Christina Rosenvinge: “Very few women reach 50 with an electric guitar strapped to their back”

I feel like it’s not any harder than it is for everyone else, there have been moments where everything has happened but my balance is very positive. This means continuing to show that it is possible to have a long professional life in pop music, which unfortunately very few women achieve. There are very few women who make it past the age of 50 with an electric guitar hanging off their back. In this sense, my career is an indicator that this can be done: You can earn a living by having children and realizing your dreams and expectations. I think my experience is good news for those who come after us.

He was in many duos and bands before making a name for himself in music. In your beginnings in the ’90s, were there doubts about the legitimacy of being a woman compared to the quality of your music?

Being a woman made the road much more expensive, especially in the early years of my career. It was harder to be respected there and to defend myself. But from that moment on, fortunately, I think it was a career in which I had enough support to continue, and above all I had the support of the public, and that is the surest thing, without doing anything. a doubt.

It operates in different genres, styles and languages, but in the beginning there were always lyrics, right?

Even though I do many things, I consider myself a songwriter first and foremost. If my songs are there and are still remembered, I think this is, first of all, due to their lyrics. I also think that what makes songs immortal in general is their lyrics.

He has always charted his own path of surprise and improvisation, such as moving from pop success with Álex and Christina to rock singer-songwriter in touch with the most alternative scene. Was this an unusual move at the time?

I’ve always been very disloyal to styles. In this sense, my first band was closer to punk, but later Álex y Christina was a purely pop project. It is true that later on I tended to do more rock projects, but then there were times when I made more experimental music, but I always stayed within the scope of what we can call ‘popular song’.

It’s interesting that he chose the term ‘popular’ rather than ‘indie’, which is the domain in which critics usually frame it. Maybe both concepts are a bit blurred?

Yeah, I really see them as very blurry because in the beginning independent labels were very much in the minority and that’s not the case anymore. It is no longer so clear whether there is much difference between large or international companies and independent companies, which are often local. Some have even taken over others, and sometimes there are smaller labels within larger labels. In short, things got complicated.

Even though he says he is the enemy of nostalgia, it celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Let lightning strike me, her debut solo album, is a hit on the table under the feminist prism of rock. How do you experience this tour?

What happened this year with Que me parta un ray was extraordinary, as it was originally going to be four concerts to commemorate a much-remembered album that put me on the map, but I’ve been playing it in full since 1996. And suddenly more gigs started popping up, especially in Latin America, and there was so much demand that dates were added. Initially, it was not planned as a tour, it was planned as four concerts, but then many promoters from different countries spontaneously joined this tour. This of course includes the concert in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. I am very excited because, as you said, I am not someone who likes concerts or nostalgia talks, but I was very impressed by the great interest of the public.

There are beautiful lyrics in this album.

(Laughs). I don’t know if it’s right to say this, but the songs were very well written, they had a lot of lyrics and they said a lot. That’s why I think the album has transcended. And maybe, 30 years later, that’s worth celebrating, too.

He also just completed his eleventh solo album. Pure verses, The first preview will be released this fall. What was your creative process based on “bringing the music back to Sappho”?

This is a project in co-production with Grec from Barcelona, ​​with whom I was commissioned to make a show about the Greek poet Sappho for the first time at the Mérida Classical Theater Festival last year. My idea from the very beginning was to return the music to Sappho’s originally sung poems, but instead of trying to recreate something that was historically reliable or had a certain historicist approach, I did the opposite: I took the whole spirit of Sappho and turned it into something different. Like a rock star from Lesbos, he transformed into today’s equivalent, the pop song. And the result was an album that brought together the seven songs performed in the work, as well as two others that I wrote later but were also inspired by Sappho’s verses. Undoubtedly, it is a different album from the albums I have made because all the songs talk about love and simply recreate the world.

Another challenge this year was composing his first original score specifically for a Mexican film. Upright men. What was this experience like?

They ask me very little about this project, how nice! I just finished recording the soundtrack, now we just need to do the mixes. This was also a great commission from director Alejandro Andrade, who suggested me to create an instrumental soundtrack based on guitars for his movie. 95% of the soundtrack is instrumental, in fact there is no song actually sung until the credits song, which is a 15th century Cathar hymn. But it turned out to be a great job because I had very little imposition from the director, so I felt pretty free to do it the way I wanted, which is always a great thing for a creator.

So what song do you have left to write now?

Do you know what happens? This profession never ends because you always get the feeling that the definitive song is ahead. Sometimes you feel like you’re getting close, but then you always feel like there’s a better song coming out tomorrow, which is why it’s so addictive, because every time you pick up the guitar you feel like there’s a great song. song is expected. Sometimes there are songs that transcend and have a really long life, and sometimes there are songs that stay the same day. But in my case, the feeling that a new day will give you a new song that can be unique never goes away.