“The demands of the music industry are taking their toll on us. Music platforms have become social networks where the algorithm demands you. If you stop releasing music, you condemn yourself to oblivion. “I feel hostage to those dynamics.” This is how the singer Ismael Serrano denounced the current functioning of the music industry in his meeting with the partners of elDiario.es held this Tuesday in the newspaper’s editorial office. An event in which the singer-songwriter spoke about the turbulent times that Spain is experiencing, the pessimistic situation of a large part of society and performed live, as a novelty at elDiario.es events, four of his hits.
The members who attended the meeting were able to listen to important songs that represent various moments in Serrano’s career that, now, have been unified in Symphonic. A difficult album to make due to its synthesizing task of an entire career to “summarize representative songs in a single album” of thirteen songs. In Symphonic, Ismael Serrano traces a journey through songs like Ana, come either Dad, tell me again, but from a sound with a different touch. “I like to write and tell stories. For this album I have not only taken into account the songs that represent the most to me, but also to the public,” the artist explained.
A complex and elaborate work in which the singer-songwriter feels he is in a place that is not so common for the current trend in the music industry. “Making a record of these characteristics is expensive. The industry is now tending to another place (…) Being able to sing with a [orquesta] symphonic puts you in a different place, it gives another flight to the songs,” he said.
Faced with this feeling that Serrano talks about, that of swimming against the current in the music industry, the new trends in the music industry collide, of which the singer-songwriter says he feels hostage due to the speed and immediacy with which it is required to release new songs to not disappear. “It seems amazing to me that a group like Vetusta Morla has to release a statement about retiring for a year. Before that was not normal. Singers like Serrat could spend a year until they released their next album and nothing would happen,” Serrano noted.
At the meeting, led by Culture section journalist Laura García Higueras, Serrano commented on the way in which his relationship with music has changed since its beginnings. “I think you have to understand the song as a therapy exercise. Also as an exercise in resistance to the passage of time.” A passage of time with which he claims to have become “more permeable and unprejudiced” from a musical point of view. One of the examples that the singer proposed to the partners to better understand this evolution was his relationship with heartbreak and how his conception had changed: “Over time you let go of the toxicity of heartbreak. You realize that you don’t die from heartbreak, that’s healthy.”
Serrano also claimed the importance of the singer-songwriter and his concerts, “an artisanal work” where you are invited to “take an immersive journey into the universe that the artist proposes to you.” The purity of these concerts collides with another of the new trends in current music, festivals. A place where, according to Serrano, more than seeking to connect with the artist, they seek to “socialize and leave a record on social networks.” He also rejected other current trends, that of songs produced by artificial intelligence, themes that “will never move humans.”
In response to one of the partners’ questions about the current social situation, Serrano noted: “Society now lives immersed in melancholy because it feels extremely disappointed. “It is going to be very difficult to restore the trust of the politician with the citizen, it is becoming an abyss.” An especially hard and complicated situation for young people who, in the words of Serrano, “think that the world and the system cannot be changed, but that we have to look for the nooks and crannies to stay afloat,” despite the fact that “there are always windows.” of opportunity that open up in an unexpected way.”
Faced with this social moment, the singer felt “concerned,” especially about the lack of enthusiasm among the new generations, a particularly “disenchanted” generation. “Young people see that their future is not going to be better. They are going to have worse salaries, worse healthcare and, furthermore, why do they want a minimum wage if it is then eaten up by the rent? “I can understand that a kid wants to burn everything,” Serrano explained. However, according to the singer, the situation does not involve becoming reactionary due to the impossibility of changing the system.
Serrano also claimed the need to understand young people today: “You have to be understanding and understand these kids. One is not born a façade or red, what there is is a kid who can’t find answers. What you have to do is sit down with him and give him solid arguments.” Faced with this, the singer-songwriter raises the need to bring the debate about who should be on the front line and the need to bring people with new dreams who are capable of spreading them to these sectors of society that view their future with pessimism and disappointment.
One is not born a façade or red, what there is is a kid who can’t find answers. What you have to do is sit down with him and give him solid arguments
Ismael Serrano
— Singer-songwriter
Fracture in trust with politics
The controversy over the resignation of Íñigo Errejón and his accusations of sexual harassment were also part of the topics of debate. Regarding this, Serrano stated that situations of this type “can happen in any area” due to the existence of machismo, which “crosses all sectors, from the newsrooms to the music industry itself.”
However, regarding the Errejón controversy, Serrano wanted to rescue, above all, the consequences that situations like these bring on the “fracture with respect to trust in the political class.” One of the great problems that the artist highlighted was the need to “reestablish trust.”
Also in response to one of the questions from the attendees, Ismael Serrano emphasized the importance of talking about “we” and the collective problems and situations in the songs. As an example, he placed the disk Mediterraneanby Joan Manuel Serrat. An album that speaks “about us and that common territory that unites us.” “If aliens came to Spain in 1960, they could understand it only with Serrat’s discography. They could understand the sorrows and uncertainties of an average Spaniard. “If that alien came down now, I don’t know what discography I would give him,” the singer denounced.
After questions from the members who attended the meeting, the singer-songwriter performed live four of the songs that have marked his career and that have now been adapted for his album Symphonic. Ann (1997), Come (2017), What will you be doing (2002) and Dad, tell me again (1997) led by Ismael Serrano’s voice and guitar, they took over the last minutes of the event. A few last musical moments that the partners followed with the whisper of the lyrics and even with the occasional tear.
Among those attending the event there were some great fans of Ismael Serrano’s music and others who, in addition to attending to hear him sing live, were especially interested in hearing his words. Cristina is an example of the first case, a fan of his music who, seeing that she was going to be able to listen to and see Ismael Serrano live, decided to attend the event and take a photo with the singer in the process. For the members Marina and Alejandra, Serrano also represented a large part of their adolescence, which is why they wanted to attend the meeting and be able to connect with that youthful nostalgia through their songs.
On the other side was María, who practically did not know Serrano’s music, but who decided to come to hear what the singer had to say. María said she was “delighted” by the artist’s “interesting speech.”
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Full video of the meeting
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