During the mid-to-late 1960s, Buenos Aires was experiencing a cultural blossoming characterized by innovations in modern art, literature and cinema, largely driven by a burgeoning youth subculture that adhered to the countercultural phenomenon of the decade.

The popularity of "La balsa" turned Argentine rock into a widespread youth culture phenomenon, and was followed by the appearance of the first magazines, independent record labels and music festivals of the movement.

The success of the single and the stardom of Los Gatos was also followed by a complex debate on "commercial music" and the negative implications that the creation of a mass market could have on the authenticity of rock acts.

[5] In the early 1960s, Mexican band Los Teen Tops, originally led by singer Enrique Guzmán, gained popularity in Argentina and were influential in the development of an Argentine scene by introducing rock 'n' roll songs with Spanish lyrics.

[6][7] The early 1960s were also characterized by the emergence and success of the nueva ola, a phenomenon driven by the TV show, El club del clan that revolutionized the national youth music scene.

Highly popular, El club del clan turned its young cast—which included Palito Ortega, Billy Caffaro, Violeta Rivas, Lalo Fransen, Nicky Jones and Cachita Galán—into the first national teen idols.

[4][8] More transgressive than the singers from El club del clan, Sandro rose to stardom with the debut of his band Los de Fuego in 1963, which covered foreign rock 'n' roll songs in Spanish.

[18] In this context, the Argentine middle class youth was deeply impacted by Beatlemania, the international non-violence and anti-authoritarian movements, and the sexual revolution; symbolizing their identity with rock music and a unisex point of view, with long hair on men as one of its most prominent exteriorizations.

An underground youth subculture began to appear in Buenos Aires, with its epicenter in the triangle formed by a precarious musical bar called La Cueva in Avenida Pueyrredón, the Torcuato di Tella Institute in Florida Street, and Plaza Francia.

[24] In Víctor Pintos' biography of Tanguito, Rocky Rodriguez recalled: "La Cueva was totally like a Babel, it was like those biblical stories of the desert, where caravans come from various sides, and they all land in the same place.

[28] They mostly emulated the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, although there were also influences from Los Teen Tops, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Frank Zappa.

Because the cultural isolation imposed by the successive dictatorships and the multiplicity of rock influences, produced an original hybrid that was born there, in the late 1965 and early 1966...[25] "But the heart, the spirit of the movement was not intellectual, it was musical, rambling...

[35] Unlike what happened in North America or the United Kingdom, illegal drugs had a marginal place within the Argentine youth movement, which was more oriented towards the sexual revolution and the guidelines on personal presentation.

[26] Through his musician parents, Nebbia was also knowledgeable of jazz artists such as Chico Hamilton, Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck and Eric Dolphy, and was aware of Brazilian bossa nova since its emergence.

[26][39] Los Gatos became the house band of La Cueva, performing every night from ten in the evening until four in the morning, and receiving a small salary with which they could pay a crowded pension in Once and barely eat.

After leaving the band and aborting a solo project under the stage name Ramsés VII, Tanguito came to know La Cueva through friend Horacio Martínez, and throughout the following years became a fixture of Buenos Aires' rock scene.

[34][60][61] Los Andes wrote: "[At the song's half,] Fogliatta performs an organ solo that takes the place that in the formal rock culture of that time used to assume the electric guitar".

[34][62] Víctor Pintos wrote that "in 'La balsa', ideas and elements that would mark the DNA of Argentine rock come together: the bossa nova of Tom Jobin, the fusion of Piazzolla, the arid folk of Dylan and the merseybeat of the Beatles.

[48] Researcher and writer Mario Antonelli reflected: As for the lyrics, Tanguito poses his current problem and Nebbia solves it, starting from "I am very alone here, and I want to go to that place of illusion, hope... To shipwreck, to be outside of all that is happening."

"[39] As a result, in 1968 Los Gatos became leading figures of Argentine popular music, making numerous performances throughout the country, releasing three more studio albums, and undergoing a tour of two and a half months through Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay and Brazil.

[44][47] "La balsa", on the other hand, became an international hit, establishing the commercial viability of rock music sung in Spanish, and turning what originally was an underground scene into a widespread youth culture phenomenon.

[74] The success of "La balsa" turned Los Gatos into "the motor nerve of the movement," creating an audience for the emerging Argentine rock and paving the way for various new bands, the most notorious being Almendra and Manal.

As a result, and in a matter of months, Tanguito and Miguel Abuelo signed with CBS, as did for other big labels artists that did not come from La Cueva but "shared a similar ethic and ways of feeling music", such as Alma y Vida, Arco Iris and Almendra.

According to Kreimer, "society made room for young people who wanted to join the party of distraction, but not for content that reflected real questions and cravings"; noting that there was no awareness of "a larger collective, nor a countercultural spirit.

"[87] The repeated statement spoken by Martínez established the iconic status of La Perla, and installed the myth that Nebbia stole the song from Tanguito, taking advantage of his "madness and ingenuity".

"[47] In an article for Página/12 regarding the 2013 musical theatre adaptation of Tango Feroz, Pipo Lernoud was highly critical of the film, writing that "it is a pity that once again the legend of the Christ-like and solitary saint hides the collective creative work and turns a wonderful experience into a product for the capitalist market".

[...] The rock from here is the product of a shared creation in long discussions about books and films, science fiction and accursed literature, jazz and bossa nova, tango and blues, scientists and poets.

But the feat of Los Gatos changed that concept and reversed the terms of the equation: the songs of the Argentine rockers were adding prestige, until two decades later those interpreters became the most respected and most heard of all the music produced in the country.

"[99] In a July 1985 survey by journalist Carlos Polimeni for Clarín, "La balsa" was selected as one of the greatest records of Argentine rock by respondents León Gieco, Daniel Grinbank, Jorge Brunelli and Raúl Porchetto.

[citation needed] In 1994, the Government of Buenos Aires declared the La Perla del Once bar a Site of Cultural Interest, with its plaque reading: "Place frequented by young musicians in the 1960s who gestated the first compositions of national rock.