Glup!

Glup! is a Chilean pop rock band formed in 1996 by three brothers: singer and guitarist Cristián "Koko" Stambuk, bassist Rodrigo Stambuk and drummer Vid Stambuk. They are on Muzika-Balkan for their Croatian roots: Koko's parents were Croatian immigrants to Chile, and the Croatian Wikipedia describes Rodrigo as of Croatian descent.

The band is Chilean and plays its reunion concerts in Chile, while Koko, born in Osorno in 1977, built his later career as a producer, songwriter and solo artist in Mexico and the United States. In 1996 he and keyboard player Marcel Molina had an electronic project called Merlin; in September the brothers joined and the project became Glup!. They opened for bands such as Machuca and Santos Dumont, added guitarist Gustavo Labrín, and finished their first album with producer Cristián Heyne and English engineer Barry Sage.

The first single, "Freebola", came out in December 1998 and became their signature song, a Britpop-flavoured hit often compared to Blur's "Girls & Boys". Early in 1999 "Quiero que me quieran" was the theme of the telenovela Algo está cambiando, which took Glup! to the Viña del Mar International Song Festival, and the debut album 1999 followed in April with "Campo de frutillas" and a cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here".

The second album, Wellcome Polinesia (2000), again produced by Heyne, turned towards Latin sounds in the spirit of Manu Chao, Café Tacuba and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs; its singles were "Enamorado de ti", "Grado 3" and "Así es la vida". With guitarist Rodrigo Vizcarra they recorded a third album, Glup!, at Fito Páez's Circo Beat studio in Buenos Aires in 2002, with "Mi destino" and "Puta jefe", and split up in 2003.

Koko went on to produce for Kudai, Luis Fonsi and Reik, and his solo album Valiente brought him a Latin Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. Glup! played reunion shows in 2011, came back in 2019 with "Chíngale", a song in Mexican slang, and since 2022 have toured Chile again and released a cover of Karol G's "Provenza". The playlist is the band's Topic channel, with their albums and their own cover versions, from "Dancing Queen" to "With or Without You".