Tonight, Olivia Rodrigo has won the VMAs for Best Alternative Video for ‘The Cure’. An alternative Olivia Rodrigo? Obviously, one can’t be more mainstream, but the fact remains that new artists are playing with retro alternative sounds from the past.
We’ve seen it since we first met Amaia Romero a few years ago. Claudia Arenas is the clear generational successor to Operación Triunfo, and she has been proving it with her early singles.
She first appeared in the pop-rock of ‘Gran error’ and later in her debut official single, ‘Como un imán’, which sprang from a pleasant Mediterranean folk-inflected sound, with lovely vocal harmonies and an absolute absence of rhythmic percussion. Now ‘Nadie es para ti’, today’s Song of the Day, combines the pop efficiency the artist has shown with jangly guitar echoes, a bit in the style of 80s The Cure.
Again with the collaboration of Paula Felices, a breakout artist in her own right, ‘Nadie es para ti’ is another example of that indie-tinged pop that has been sneaking into the mainstream for some time. The bright sound accompanies lyrics that keep that adolescent flavor—Claudia is 20 years old—when talking about a relationship that doesn’t work.
“I’ve grown tired of begging for your lips / of living on memories of the touch of your hands,” Claudia sings as if possessed by Amaia Montero, at the start of the song, before reaching a chorus in which she repeats that “you’re not for me, nobody’s for you.” The lyrics speak of a relationship that hasn’t worked, from a very teenage and direct point of view. There is also room for heartbreak in lines like “How could that matter to you? / You like yourself a lot more than you’ve liked me.” There are clichés, but it sounds sincere, and Claudia continues singing with the taste that marks her.
