My 2021 review is the album El Mal De La Juventud by a Spanish band called, Emilia, Pardo y Bazán. I always use the tag line, “the good, the bad, and the ugly of Latin pop” because if I only listened to what I love which is the good stuff, I would be bias. Sometimes, I need to step out of my comfort zone and into someone else’s because I may end up with something I love. Or hate. That makes for good journalism. Right? Back in the ’80s, if you would have asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, it would have been journalism. Now, I get to live my dream in a field I love, music.
With that said, Emilia, Pardo y Bazán released their first full-length album El Mal De La Juventud. The category of music is “indie pop” and this morning I asked my wife how she would classify indie rock. My thoughts are that if a band is indie, isn’t all pop music indie pop? This would mean people like Aleks Syntek and Alejandra Guzman are indie pop because they left their labels to do it themselves. Her take is an artist that goes against the normal flow of a pop album. The songs jump around without a coherent theme. It is about songs put together on an album without a producer dictating who the music should flow. This is El Mal De La Juventud  by Emilia, Pardo y Bazán.
It makes total sense that your album starts off with a very atmospheric dreamlike ballad then jumps to a song with hard and fast drum beats. It’s like Adele meets Metallica back to back. Ultimately, the album mellows out and finds itself. This is Emilia, Pardo y Bazán. They have stated that this album is a collection of music from its infancy stages where they made music out of boredom. Sounds like Millennialism to me. The band’s name is taken from the Spanish novelist Emilia Pardo Bazán. The album’s title is taken from the play by playwriter, Ferdinand Bruckner. Again, very millennial.
The sound is that of a over-produced garage band that just wants to play music and it works. They are against the norm and are unapologetically okay with that. The male vocalist, Sergio softens himself with the underlying female vocals from Paula. Also part of the band is Ada on drums and Pepe with guitar. They are the little band that could and they are doing very well throughout Spain. We find out about them on Twitter, which is a great place to learn about new artists from indie labels.
Since that day, I have been study Latin pop and rock music and have become a Latin pop music historian through the publishing of articles, fanzine, and websites. My goal is to teach people about Latin pop music and the history behind it with my website, Siempre En Domingo.
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