• Music Monica Naranjo: "Of course I've ever needed psychological help"
  • Singers Mónica Naranjo, after The Island of Temptations: "How cool is monogamy and how cool is commitment!"

Juan Sanguino (39) says that millennials are a generation that was promised permanent work, house, car and second residence on the beach. Since they don't have (we have) any of that, millennials look for certainties in the popular culture of their teens. This is precisely what this journalist has done in Apriétame más fuerte (Tongue of Rag), a book that deals with one of the albums that unleashed the lives of, according to the author himself, a million faggots, marujas and chonis. He is among the first and in this essay he has tried to tell readers the strength of the message of Palabra de mujer (1997), the album that turned Mónica Naranjo into the virgin to whom he prayed as a child, when he jumped with his songs alone in his room but also when he shouted them with his aunt or his mother. "Woman's Word combines the copla, the bakalao, the suburbs, the shouting... I'm not going to say it brought about social change, but it did propel it. It is no coincidence that other groups such as Camela or Estopa emerged at the same time, public phenomena, which were a success only because the public wanted it. This record sold a million records without taking into account all the people who copied it, because it was tape fodder."

Juan Sanguino has two more books on the market, one of them about Britney Spears.

In the lyrics of Untie Me, Panther in Freedom or Understand Love, the general public – and especially gays – found the commandments of their new way of life. An example: Get out of yourself and explore the abyss / That in the background a light lights up / That look, lost in nothingness / Looking for the same thing as you.

The gay public left behind the clandestinity and darkness to shout and put in check the established. "The gays chose Monica Naranjo. She was looking for provocation and at that time the provocation was not in the 40s, in Spanish pop rock but it was on the margins, in the chonis, in the polygon, in the ladybugs. In everything that was out of official good taste. She immediately identified with the little monsters as Lady Gaga would later do."

Monica did not enter the canons of femininity. She wasn't good, she wasn't afraid to touch her balls.

The Spanish music industry expelled Monica Naranjo from its circuit when she did not succeed with her first work. The singer decided to pack her bags and head to Mexico. Her success was total and she returned to Spain prepared to succeed. "Another one in her place would have thrown in the towel but she insisted and succeeded. The character of Monica Naranjo is something she created on the fly. She was very rebellious, she did not fit into the canons of femininity. She was not well-looking, she was not afraid to touch the balls. All this came to him as a matter of survival. She felt that society did not respect her. A girl from the provinces, sexy, racial, with that voice, with that tacky taste... Society did not respect her. She had to keep quiet."

HER FIRST HUSBAND

The artist's personal life was not easy. Monica witnessed mistreatment in her home, something that undoubtedly marked her and to which she dared to put a name while there was still talk in Spain of crimes of passion. Her character exploded massively and even at some point was overtaken by him. She married Christopher Sansan, her producer, and surrounded herself with a court that reaffirmed to her what a queen she was. " She was backed by her team and her husband who told her 'you are worth' and she believed it. He gave her a court to make him believe it. He built a self-love that at some stage got out of hand and became an irrepressible ego. But on the other hand it was the only way to survive in an industry that doesn't take you seriously, a press that passes you and an audience that calls you screaming and hysterical."

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The singer has decided not to participate in Sanguino's book although the author hopes she will read it. "I understand that she doesn't want to participate for several reasons. He likes to live in the present, he's not that kind of nostalgic artist. He hasn't done a documentary, a series, etc. On the other hand, she likes to tell her story in the first person. It's normal. I always wrote the book with the understanding that she was going to read it." He adds: "I think this book vindicates her as an artist, celebrates her legacy and also settles accounts a little bit with all the people who did not behave well with her. Monica will read it and it will please her because these people portray themselves alone in the book."

The journalist, in addition to being an expert on Mónica Naranjo, has also participated in the reality show Traitors and collaborates in Los burros de Fortunato, the podcast produced by Jorge Javier Vázquez. As he himself says, he writes and goes "where they leave him". As a good lover of popular culture, he also values the end of Sálvame and talks about what Jorge Javier is like. "It's the end of an era. Sálvame was one of the last live, unpredictable programs. When they win the rosco in Pasapalabra you know, in Sálvame you didn't know what was going to happen. On top daily. Jorge is a lot of fun. If he gives you his attention, he expects you to do something that deserves that attention. When he gives it to you, it seems that the sun illuminates you. He is a very good companion and very generous."

An unrepeatable album and success

The lyricist of Mónica Naranjo, José Manuel Navarro, explains in the book that he needed a powerful dilemma: "Untie me or squeeze me harder." The author of the book was especially marked. "When I started going out in Chueca and they put Monica on, people were unleashed. He danced with Madonna but took out the whole pen with Monica. I carry that record deep inside, it stirs my guts, it makes me happy."

  • music
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