Conversations with great figures of music

Synopsis:

Of music, of course – his beginnings, references and teachers, his works – but also of other more personal matters – his fears and dreams – and universal – love, drugs, politics, religion, death – is what the author of This book, writer and renowned cultural journalist with several biographies of Spanish song stars to his credit, has spoken over three decades with the 40 great musicians and performers who star in it. The singer-songwriters ―Serrat, Sabina, Aute, Krahe…―, the rockers ―Extremoduro, Calamaro, Bunbury, Loquillo, Miguel Ríos, Ramoncín, Ariel Rot, Rosendo…―, the pop and pop/rock figures ―Antonio Vega, Pau Donés, Dani Martín, Bosé, Luz Casal, David Summers, Christina Rosenvinge, Amaral, Estopa, Alaska…―, the flamenco artists ―Paco de Lucía, Diego el Cigala, José Mercé, Tomatito…― and some other artists that are difficult to classify ―Raphael , María Jiménez, Kiko Veneno…― offer in these pages their vision of art and life, and compose a choral story that helps to better understand how music has evolved in Spain in the last thirty years. As the Sex Pistols declared: “If you accept the conventional ways you become one of many.” All the names that give body – and soul – to this volume fled precisely from that, from being one more, one of many, and created their own worlds of great artistic richness that have grown with us and have made our existence more pleasant.

Author biography:

Javier Menéndez Flores (Madrid, 1969) is the author of twenty books, including novels, biographies and essays. His novel Todos nos (Planeta, 2020; Booket, 2022) was awarded the Cartagena Negra Novel Prize 2021 and the Pop Eye Prize for Best Fiction Book 2022. As a biographer he has approached the lives and dissected the works of greats figures of Spanish music ―Joaquín Sabina (Forgive the sadness, Libros Cúpula, 2022), Extremoduro (De profundis, Libros Cúpula, 2022), Miguel Bosé, Dani Martín…―, and has written an exhaustive encyclopedic dictionary on the Movida , Madrid was a party (Libros Cúpula, 2021). A long-time cultural journalist, he has signed for renowned magazines, newspapers and websites: Guía del Ocio, Interviú, Rolling Stone, El Mundo, Uppers. Currently he writes in the culture pages of the newspaper La Razón.