“I don’t really believe in the concept of creative genius and things like that,” the Argentine artist Fito Páez says from his home in Buenos Aires. “I’m more of a believer in the will and desire to express myself — that’s the heart of the matter.”
At 62, the legendary Argentine rocker has just released one of the most ambitious albums of his career: Novela, an opera that he started developing in 1988, and finally reworked and finished last year during a lengthy — and furious — creative spell in Madrid. The album, which Páez plans to turn into a film, has divided fans. Some online critics called it convoluted and unlistenable, while the Argentine edition of Rolling Stone hailed it as “a titanic tour de force.”
The plot, which takes place in Páez’s native province of Santa Fe, involves a witchcraft university, an itinerant circus, and the fateful meeting of two teenagers. The presence of an oddly ceremonial female narrator in between songs doesn’t help the cause, but some of the tracks boast the same kind of surreal, nostalgic beauty that was already present in 1992’s El Amor Después del Amor, a record that transformed Latin rock with its euphoric spirit and Beatles-esque melodies. A complex work made up of 25 tracks, Novela will definitely be remembered as one of the singer’s most fascinating albums.
Páez spoke with Rolling Stone about the madness of contemporary pop culture — and his desire to create a musical narrative that could be both personal and universal.
Is Novela meant to be an antidote to the music of the streaming era?
Not really, considering that it simmered in low heat for so many years. It certainly could function as an antidote now that this kind of format has become a rara avis.
You started working on this project in 1988. Did anything happen last year that inspired you to reach the finish line?
Let’s be a bit Lacanian, and pragmatic, too. My girlfriend, Eugenia Kolosziej, decided to study in Madrid. I had just finished a tour and wanted to join her. But what was I to do? I couldn’t just spend my days reading… Novela had been developing in fits and starts. In fact, I finished the screenplay for the movie adaptation before completing the album.
I called Sony and asked for the impossible: a studio in Madrid, available at all hours of the day. In the process, I wrote 17 tracks, with an additional eight rescued from the original version. The nature of this project may be somewhat controversial, but the original incentive was simply to accompany Eugenia and find something to do. I spent a month and a half locked in the recording studio. It was a beautiful process.
A couple of years ago, I asked you if reggaeton was the new rock & roll, and your terse reply still cracks me up: “Clearly not, Ernesto.” Do you still believe that?
I don’t have much to say on the subject — it doesn’t interest me in the least. I wrote an essay titled “Music in a Time of Massive Madness” and previewed it at Berkeley. I will read a few more chapters soon at the University of Buenos Aires, and the entire book will come out before the end of the year.
I guess what I’m trying to ask is, does the state of contemporary pop angers you?
I’m a creator. Anger materializes in people who are toxic and ignorant. There’s no space for anger when you’re busy creating; only beauty and joy.
But the very ontology of your album is a slap in the face to the two-minute pop song. Novela is the antithesis of that.
It’s up to journalists like you to formulate those concepts. The fact that Novela exists gives us the opportunity to ponder. I started writing my essay three years ago, because I noticed the absence of dissident voices. Everything was about the looming threat of cancellation, or being too old to speak up about these matters. Well, I have my story to tell, and I will not be swept away by the herd. You asked me why Novela is seeing the light of day now. There isn’t a controversial reason for that. It’s my nature, and it will not be tamed. There will always be a fault in the matrix. I’m one of the faults.
Ideologically speaking, it makes me happy that a record like Novela exists. I will defend with my life your right as an artist to make that kind of a statement…
During the 1970s, a great Italian philosopher named Bifo Berardi spoke of the phenomenon that he described as “massive madness.” It’s certainly time to ponder what is the meaning of music today — what it signifies, how we relate to it. When something appears that stems from a pure love of music, inevitably, the existing structures begin to crumble.
It’s gonna take me a long time to fully digest and comprehend Novela as a whole. That said, songs such as “Cruces de Gin en Sal” and “El Vuelo” are gorgeous — even if it’s hard to understand what came before or after them.
I take that as a lovely compliment. Yesterday I wrote a poem about [Mexican painter José Clemente] Orozco painting a mural at Dartmouth College in Vermont. The concept of a mural is so beautiful, because you never get tired of looking at it. I also think of [James] Joyce’s introduction to his Ulysses, where he appears to relish the fact that critics will never be able to fully decipher its contents. I just read Jorge Luis Borges’ [classic short story] “El Aleph” once again, and I found stuff that I didn’t notice on the previous reads.
The tension between the personal and the universal is palpable in the plot of Novela.
There’s something luminous about painting the mural of the village where you grew up. Villa Constitución [in the province of Santa Fe] was a small city. The imaginary elements of the story — the witches, and the university — stem from growing up with my father, and reading novels by Julio Verne and Emilio Salgari. But it’s also the story of the boy who grew up in that world, who later became a man and in his 60s created a fantasy around it. It’s all very personal, but also universal. This could have happened in any village, anywhere in the world.
Once again, the Beatles inform your musical world in such an organic, loving way…
I once told [producer] Phil Ramone, this track sounds a bit too much like Steely Dan, and he replied, “Why do you care about that? If you’re doing it, and it works perfectly, why does it matter?” His advice was valuable, and made me consider the hybrid as a noble art form. We listened to the Beatles in Villa Constitución when I was 15, at birthdays and dance parties. Novela touches on the hallucinogenic universe of “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
“El Vuelo” is so cinematic, with those spiraling orchestral flourishes.
It’s a pivotal moment in the story, when the protagonists levitate and the entire town takes off flying. But it happens with that musical backdrop, so slow and elegant, like in slow motion.
When you released La Conquista del Espacio in 2020, I noticed how sumptuous your sonic universe can be when backed by orchestral arrangements. Was that album a before-and-after for you?
It’s been a long process that began in 1990, when I asked Carlos Villavicencio to do the brass and string arrangements for Tercer Mundo. We did several albums together, and our collaboration was always passionate. Then I met Gerardo Gandini, who was my last great teacher. Eventually, I started doing my own orchestral arrangements. But this is an incredible moment for me, because as soon as I finish my next tour, I will begin academic studies in composition and arranging. I want to drive the Ferrari on my own.
An unfair question, I know: Would you say El Amor Después del Amor is still your ultimate masterpiece?
You know what I think? We always discuss artists such as Beethoven and Haydn, or [filmmakers] such as Cassavetes and Fellini, and we pick a specific movie or record that we think is the best. But today I may favor a particular Fellini movie, and that may change tomorrow. What’s my favorite Charly García record? There are so many.
I think music gave me the opportunity to express myself and experience happiness, to liberate personal ghosts and make up imaginary worlds, to enjoy a life that became more lucid and fun. Music transports you to unknown territory. As long as you continue expressing yourself through art, life will continue to lighten up.
