The most famous Catalan music band

I guess it happens to all of us, Spaniards living abroad. Every time we meet someone new, or whenever we are in a familar or friendly setting with foreigners, we get the question: what the heck is going on with Catalonia? I left Spain for good in 2011. Back then the questions were about the housing bubble and youth unemployment: the reasons that made me leave. I felt the duty to answer these questions to be sad and, a bit overwhelming. But it was heaven compared to answering the inquiries about the Catalans.

The degree of misinformation that has been disseminated about the Catalan conflict is astonishing. It is true that some foreign journalists bear some responsibility due to either laziness or smugness, but since an equal number has taken a very responsible and impartial position I’d rather blame the recipient: it is much easier and more appealing to read the conflict as a quest for democracy from an opressed minority, instead of as an extremely complex issue which core feature is not the confrontation between a cohesionated Catalonia and an authoritarian Spanish state, but between Catalans themselves. Therefore, I tend to begin my answers to the neverending interrogations with another question: something along the lines of “how many people do you think is in favor of independence in Catalonia?”. And while I get all sorts of answers, most of them over-estimate the actual figure (between 42% and 48% according to official polls run during 2017, a bit less according to other sources). In any case, the conversation often turns muddy and difficult to follow. Which makes the whole thing even more frustrating.

Until last Friday. We were spending the weekend with some friends and acquitances. All of them were locals from here, Colombia. It was a birthday celebration, so we had loud music on and were sipping nice rum. Some of us were in the kitchen sampling the rums we got, when the inevitable question came. The guys who asked it were very sincere about their interest, and fortunately they did not come with any stereotypical preconceptions. They just wanted to know. So I proceeded with my routine: “how many people do you think is in favour of independence in Catalonia?” I got the estimations, and the complex argument began. It was a bit depressing, to be honest. A bit off the place. We were supposed to be having fun, and the topic of the biggest institutional crisis suffered by your own country since the 1981 failed coup is a heavy one.

And then it hit me.

“What’s the most famous Catalan band?”

Someone (obviously familiar with Catalan culture) said “Manel!”.

Some others made wild guesses. I forgot them, but none was right.

Then I got to Spotify and searched. And found what I was looking for. And played it. The song is called “Tu calorro” (don’t make me translate that into English because it’s impossible). The band is Estopa. It was formed in the mid 1990s by a couple of brothers interested in making pop songs with a varied set of influences coming from flamenco, alternative rock and straightforward commercial music. Their first album, called after the band itself, was an instant hit. It was as fast as it was transversal and far-reaching: everyone listened to it, everyone found a favorite song, everyone had something to say about the album. When a previously recorded demo with “censored” songs and different, more direct lyrics began to circulate ilegally among the public, their legend just grew: Estopa had accomplished the impossible goal of being simultaneously underground and a commercial hit, and it was one that went beyond Spain’s borders.

Here in Latin America virtually everyone knows Estopa, and this song is particularly famous and beloved. As it happens in Spain, by the way. I doubt there’s anything nearly as unifying as Estopa’s first album for a whole generation (my generation) of Spaniards. Regardless of origin, taste, or ideology everyone has some good memories tied to this song. Even those who despise Estopa as a “commercial”, “simplist”, “bullshit” band cannot help it: whenever this song plays, everyone gets happy, claps and sings.

Back to last Friday, all my Colombian co-partiers enjoyed the song. Everyone sang along. Some knew the story behind Estopa: how the Muñoz brothers came from a working class background and used to work in a car factory before becoming a hugely successful band in the late 1990s. How their first songs reflected on their previous experiences, hopes, fears and jokes. But none of them identified Estopa with Catalonia in their minds. When I clarified that Estopa was born in the working class cities surrounding Barcelona metro area (historically known as the “red strip” or “cinturón rojo” for obvious political reasons), a couple said that they had learnt about it at some point, but it still did not feel like something “Catalan” to most of them. Let alone the Muñoz brothers’ position on secession: against it, although in favor of an agreed referendum. The party moved on right away to different songs, bands and topics, but I was left with the thought that this is why Estopa synthesizes so well the complexity of the Catalan conflict in a way a million words could not: because, unless you are extremely familiar with the issue, it shocks you to find out that they are Catalans, that there are a lot of Spanish-speaking Catalans (who often come from a working class background with their parents emigrating from other regions of Spain), and that many Catalans are for a referendum but against independence. And it puts a face and a good soundtrack to the whole thing.

More importantly, it makes clear that what most people perceive as “Catalan” from abroad works as something that should be understood in opposition to “Spanish”. But the existence of Estopa evidences that a Catalan band might sing in Spanish, have strong flamenco-like influences, and even become a shortcut for “Spanish pop music” all around the world, and still be Catalan. As Catalan as secessionists, and as Catalan as anything else. And when it puts on the table that working class Catalans tend to have Spanish as a mother tongue, and tend to be against secession, it gives a whole new perspective to the conflict (it’s true: look at the data). Especially, it makes much harder to be a spectator blaming “authoritarian Spaniards” and portraying “Catalans” as a poor, unified minority. And therefore, it forces everyone to read more, think more, learn more in order to deal with complexity, beginning with a peremptory question: if they never heard about any of the above, who is the real excluded minority here?

So, if you are a Spaniard getting the infamous question yet once again, or if you are a foreigner curious about the Catalan situation, just play some Estopa. It is, after all, the most famous Catalan music band all around the world.