querer*
― J0rdan S., Friday, 12 November 2021 00:41 (two years ago) link
You folks like pop that plays by the rules (whether in English or Spanish) a lot more than I do. Nothing she's done since El Mal Querer has been as weird or deliberately off-putting as that album. It's all been coloring inside the lines, stuff that seems calculatedly aimed at radio. Which is fine, get that money. But the videos that made me start this thread were amazing and her last three years of output have been...not amazing.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, 12 November 2021 00:51 (two years ago) link
I’m hardly pop-averse (spoiler alert), and “Aute Cuture” is one of my favorite songs of the past few years… but I agree she seemed kind of visionary at first, and now not so much.
― juristic person (morrisp), Friday, 12 November 2021 01:04 (two years ago) link
i think "con altura", "aute culture," "yo x ti, tu x mi" carried on the thread of 'el mal querer' while making broadly more appealing music & music that just overall had a different artistic aim to it. & i don't mean, or think, that she simply made music to get more rich and famous, i think she is a fan of mainstream latin music, stuff that is prob club/party music in her world, and she wanted to make that kind of music. i thought those songs brought her sound out from under the shadow of flamenco (prob inevitable if not necessary) while still being percussive & frenetic in the same way as "malamente" etc were. the thread connected to me. it was clear she was trying to become a global pop star but the songs felt true to the overall project that is her art, imo. i think she's lost that thread since then in ways that are pretty obvious.
also i don't think 'el mal querer' is that weird. it's unique & singular, but weird? i can't get there. it always felt like pop music to me -- the videos telegraph this openly, and it was hugely popular music in spain -- just a very fresh take on it
― J0rdan S., Friday, 12 November 2021 01:11 (two years ago) link
That video with The Weeknd is really bad
― juristic person (morrisp), Friday, 12 November 2021 01:21 (two years ago) link
j0rdan otm
― ufo, Friday, 12 November 2021 01:21 (two years ago) link
I loved "Con Altura" but generally agree with the comments. In a way her arc reminds me of...The Weeknd's...
― Indexed, Monday, 15 November 2021 15:01 (two years ago) link
The Weeknd can die and I don't really like the song, but her vocals and the idea of a Bachata pop song are very fine with me. I am keeping my hopes up for a solid release. She should have remembered James Blake, or Billie Eilish, or Bad Bunny. Someone who actually speaks Spanish for example.
― Nabozo, Monday, 15 November 2021 16:27 (two years ago) link
Well she did a Spanish-language track with Billie earlier this year…
― heterologous booster (morrisp), Monday, 15 November 2021 16:44 (two years ago) link
she also did a duet with bad bunny on his last album (they performed it on snl)
― grove street (party) direction (voodoo chili), Monday, 15 November 2021 23:18 (two years ago) link
That's what I meant by "remember", I meant return the favor.
― Nabozo, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 07:44 (two years ago) link
she’s still in the audience-expanding phase of her career. I’m when she works with the weeknd, she’s not the one doing the favor
― grove street (party) direction (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 13:44 (two years ago) link
*superfluous “i'm”
― grove street (party) direction (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 16 November 2021 13:45 (two years ago) link
does Hentai mean something else here or
Las personas q os está molestando la letra de Hentai estáis bien??— R O S A L Í A (@rosalia) January 16, 2022
― Murgatroid, Sunday, 16 January 2022 22:59 (two years ago) link
Looks like it's a track on the upcoming album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJ4RHibjVw
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, 17 January 2022 01:30 (two years ago) link
Rosalia, have you considered naming it.... something else
― Murgatroid, Monday, 17 January 2022 02:34 (two years ago) link
that’s gonna be a jump the shark from me, dawg
― Rockin’, and rollin’, and whatnot (morrisp), Monday, 17 January 2022 02:38 (two years ago) link
It's totally different from where she is now, but I'm surprised her cover of "I See A Darkness" isn't better known:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg7GJghu4Zo
― deep luminous trombone (Eazy), Monday, 17 January 2022 03:34 (two years ago) link
that’s gonna be a jump the shark from me, dawg― Rockin’, and rollin’, and whatnot (morrisp), Monday, January 17, 2022 3:38 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
Or a ride the chairlift
― Nabozo, Monday, 17 January 2022 10:24 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o7bCAZSxsg
took me a few listens to digest this one but i like it a lot
― J0rdan S., Friday, 4 February 2022 20:25 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I like this new song better than any of the other singles she's put out.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, 4 February 2022 20:50 (two years ago) link
The instrumental slays, I'm not sure of her vocals yet. Nicely shot too.
― Nabozo, Friday, 4 February 2022 22:07 (two years ago) link
too short and maybe slightly undercooked but wow what a sound!
― sean gramophone, Saturday, 5 February 2022 02:58 (two years ago) link
this is the most compelling she's been in a while, i wish it was longer
― ufo, Saturday, 5 February 2022 03:07 (two years ago) link
"slightly undercooked" is right though
― ufo, Saturday, 5 February 2022 03:10 (two years ago) link
iirc it's the intro to the album, could explain the brevity.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, 5 February 2022 03:20 (two years ago) link
yeah. odd one to shoot a video for but it feels more like a teaser of sorts in the context of the pre release strategy
― J0rdan S., Saturday, 5 February 2022 05:54 (two years ago) link
rest of the album won't have songs that are that much longer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motomami
― Murgatroid, Saturday, 5 February 2022 14:33 (two years ago) link
she’s flowing on this one lol, all the reggaeton collabs have rubbed off
― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Saturday, 5 February 2022 14:41 (two years ago) link
She’s dating Rauw Alejandro now , who says, of course, her new album is great in his Rolling Stone cover story. No collaborations between the 2 of them on the album though
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 5 February 2022 16:30 (two years ago) link
really not feeling this (but I guess it's not my kind of thing):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG4gq9fCoRE
― Not Dork Yet (alternate toke) (morrisp), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 00:05 (two years ago) link
Yeah that one is not great and seems like it was just tailored for tiktok.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Tuesday, 1 March 2022 01:33 (two years ago) link
I stopped that 2:13 song after 1:31, not a good sign.I get this strange feeling that she thinks the music is crazy and fun, when it's kinda boring and basic. All the weird affectations and vapid childishness don't really square with the image I had of her. It makes me realize El mal querer had all this darkness to it.
― Nabozo, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 16:23 (two years ago) link
genuinely terrible, and listening to Saoko after hearing CT made me like Saoko less :/
― rob, Tuesday, 1 March 2022 17:55 (two years ago) link
Still crossing my fingers there's something that redeems her next album, these two singles so far have been pretty bad. I know some people vibed with 'Saoko', but she wouldn't have been as big as she is by releasing generic stuff like that. We're just listening because it's Rosalía at this point.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, 2 March 2022 16:43 (two years ago) link
i thought she was great on SNL, "la fama" in particular felt completely reborn to me. it shed all the overblown pomp & circumstance of being a duet w/ the weekend, whose vocals render the song perfunctory, and put her back in what i feel like was her original context, singing over a sparse, traditional production, just in this case it's bachata instead of flamenco. the amount of emotion in her vocals compared to the released version is striking, listening back to the original the dullness is even more apparent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnItVv1EsXw
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 17 March 2022 17:54 (two years ago) link
"hentai" is a bit FKA twigs-y for me i think... i was hoping the beat drop would bring in some tempo & though the percussion does sound cool it all feels a bit inert & unfinished to me. reading the translation of the lyrics is cool tho lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6YCNd3ONUU
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 17 March 2022 18:22 (two years ago) link
Her videos used to be so cool & creative, wtf
It's hard to imagine a less appealing (to me) creative direction she could have taken than the direction she has taken
― Please don’t take / My time change away (morrisp), Thursday, 17 March 2022 18:26 (two years ago) link
x-post - I thought that the second song she did on SNL "La Fama" (with its bachata backing) , as Jordan S noted sounded great live. Was underwhelmed by first song though.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 17 March 2022 19:08 (two years ago) link
This x 1000
I can't believe how unexcited I am for this record based on how much the last one blew me away.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 17 March 2022 19:10 (two years ago) link
this album is...probably better than I was expecting though that's not exactly a high bar to clear. There's an "Archangel" interpolation on the second track which works well
― monotony, Thursday, 17 March 2022 22:36 (two years ago) link
wouldn’t be surprising at all if it sounds better front to back than the singles do as pieces
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 17 March 2022 22:37 (two years ago) link
not sure quite how to articulate this properly yet but it seems to have a similarly collage-y nature to Happier Than Ever. I guess I'm just still not convinced by her as a reggaeton artist
― monotony, Thursday, 17 March 2022 22:38 (two years ago) link
it's a weird album that's not a big pop move like one might have expected she'd eventually come out with after her 2019 run of singles, but it's not as good as happier than ever either in terms of slightly-left-of-centre pop albums
nothing as compelling as the best stuff from el mal querer or even those 2019 singles unfortunately
― ufo, Friday, 18 March 2022 11:52 (two years ago) link
I've listened to about half of it (several tracks are grayed out on Tidal, for some reason) and it's pretty good. The singles, which I hated as standalones, work better in context.
One thing that's made me laugh pretty hard this morning: I guess a memo went around among pop critics that the new way to signify one's savviness and superiority to the reader is to quote her lyrics without translating them.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, 18 March 2022 13:56 (two years ago) link
this works surprisingly well as a complete workdefinitely lacks the intensity and extraordinariness of El Mal Quererbut on the other hand i was surprised that it's as quiet and melancholy as it is (resembles Los Angeles in that way) - not the dull pop cash-in that La Fama seemed to portent
i really love the off-kilter production quirks like the (so quiet!!!) piano on "Saoko" or the drums on "Hentai" - signals an art/experimental affiliation that i appreciate
― sean gramophone, Friday, 18 March 2022 14:04 (two years ago) link
It's definitely odder than I expected, which is a good thing, though I'm also finding it elusive in its disjointedness, lack of intensity is otm
The lack of translation in the pfork review annoyed me; fwiw the NPR review is an exception: https://www.npr.org/2022/03/18/1087060987/rosalias-motomami-is-a-complex-treatise-on-fame-and-her-place-in-latin-pop
― rob, Friday, 18 March 2022 14:18 (two years ago) link
she "presented" the album "live" on tiktok last night, with snippets and themed visuals for each song. for those interested: link
― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Friday, 18 March 2022 15:06 (two years ago) link
I'm still learning how to listen to her if I (still) have trouble finishing her albums.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 18 March 2022 15:08 (two years ago) link
I do laugh at "BIZCOCHITO," a bit of slang I've heard all my life locally.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 18 March 2022 15:09 (two years ago) link