Through the stories of his new book, “Not everyone” (Sexto Piso, 23), Marta Jiménez Serrano has created an accurate portrait of couple relationships in the city of Madrid. But today we invite her to discover some of her favorite albums.
Jorge Drexler – “12 seconds of darkness” (2006)
An album that I always come back to, which has a bittersweet and lucid tone that makes it different. It is difficult to sing to the love that ends without sounding like a cliché (and without giving up pain). It is difficult to sing about love that begins without sounding like a cliché (and without giving up the dazzle). Drexler does both here. I guess I first heard it in 2006, when he came out, and I haven’t stopped listening to it since: hopeful without being naïve, he embraces uncertainty without being disheartening. A fine balance that works with any mood.
C. Tangana – “El Madrileño” (2021)
The recent album that I’ve listened to the most for sure (and the one I’ve listened to the most in disc format, defying Spotify’s random random combination). I use it for everything, to listen to it alone and with people, to dance and to sing, to listen to it sitting down or at a party, attentively or in the background. It’s fun, it’s traditional and it’s new, it’s refreshing and it seems like you’ve been listening to it all your life, and it has that aftertaste of pipe shells and poorly permeable napkins thrown on the bar floor that I like so much.
Leonard Cohen – “Live In London” (2009)
I was on tour at the concert he did in Madrid, and it’s probably one of the most exciting concerts I’ve ever been to. Leonard Cohen’s bass sounds like an emotional ultrasound, like an intracave sound, like he’s coming from another world to tell you what’s beyond. And he surely he is doing it.
Franco Battiato – “Very distant worlds” (1985)
Sort of like Dante making pop music, the understanding that fun is no less profound, that gentle melody and existentialism can go hand in hand. I’ve played this record but you could play any of yours.
Chavela Vargas- “A strange world” (1961)
To automatically feel heartbroken and a shot of tequila in hand, even though you are in the most zen moment of your existence. And who doesn’t want to feel heartbroken from time to time.
Van Gogh’s Ear – “Copperpot’s Journey” (2000)
This position is disputed with “Estopa” (Estopa, 1999), two albums that I listened to ad nauseam in my tender pre-adolescence and that have remained etched in my brain with much more intensity than the multiplication tables. Perhaps one of the first cassettes I had because my friends liked them, the first music not inherited from my parents. An infallible when a car trip becomes heavy and you have to lift your spirits.