On November 2, 2018, the most important Spanish-language album of the last decade reached the public, recorded mostly in a Barcelona apartment with a computer, a microphone, and an audio interface. Rosalía, a Spanish singer who had released only one album before, built her breakthrough record El Mal Querer with almost no money—and nearly bankrupted herself doing it.
The album came out on November 2, 2018, on Columbia Records, the day Rosalía's second studio album finally reached the public. By then Rosalía had spent two and a half years writing and producing it with El Guincho, a fellow Barcelona musician, working as an independent artist with a minimal budget and pouring in so much of her own cash that she came close to financial ruin. The record was not a label-backed blockbuster; it was a gamble.
A graduation project built on Flamenca
What made the gamble stranger was the source material. El Mal Querer began as Rosalía's graduation project at the Catalonia College of Music, where she finished with honors. She and her friend Ferrán Echegaray built the concept around Flamenca, an anonymous 13th-century Occitan novel, with each of the 11 songs serving as a chapter of that story. Work on the record began in May 2016 and stretched until November 2017. The anonymous 13th-century Occitan novel Flamenca gave the project its narrative spine. The anonymous 13th-century Occitan novel Flamenca gave the project its narrative spine, with each of the 11 songs serving as a chapter of that story. The idea for the concept was developed together with her friend Ferrán Echegaray.
The music itself was a deliberate collision. Rosalía described the album as experimental and conceptual, joining flamenco with the modern urban sound of pop and reggaeton. Critics would later catalog it as flamenco-pop, experimental pop, trap-pop, and R&B. Nothing on Spanish radio sounded like this in 2018.
Singles that went viral
The first single, "Malamente," arrived on May 30, 2018, and its video went viral on social media. A second single, "Pienso en tu mirá," followed in July and did the same. By the time the album dropped in November, Rosalía was no longer a promising student—she was a phenomenon with a Times Square billboard and a growing international audience.
The acclaim was immediate and overwhelming. On Metacritic the album holds an average score of 89 out of 100 based on five reviews, meaning universal acclaim. It topped the Spanish chart and the American Billboard Latin Pop Albums chart. At the Latin Grammy Awards in 2019, El Mal Querer won Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Pop Vocal Album, Best Engineered Album, and Best Recording Package.
With six Latin Grammy wins, the album set a record for a female artist and became the first by a woman to win Album of the Year since Shakira. In 2020, at the 62nd Grammy Awards, it won Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album. The record was no longer just a hit—it was a benchmark.
The longevity of El Mal Querer is its own argument. Since June 2021, it has held the record as the longest-charting album in Spanish history. Rolling Stone's 2020 update of its 500 Greatest Albums of All Time placed it at number 315 and called it the greatest Spanish-language album ever made. In 2022, the magazine ranked it among the 50 best concept albums of all time—the highest Spanish-language entry on that list. Rockdelux placed it first on its list of the best national albums of the 2010s. That recognition underlined how far the record had traveled from its apartment-studio origins.
Rosalía recorded most of El Mal Querer in a friend's apartment, unsure if she would ever recover the money she put into it. The result was an album that reshaped what flamenco could sound like in the 21st century, and it still has not left the Spanish charts.
Rosalía recorded most of El Mal Querer in a friend's apartment, unsure if she would ever recover the money she put into it.