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Canción is a genre of Latin American music that was popular in the first half of the 20th century. It is characterized by its lyrical, Italianate qualities. The canción is divided nearly always in long stanzas with the same number of verses.
"Canción" means song in Spanish. In the Renaissance, the term was often used interchangeably with cantiga, cantar, canson, and sometimes villancico; it was related to the chanson of the Franco-Flemish school. Canción was the least specific term to cover all the popular, secular styles of vocal music of Spain at the time. In Spanish-language concerts and recordings, when the title of a particular song does not belong to a danceable genre (such as son in Cuba, or chacarera in Argentina, its genre is mentioned as "canción".
See nueva canción ("new song") for a Latin American movement of the 1960s.