Like most hispanophiles of my generation, I’ve always been struck by the utter appaulingness of Spanish pop music. Basically it’s poor quality heavily derivative soft rock, as John Hooper notes in the latest edition of The New Spaniards. I spent 6 months studying in Santiago de Compostela in 1985, and the only pop music I liked, apart from British stuff, were records that reminded me of great nights out – so that was a handful of Alaska y Dinarama tracks and the very acceptable (at the time at least) Colecciono Moscas (I collect flies) by Golpes Bajos. [I wouldn’t mind betting that if I played Colecciono Moscas on Youtube I would be horrified, so I think I’ll let the good memories lie.]
I reflected on this most disappointing aspect of Spanish culture over the summer as Dave and I spent a happy 3 weeks touring around Galicia – the first time I’ve been back to that part of Spain for 23 years. I needed to listen to the radio to try to “retune in” to the Spanish language, but the music nearly drove us both insane. This came as a genuine surprise to me, as I’d assumed that globalisation, and the internet in particular, would mean that previously heterogeneous countries would be levelling out culturally. After all, France has produced Air, Daft Punk and more besides, whereas in the 80s French pop music was more or less as dire as that of Spain. Spain clearly hasn’t moved on though, even though it’s a strikingly musical nation.
So why is this? When trying to understand why it is that British music is so effortlessly superior to any of its European counterparts, the conventional wisdom seems to highlight the urban concentrations of Britain’s population. But does that really explain the chasm-like gap? Spain has, since Franco’s death in 1975, become almost overwhelmingly urban, and this is particularly true of the younger generations. Spain’s got loads of cities and the vast majority of them are growing at an impressive rate. Admittedly it’s not always easy travelling between them, simply because Spain is incredibly mountainous, but that doesn’t strike me as a defining factor, especially in this day and age.
What I think might be the case is that there is almost too much continuity in Spain between its old traditional musical forms and the present. My friend Bill and I went to a fiesta in Granada in the early 1990s and flamenco was clearly in vogue among young people, for example. British teenagers and pop artists, on the other hand, aren’t constrained by the past, for reasons that will be culturally and historically complex but probably have a lot to do with the rapid industrialisation that Britain underwent and the rupture with feudal traditions that resulted. It’s only an idea and I may be wrong, but I do think I’m onto something.
Towards the end of the trip though, I finally heard a Spanish pop record that I liked. In fact, I absolutely love it. It’s called “Pretendo hablarte”, it’s by Beatriz Luengo, from the album Carrousel – yes, thanks to a combination of http://www.google.es/ and Youtube, I’ve managed to track (sorry) it down. It has the heart wrenching chorus “Tu me quieres querer; yo no quiero sufrir”, which doesn’t translate well but basically means “You want to want me; I don’t want to suffer”. It’s the perfect articulation of the painful yearning of love so if you’re feeling lovesick, or if you’re simply curious, go enjoy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prfdtq3_EXs. Apparently they love her in France as well.
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