Rockdelux publishes a special 40th Anniversary on paper that includes the lists for 2024. The director of the magazine Santi Carrillo has given an interview to Carlos Marcos from El País full of headlines, in which he talks, for example, about the survival of the music press, and the impossibility of reaching new generations. As a curiosity, he reveals which were the 15 musicians to whom they wanted to dedicate a double page in this special, and which are the albums he has listened to the most in his life.
One of those 15 lucky musicians is Rosalía. However, Santi Carrillo does not hesitate to question the way in which Vila has turned his back on music publications in favor of fashion magazines. Carrillo believes that Rosalía is a “great artist” but also “ungrateful.”
He explains: «Rosalía no longer needs us, she is on another level, in the stars. When they reach that level they don’t consider music magazines of interest to them. They are only interested in fashion publications and large-circulation newspaper supplements that are accompanied by fashion photos. But talk about music, why: music goes directly to its fans, they don’t need the filter of a journalist who questions things. The only thing they want is for cool photos to be taken and then say four things about what they are thinking of doing.
In another interesting point of the interview, he considers Taylor Swift “the great mystery of humanity”: “I freak out about the degree of perversion that has been reached with the Taylor Swift phenomenon, idolizing her in a way that is beyond any logic.” . I like some albums, like ‘Folklore’, but, in general, I see her as a mainstream artist, who now makes a country one, now R&B, now dance pop… I don’t see that she has achieved anything memorable. There are better singers than her, of course.
Speaking of artists who have no place in Rockdelux, Carlos Marcos asks about Vetusta Morla. His response is also not wasted: «I appreciate them very much. They have set out on their own path of self-publishing, marking a terrain foreign to the rest. They have good musical taste, too. But for me there is a problem, and that is that Vetusta Morla have generated a series of extremely mediocre groups. All that insufferable pseudo indie. They are responsible in a certain way because they have set an itinerary that the others, much worse than them, have followed exactly. I’m talking about Supersubmarina, Viva Sweden, Arde Bogotá, Izal… They are horrible, straight up.
Santi Carrillo is critical of other media (“Forgive me if I offend, but I read some nonsense and simplicity in some music magazines that freak me out”) and he also criticizes himself: “I remember a review of a Prince album, ‘Parade’ , that I laughed at him, and it was absurd on my part.
