“The demands of the music industry weigh heavily on us. Music platforms have become social networks where the algorithm asks you. If you stop streaming music, you condemn yourself to oblivion. “I feel hostage to this dynamic.” This is how singer Ismael Serrano denounced the current functioning of the music industry during his meeting with the partners of elDiario.es held this Tuesday at the newspaper’s editorial office. An event in which the singer-songwriter spoke about the turbulent times Spain is going through, the pessimistic situation of a large part of society and performed live, as a novelty at elDiario.es events, four of his successes.
The members who attended the meeting were able to listen to important songs that represent different moments of Serrano’s career which, now, are unified in Symphonic. A difficult album to make due to his career-long summarizing task of “summarizing representative songs into a single album” of thirteen songs. In Symphonic, Ismael Serrano traces a journey through songs like Ana, come either Dad, tell me again, but a sound with a different touch. “I love writing and telling stories. For this album, I not only took into account the songs that mean the most to me, but also to the public,” explained the artist.
A complex and elaborate work in which the singer-songwriter feels in an unusual situation for the current trend in the music industry. “Registering these features is expensive. The industry is now moving in another direction (…) 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 speaks of, that of swimming against the tide in the music industry, comes up against new trends in the music industry, of which the singer-songwriter says he feels hostage due to the speed and immediacy with which it is required. release new songs so as not to disappear. “It seems astonishing to me that a group like Vetusta Morla has to issue a statement regarding its retirement for a year. Before, it wasn’t normal. Singers like Serrat could go a year before releasing their next album and nothing would happen,” Serrano noted.
During the meeting, moderated by Culture section journalist Laura García Higueras, Serrano commented on how his relationship with music has changed since his beginnings. “I think you have to understand the song as a therapeutic exercise. It is also an exercise in resistance to the passage of time. A passage of time with which he claims to have become “more permeable and without prejudice” from a musical point of view. One of the examples the singer offered to the partners to better understand this evolution was his relationship with grief and how his conception had changed: “Over time, you let go of the toxicity of grief. You realize you’re not dying of heartbreak, it’s healthy.
Serrano also claimed the importance of the singer-songwriter and his concerts, “an artisanal work” where we are invited to “take an immersive journey into the universe that the artist offers you”. The purity of these concerts clashes 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 mark on social networks”. He also rejected other current trends, that of songs produced by artificial intelligence, themes which “will never move humans”.
In response to a question from the partners on the current social situation, Serrano emphasized: “Society today lives immersed in melancholy because it feels extremely disappointed. “It’s going to be very difficult to restore the confidence of the politician in the citizen, it’s becoming a chasm.” A particularly 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 in unexpected ways.
Faced with this social moment, the singer felt “concerned”, particularly by the lack of enthusiasm of the new generations, a particularly “disenchanted” generation. “Young people see that their future will not be better. They’re going to have worse wages, worse health care, and besides, why do they want a minimum wage if it’s then eaten away by rent? “I can understand a kid wanting to burn everything,” Serrano said. However, according to the singer, it is not about becoming reactionary due to the impossibility of changing the system.
Serrano also affirmed the need to understand today’s young people: “We must understand and empathize with these children. We are not born with a facade or red, what is there is a child who cannot find answers. What you need to do is sit down with him and give him some solid arguments. Faced with this, the singer-songwriter raises the need to open the debate on who should be on the front line and the need to bring people with new dreams, capable of spreading them in these sectors of society that view their future with pessimism and disappointment.
We are not born with a facade or red, what is there is a child who cannot find answers. What you need to do is sit down with him and give him some solid arguments.
Ishmael Serrano
— Singer-songwriter
Fracture of trust in politics
The controversy surrounding the resignation of Íñigo Errejón and his accusations of sexual harassment were also among the topics of debate. On this subject, Serrano stated that situations of this type “can occur in any field” due to the existence of machismo, which “crosses all sectors, from editorial offices to the music industry itself.”
However, regarding the Errejón controversy, Serrano above all wanted to save the consequences that situations like these entail on the “fracture of trust in the political class”. One of the big issues highlighted by the artist was the need to “restore trust”.
Also in response to one of the participants’ questions, Ismael Serrano highlighted the importance of talking about “we” and collective problems and situations in songs. As an example, he placed the disk Mediterraneanby Joan Manuel Serrat. An album that speaks “about us and this common territory that unites us”. “If extraterrestrials arrived in Spain in 1960, they could only understand it with Serrat’s discography. They could understand the sorrows and uncertainties of an average Spaniard. “If this alien came down now, I don’t know what discography I would give him,” denounced the singer.
After questions from the members present at the meeting, the singer-songwriter performed live four of the songs that marked his career and which have now been adapted for his album. Symphonic. Anne (1997), Come (2017), What are you going to do (2002) and daddy, tell me again (1997) Led by the voice and guitar of Ismael Serrano, they took over the last minutes of the event. A few final musical moments that the partners followed with the murmur of the words and even with some occasional tears.
Among those attending the event were big fans of Ismael Serrano’s music and others who, in addition to hearing him sing live, were particularly interested in his lyrics. 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 passing. For members Marina and Alejandra, Serrano also represented a big part of their adolescence, which is why they wanted to attend the reunion and be able to connect with that youthful nostalgia through their songs.
On the other side was María, who hardly knew Serrano’s music, but decided to come and listen to what the singer had to say. María said she was “delighted” with the artist’s “interesting speech.”
If you like ‘In the editorial with…’ you can also listen to it as a podcast:
