Nebulossa, Spain’s next representatives in Eurovision, are already cool from the name, with that point kitsch accentuated by the double s, as if from the depths of a box underground. The fact that they are not exactly kids is also cool in such a youthful scene: the vocalist Mery Bas exudes a certain suburban elegance and the producer Mark Dasousa, with his slicked back chicken hair, so Germanic, could very well be a member of Kraftwerk. , pioneers of techno. It will be seen if a techno pop Retro-style, rather whispered, without an epic chorus, it will be successful at Eurovision, especially considering that a good part of the interest (and the commotion) comes from the lyrics, which many Eurofans will not understand (although neither will many Spanish speakers. understand, as we will see). It is inevitable to think of Fangoria, who are Alaska and Nacho Canut: they started out as punks like the Vulpes, in the eighties, and now they seem to be the model that Nebulossa replicates.
Precisely, Eurovision exegetes have compared The debt of Nebulossa with I like being a slut of the Vulpes, which was a version of I wanna be your dogand protopunk by Iggy Pop’s Stooges (the band’s own name, Vulpes, comes from the Latin word for foxes). And indeed, they have points in common: the provocative spirit and the word bitch.
But they start from very different positions: the Vulpes, punk girls from the most genuine era, when punk had not reached Inditex, they declared themselves to be bitches with all the self-confidence, to shock the bourgeois (as they did). The lyrics of Nebulossa, on the other hand, are based on a suspicion: the one that causes one to be called a slut: when she goes out at night, when she has fun, when she achieves her goals (“it’s never because I deserve it,” says the song, “and even though I’m eating the world / not even a second is valued”). The lyrical voice, played by Bas, is hurt and wants to turn the term around from that pain, resignify it, free itself. “Stone me, if that’s all / I’m a picture-postcard bitch.” The Vulpes preferred to touch noses, without further consideration.
What is surprising is that many of the critics of The debt They consider that the song values the term (as if, in effect, she “likes being a slut”) when rather it ironically criticizes it. what it says The debt, deep down, is “don’t call me a bitch.” It is said that it is vulgar, but it is precisely that it criticizes the sexist garrulism of those who say “bitch.” I have heard that the understanding of irony is decreasing in the younger generations, but, apparently, also in the older ones, who have shouted to heaven for the song. Of course, the fact that the song has the air of a feminist anthem contributes to the reactionary rejection (which runs rampant across the vast digital plains of the fachosfera), both by those who don’t understand the lyrics and by those who do: it’s about what it’s about.
The Vulpes scandal on RTVE, which cost Carlos Tena his job, which generated columns by priests like Camilo José Cela or Paco Umbral (“the Vulpes don’t seem like porn to me […] To me, the one who seems like porn is Bertín Osborne,” Umbral wrote in this newspaper) and even a complaint from the State Attorney General’s Office happened more than 40 years ago. It is surprising that scandals like this continue to happen in a society that is cured of horrors and has not emerged from four decades of national Catholicism. But, when you look at it, it is okay that there is offense, without offense there is no transgression: the offended harbors a feeling of dignity and the offender a certain punk distinction. Everyone wins, especially the hyper-spectacle of Eurovision.
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