll — Elvis, the Beatles, Roy Orbison — and were evaluated on translation quality rather than on originality.

Cecilia's 'Puré de papas' (1962), Los Ángeles Negros's 'Y volveré' (1968), Peter Rock's 'La Chica Yeyé.' Listen as short two-to-three-minute singles rather than album-mode.

Cecilia largely withdrew from public performance during the Pinochet dictatorship, then re-emerged in the 1990s. She died on 5 October 2020, aged 76 — five days before her 77th birthday — and received a state tribute. Los Ángeles Negros's 'Y volveré' (1968) became so ubiquitous in Mexican film and telenovela use through the 1970s that many Mexicans think of it as a Mexican song. Peter Rock left secular music in the mid-1970s and has continued as a Christian evangelical singer.