Motomami
Motomami is the third studio album by Spanish singer Rosalía. It was released on 18 March 2022 through Columbia Records. Rosalía enlisted producers Noah Goldstein, Michael Uzowuru, Dylan Wiggins and Pharrell Williams as well as longtime colleague el Guincho to create a concept album about her feelings during the past three years, including troubled times with fame, homesickness and isolation in the form of a collage of the singer's musical influences, especially in Latin music.[1][2] Separated in two parts, it features guest vocals from the Weeknd and Tokischa, and is presented as Rosalía's "most personal and confessional album so far."[3]
Motomami
18 March 2022
March 2020 – August 2021
- Angel Sound (Barcelona)
- Conway (Los Angeles)
- Electric Lady (New York City)
- Larrabee (Los Angeles)
- Motomami House (Miami)
- The Hit Factory (Miami)
42:17
61:43 (deluxe)
Spanish
- Rosalía
- Dylan Wiggins
- El Guincho
- Frank Dukes
- Michael Uzowuru
- M1SHKA
- Noah Goldstein
- Pharrell Williams
- Sir Dylan
- Sky Rompiendo
- Tainy
- Teo Halm
- The Weeknd
The album's release was preceded by three singles along with "Hentai" as a promotional single. "La Fama" was released on 11 November 2021 as the album's lead single, attaining both critical and commercial success.[4] The song peaked at number two on the US Hot Latin Songs chart and reached the top ten in France, El Salvador, Spain and Panama. "Saoko" and "Chicken Teriyaki" were released as the second and third singles, respectively, both reaching the top twenty in Spain. Other promotional initiatives included a Grand Theft Auto Online radio station and a performance on Saturday Night Live, becoming the first Spanish solo act to serve as the show's musical guest.[5][6] Rosalía embarked on the Motomami World Tour from July to December 2022, traveling around Europe and the Americas.[7] A deluxe edition of the album, titled Motomami +, was released on 9 September featuring five additional tracks, including the hit single "Despechá".[8]
Upon its release, Motomami received universal acclaim from music critics, many of whom praised the experimentation and genre-bending sounds. It later became the best reviewed and most discussed album of 2022 on Metacritic.[9] Commercially, the album entered twenty-two charts in nineteen countries and reached the top ten in seven countries. Motomami entered major market charts, reaching the top forty in both on the UK Albums Chart and the Billboard 200. In Spain, it peaked atop the PROMUSICAE chart for six consecutive weeks. It also became the second most-streamed female album of the year worldwide.
At the 23rd Annual Latin Grammy Awards, Motomami won Album of the Year, Best Alternative Music Album, Best Engineered Album and Best Recording Package, making Rosalía the first woman to win Album of the Year twice, whilst "La Fama" was nominated for Record of the Year and "Hentai" for Song of the Year and Best Alternative Song.[10] It also won Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, while its lack of nominations in the general field categories was widely considered a "snub" by the Recording Academy.[11]
Background[edit]
In November 2018, Rosalía released her second studio album El Mal Querer to critical acclaim and commercial success. The concept album, inspired by the 13th-century anonymous Occitan Romance of Flamenca, launched the singer into mainstream stardom.[12] The album received critical acclaim for its avant-garde production, which fused flamenco music with pop and urbano. El Mal Querer was listed in many year-end publications as well as in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was also awarded Album of the Year at the 20th Annual Latin Grammy Awards and Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards.[13][14]
Recording sessions for the singer's next project began in Los Angeles as early as 2019.[15][16] While on tour that year, Rosalía released a collection of singles. In March, the first of eight, "Con Altura", featuring J Balvin and el Guincho, was released on digital platforms.[17] It topped the charts in Argentina, Venezuela, Spain and Colombia among others and was the second most-watched music video released in 2019 on YouTube as well as the most-watched female music video that year.[18] May saw the release of "Aute Cuture" whereas "Milionària" and "Dios Nos Libre del Dinero" were released in July. In August, a collaboration with Ozuna, "Yo x Ti, Tu x Mi", was released to great commercial success.[19] The singer continued releasing standalone singles such as "A Palé", "Dolerme" and "Juro Que" throughout 2019 and 2020.[20] Rosalía also collaborated twice with Travis Scott; first on the remix of his track "Highest in the Room" alongside Lil Baby and then on "TKN", the latter of which became her first entry on the Billboard Hot 100.[21][22]
When Dutch radio station 3voor12 asked the singer through a Zoom press conference about a possible single compilation or box set, Rosalía expressed total rejection to the idea explaining that "I don't really enjoy records that are just a collection of singles. I usually enjoy records that tell a story and that are alive and involve a lot of thinking."[23] She also revealed that she was "trying really hard to release a new project in 2020" but all of the independent singles released so far wouldn't be included. She continued by saying that "as a musician I feel the responsibility to release a cohesive album, one that makes sense; one in where the songs are linked and share an essence". Rosalía was later seen in the recording studio with Michael Uzowuru, Mike Dean and the Neptunes among others.[24][25]
During 2021, Rosalía released more standalone singles such as "Lo Vas a Olvidar" and "Linda" alongside Billie Eilish and Tokischa, respectively.[26][27] In May, talent manager Rebecca León confirmed that Rosalía wouldn't release an album in 2021.[28] In August, the singer revealed to Santiago Matías that the album "was already taking shape" yet the number of songs was still unknown.[29] In October, the singer teased on TikTok that the project would be released "soon" and premiered 30 seconds of the album's lead single.[30] During a fan meet and greet in Mexico in partnership with Exa FM, Rosalía revealed that her new album would be "very different" from its predecessor and that the lead single would be released in November.[31]
Motomami was officially announced on 2 November 2021, the third anniversary of El Mal Querer, along with a 15-second trailer directed by Daniel Sannwald which contained a snippet of the title track as well as a tentative 2022 release date.[32] Sannwald also pictured the album cover, which was revealed on social media on 31 January 2022.[33] On 8 November 2021, Rosalía announced the album's lead single, "La Fama" featuring the Weeknd. It was released on 11 November.[34]
Recording[edit]
Rosalía began work on Motomami in January 2019 and finished in August 2021. However, during the first year of production, she was still promoting her sophomore album on El Mal Querer Tour and was still figuring out the direction she wanted to go in. Rosalía had begun thinking of several ideas for the album before El Mal Querer was released in November 2018. The confection of the album went through many stages as Rosalía was once convinced 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.[35] The singer ended up "finding a purport within chaos", committing to a color palette at the sound level.[36] The production on Motomami distinguishes six elements that get used in almost every track: "aggressive" drums, filters that "make the music seem distant", a nude voice (no use of vocal harmonies or reverbs), the use of vocal chops, and a repeated minimalist production.[37] During the album's creation, Rosalía drew influences from artists of all disciplines such as Héctor Lavoe, Nina Simone, Patti Smith, Bach, Michèle Lamy, Ocean Vuong, Yayoi Kusama, Ricardo Bofill and Andrei Tarkovsky.[38] On 25 April 2022, she shared a seven-hour Spotify playlist of music that she was inspired by, dubbed "Inspo$ Motomami", which included artists such as Daddy Yankee, Madonna, David Bowie, Björk, Snoop Dogg, Manuel Molina, Carla Bruni, etc.[39]
The majority of the album was recorded between 2020 and 2021. The process was registered on the singer's private Instagram account 'holamotomami', which she made public in December 2021. During tour season in 2019, Rosalía suffered from writer's block as she was constantly releasing new material and performing live, with isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic and partly moving with Frank Ocean to New York City helping the process flow despite being homesick.[40][3] Rosalía didn't leave the United States until June 2021 due to fear that she could not go back due to travel restrictions during the pandemic. During her time in the States, she had "twelve-to-sixteen hour long" sessions almost every day, whether at her rented home in Miami (dubbed as Motomami House) or at recording studios in Hollywood and Manhattan, where she recorded upwards of nearly 30 songs for the album.[41] Rosalía had troubled time with deadlines, pushing the album's release a couple times.[42] The mixing and mastering process of Motomami took nine months, being completed on 15 April 2021. "Saoko" was the last song Rosalía wrote for the album and "La Combi Versace" the most modified as she "changed the arrangement completely right before she was going to turn in the album" as well as the featured artist, which was originally Tego Calderón.
Concept[edit]
During an interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1, Rosalía described Motomami as a loose concept album that paints a self-portrait. 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.'"[69]
About the title, Rosalía has stated that she chose to name it Motomami in honor of her mother, Pilar Tobella, who used to ride Rosalía around town on a motorcycle. The singer also told Brut that the 'Motomami' noun was indeed by her friend Maite back in high school, who used it in her Hotmail address. It also references the company her mother runs, Motomami S.L., which she created in 2018 to administer activities around artist representation.[70] 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 one. 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."[71][72] Rosalía hopes Motomami "provides a feminist counterbalance to misogyny in music".[73]
Commercial performance[edit]
In the United States, Motomami debuted at number 33 on Billboard 200 with 17,000 equivalent album units sold in its first week.[160] It achieved the largest opening week for a Latin pop album in 2022, so far. The album also opened at number one on Top Latin Pop Albums, becoming her second album to reach the top spot.[161]
Credits adapted from Rosalia's official website.[162]
Notes
Sample credits