By Mike Sain't Louis ·
Cada cornada: a pink suit of lights against violence
Bubblegum pink, gold and pearls. The suit of lights on the cover of «Cada cornada» (Every Goring) is so pretty it's almost distracting. And that's exactly the trap I want to point out: violence is still violence even if you decorate it with mantillas, embroidery and an old discourse that no longer holds up.
The song takes a stand against bullfighting. It doesn't try to soothe consciences or please everyone. What it wants is to unsettle, to move what people have always wanted left still and to turn a bit of light on in a corner where we've been piling up shadow for decades. It seems to me a custom that survives more through inertia and convenience than conviction, through that very human habit of only looking where it doesn't hurt.
One inconsistency really strikes me: some people are scandalised by a few rude words in a song and then applaud without blinking a spectacle whose ending we all know. That contradiction runs through the song from start to finish.
The title cuts both ways. Every goring is the wound everyone associates with the bullfighter, but behind every afternoon in the ring there's an animal that didn't choose to be there. The bullfighting look, pushed into such an exaggerated pink, becomes parody and question at once. Why do we keep treating as untouchable a symbol that no longer represents so many people?
If it makes people uncomfortable, that's a good sign. If it bothers them, it has got where it needed to go. On PLANETA GAYFOLK art goes hand in hand with what you think, even if it breaks the usual scenery.
I dedicate it to those who've stopped going to the bullring, to those who've never gone and to those who have doubts. Also to anyone who still defends bullfights, so they can calmly hear a different point of view.
Listen to it any fair-day afternoon, while others are watching the ring.