By Mike Sain't Louis ·
Camela: a feathered tribute to the sound of our summers
Some bands are part of a country's soundscape, and Camela is one of them. Whether you admit it or not: if you grew up in Spain, their songs have played in some car you were in, at some village fiesta or in some roadside bar at sandwich time. «Camela» is my sincere tribute to all of that.
For me, Camela is tied to summers. To long journeys with the windows down, to patron-saint fiestas, to impossible loves and the ones that did work out. To that way of telling heartbreak without shame, heart in hand and volume up. Tecno-rumba has for years been mocked by people who think they're more refined, and to me it has always seemed deeply popular music, in the best sense of the word.
That's why the song isn't about sad nostalgia. What it celebrates is a memory that's still alive and a joy that's shared. When Camela comes on at a party something curious happens: everyone knows the words, even whoever swore they'd never heard them. That collective complicity is what I wanted to capture.
The cover takes it into camp territory without losing the affection. An old pink convertible in the middle of the desert, a bubblegum-pink feather coat, feathers flying through the air like confetti and a golden sunset behind. The hand raised to the sky seems to be waving to someone on the roadside. The title, in curved seventies-sign lettering, completes the road-trip picture.
I dedicate it to the people who bought cassettes at petrol stations, to the cousins you shared the back seat with and to anyone who's been moved by a song they were embarrassed to admit they liked.
Its natural place is the road, of course. Best at night, on the way to some village's fiesta.