“No me alcanza el tiempo cuando estoy contigo, faltan tantos momentos, sobran los motivos”: the lyrics of ‘Amor de Barrio’ may not be Pablo Alborán’s best, but it’s also true that he wrote it when he was only twelve years old, at an age when the rest of us were still playing with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and, at most, going to guitar lessons to learn how to play ‘Allá en el Rancho Grande’. Since then, he has become one of the top artists in the Spanish music scene. What, you still don’t know who he is? How is that possible? We’ll tell you all about him so you don’t end up looking like a melon instead of a music lover again.
Who is Pablo Alborán?
Pablo Moreno de Alborán Ferrándiz (who shortened his stage name for obvious reasons) was born on May 31, 1989 in Málaga. And of course, nobody expected that the boy who was baptized as “El blanco moreno” in his family while singing flamenco would end up nominated for 24 Latin Grammys and winning a Goya with his records. In general, it is something very concrete and strange to expect from a child.
And that started on MySpace (remember?) without any pretensions, but as soon as he began to show his songs on YouTube he rose to fame: ‘Solamente tú’ got 180 million views. It was a foregone conclusion, and never better said: on February 1, 2011 he released ‘Pablo Alborán’, his first album, and it became an immediate bestseller. It was followed by ‘Tanto’ (2012), ‘Terral’ (2014), the live ‘Tour Terral’ (2016), ‘Prometo’ (2017), ‘Vértigo’ (2020) and ‘La cuarta hoja’ (2022). Come on, he is anything but still.
Can I listen to Pablo Alborán live?
Right now, the singer is fully involved in the tour to promote ‘La cuarta hoja’, so most likely you will have him around very soon until it ends on November 22 at the WiZink in Madrid. For example, he will pass through Bilbao, Barcelona, Valladolid, A Coruña, Cuenca, Puigcerdá or Oporto, playing at the Música en Grande, SOM, Cap Roig and Concert Music festivals. It’s rare that he doesn’t show up in your living room playing a couple of songs for you.
What are the best songs by Pablo Alborán?
It’s very subjective, but if you’ve never listened to him before, we’ll give you some advice. Solamente tú’ is already a classic, but don’t forget to accompany it with great songs from his different periods, such as ‘Miedo’ and his love indisposition with which we can all feel represented; ‘Éxtasis’, with which it is impossible not to throw yourself into passion; ‘Quién’, together with Alejandro Sanz himself; or the very sincere ‘Tu refugio’.
Browse through his albums, fall in love, understand, listen again. You will always find something new among the notes, verses and shots to love of one of the most international Spanish artists that tonight, in addition, you can see in ‘El Hormiguero’ talking about everything that has led him to this moment. As long as he doesn’t dedicate a song to Trancas y Barrancas we’ll be fine.
What’s in store for Pablo Alborán?
At just 32 years old, Alborán has a golden future ahead of him. At the rate he is going, he will already be preparing a new album for 2024 and will continue with a tour that is characterized by having bigger stages and being much more spectacular than in the past. But he’s also studying to be an actor, so it wouldn’t be so strange if he ends up starring in a Netflix series soon.
We would say that he fits as a teacher in ‘Elite’, but seen what we’ve seen, maybe he would even fit as a student. “Music has a lot of cinema and cinema has a lot of music”, he said in his last visit to ‘El hormiguero’ before a Pablo Motos trying to react to a phrase between philosophical, Rajoyesque and nick of Messenger. We will be waiting.
