Rosalía - MOTOMAMI + (2022)
30 videos • 192 views • by Jiselle Sharmaigne Quintao “Motomami” (stylized in all caps) is the third studio album by Spanish singer-songwriter Rosalía, released on March 18, 2022 through Columbia Records... The concept album features guest vocals from The Weeknd and Tokischa, and is presented as Rosalía’s “most personal and confessional album so far”... Primarily, “Motomami” is an experimental pop, alternative reggaeton and avant-garde record... Rosalía described the album as a “brave” record that is heavily influenced by reggaeton... She then expressed that the album is the “most personal and confessional album that I’ve made so far”, revolving around lyrical themes of transformation, sexuality, heartbreak, celebration, spirituality, self-respect and isolation... “Motomami” is largely inspired by the Latin music she danced to with her cousins as a child, and encountered again traveling the world as a budding pop star... Denoted for “finding freedom in contradiction”, the confection of the album went through many stages as Rosalía was once conceived of making “four projects at the same time” differencing a flamenco record, a piano ballad one, a dark pop one, and an alternative reggaeton record... The singer ended up “finding a purport within the chaos”, committing to a color palette at the sound level... During the album's creation, Rosalía drew influences from artists such as Héctor Lavoe, Nina Simone, Patti Smith, Bach, Michèle Lamy, Pedro Almodóvar and Andrei Tarkovsky... Professional Music Critics praised the experimental nature of “Motomami”, stating that “there's room for everything here. Every element has been hand-sewn to form a skeleton of what modern music should be: art and flavor, dembow, champeta, flamenco, bachata, hip-hop, piano melodies, etc.”... They then compared “the degree of lyrical, rhythmic and sonic experimentation” to Beastie Boys’ “Ill Communication (1994)” and Moby’s “Play (1999)”, and found similarities in Charli XCX’s “Pop 2 (2017)” and Nine Inch Nails’ “The Downward Spiral (1994)”... Rosalía described “Motomami” as a loose concept album that paints a self-portrait of herself... She also revealed that the album is more playful than her previous albums, explaining: “I feel like I haven’t done that in the other albums... Also, they were much more serious if that makes sense... And I think that in this one, I was like, ‘I really want to find a way to allow my sense of humor to be present’”... Rosalía shared that she chose the name “Motomami” because it’s “structured in binaries, two types of contrasting energy”... The album is separated into two parts; Moto is the divine, experimental, frictional and the strongest part of the album, while Mami is the genuine, personal, confessional and vulnerable part... Rosalía also stated that “feminism is implicit in the intention... It is very much present in some songs, and maybe not some much in some others, because in the end, it’s all the emotional journey of the ups and downs an artist can take... There’s a lot of my day-to-day life that’s why this vindication of women and femininity are implicit”... Rosalía hopes “Motomami” “provides a feminist counterbalance to misogyny in music”... She also chose to name the album “Motomami” in honor of her mother, Pilar Tobella, and the company she runs Motomami S.L., which administrates activities around artist representation... “Motomami” was met with widespread universal acclaim from professional music critics, who often commended the album's experimentation and genre-bending sounds... At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 95/100 based on 18 reviews, indicating “universal acclaim”... Another review aggregator website AnyDecentMusic? gave it 8.6 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus while Album of the Year gave it 91/100 based on 19 reviews making it the most critically acclaimed album of 2022 in any genre so far...