Heartbroken

Rosalía is undoubtedly one of the most talented and brilliant artists of our time. Her albums are so good, and so long, that doing a track-by-track would take me all weekend, and you might be able to tell that I’m writing every day, so I’m just going to do one song at a time. 

The only artist who has the stylistic range and top-tier creativity as Rosalía is Björk, which makes their multiple collaborations make perfect sense. Björk only collaborates with other artists when she feels it’s a good fit. But whereas Björk has always been, and will always be, somewhat niche—beloved amongst her fans, but otherwise ignored—Rosalía has been hugely commercially successful worldwide because fans of any type of music can find themselves a fan of hers.

Rosalía’s 2022 album, Motomami, and its re-release (with six new songs and two remixes) Motomami+ were revelations of the highest order. Her 2025 album, Lux, was also brilliant, and I’ll cover that separately. 

It’s difficult to review Rosalía one song at a time because her albums are greater than the sum of their parts. But let me at least start with some of my favorite songs.

Today: “Despechá.” This song most easily stands alone among her more popular songs. Much of Motomami sits in the reggaeton genre, mixed with several other Latin American genres and sounds of her native Catalunya. 

“Despechá”—or “Heartbroken” in English—is such a fun song. It has this classic mambo beat, updated with modern drum machines, modern production, and some fun vocal effects.

Rosalía’s lyrics are so smart. Of course, you have to either speak Spanish or read the translations to know this. But I would put forward that Rosalía has completely transformed Spanish-language musical structures. The ways she shortens words to fit them into flow. More than anything, it’s like she writes words that fit the structure of the song itself, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen another songwriter do. It makes for somewhat bizarre lyrics, which I say with the utmost love and respect. In this song, this comes to mind: “Y ando despechá’, oh-ah, alocá / Bajé con un flow nuevo de caja, baby, hackeá’.” Translated, this ends up meaning “And I’m heartbroken (although “despechada” can also mean “spiteful”), out of my mind / I’m down with a brand-new flow that I’ve hacked together, baby.” It sounds way more poetic in Spanish. But it’s the perfect amount of syllables, with the perfect amount of slurring and abbreviation when it doesn’t fit. But considering how exacting and precise that Rosalía is with her music, I wouldn’t be surprised to know that every single piece of what I just wrote is knowing and intentional. 

“Despechá” is two minutes and thirty-seven seconds of musical perfection. She goes out with her biker gang to go dancing and forget all the dumb things that the men in her life did, leaving the club with a crown on her head. She makes songs that work well on a dance floor because she herself is the most fun person on said dance floor. 

She did a very fun remix of this song with Cardi B, too, which essentially is the same with a (notably fun) Cardi verse in the middle. But the original version is so good that I’m going to stick with that one. 

Heard in context of the other 23 tracks on Motomami+, “Despechá” actually sticks out even more, because the rest of the album is so sonically different. There is only one mambo/merengue song on the album, but it’s such a strong track that no one would think twice about its inclusion. 

And yet, “Despechá” isn’t even my favorite song on Motomami+. So there’s lots more to come!