La Bien Querida

LA BIEN QUERIDA: Release of La Bien Querida's "Romancero" on vinyl [Elefant Records 25th Anniversary]

Release in VINYL format for the 25th anniversary of Elefant Records [Numbered Limited Edition of 500 copies **Includes a free digital MP3 download [320 kbps]

This is an opportunity to enjoy it all on vinyl for the first time.

Elefant Shop

We continue to celebrate Elefant Record’s 25th anniversary with re-releases of some of the most significant albums from the label’s history. The newest of these is one of the albums we are the proudest of: “Romancero”, by LA BIEN QUERIDA.

Before they blew up the national scene, LA BIEN QUERIDA was a well-known secret. The demo revealed a talent that had a special sensitivity, a surprising capacity to write disarming lyrics and an sharp ability to build delicious melodies. But nobody expected anything like “Romancero” to happen. All the promises from the demo were amplified; Ana Fernández-Villaverde’s songs reacted explosively with the imagination of David Rodríguez (BEEF, LA ESTRELLA DE DAVID), and they created a strange sort of magical bond somewhere between innovation and emotion, nothing like the music scene had ever seen before. It was an unprecedented production that mixed flamenco, Arabian music, rancheras, and even techno-pop, creating a clamoring of opinions unusual for a debut album. All of this led them to be on the cover of specialized magazines like Mondosonoro and El Pais’ supplement EP3; they were chosen as best album of the year, and even among the best albums of the decade, by the magazine Rockdelux and Mondosonoro; all of this brought them to the stages of all the festivals in the country (Benicassim, Primavera Sound, Contempopranea, Día de la Música, South Pop...), and some in other countries as well, like Mexico and the U.S. It also got them a nomination for best pop album in the 2010 music awards, among many other nominations... But more than anything else, it established a collection of extraordinary songs in the collective imagination.

Rivers of opinions and oceans of ink were spilled about an album that generated as many great expectations as it did surprises. A year after its release, the album was still on the charts, which just goes to show it was an album that maintained itself, that even continued to grow with the passing of time. And it’s still growing, five years after its release. Who doesn’t melt when they hear the sweetness of “Corpus Christi” or “Bendita”? The catchy and addictive exoticism of “De Momento Abril”? Who hasn’t jumped clean out of their seat, pushed by the winds of “Golpe De Estado”? The lines of their lyrics replay constantly in our heads. “El día en que te conocí, llevabas todo el pelo alborotado / Con esa cara de niño malo / Me miraste de arriba a bajo / Y dijiste que sí, que sí, / que tú te venías conmigo ”; “Y luego me he ido / y me han venido de golpe las cosas que te hubiera dicho / las cosas que nunca te digo / porque siempre me pasa lo mismo” (The day I met you, your hair was all unruly / with that bad boy face / You looked me up and down / And said that yes, yes, / you were coming with me”; A later I left / and all the things I would have said to you suddenly came to me / the things I never say to you / because the same thing always happens to me”) ...and a million more verses that already have a specific niche in a special corner of our heads and hearts.   

A limited edition of 500 copies, which are part of our continued 25th anniversary celebration. But more than that, it is an homage to an album that changed the concept of pop in our country.