The Madrid band Cariño appeared in the top 40 selection of the Spanish magazine JeneSaisPop alongside names like Anni B Sweet and Mylène Farmer. It's a reminder that the group, which emerged a few years ago from Madrid's club scene, remains one of the defining voices of contemporary Spanish indie pop. JeneSaisPop ↗
Cariño plays what's called tontipop in Spain — deliberately simple, almost childlike-sounding pop that nonetheless carries quite different content beneath the surface. The band today consists of Paola Rivero and Alicia Ros; the project's founder, María Talaverano, has left the group. It's precisely that combination of carefree melody and lyrics about anxiety, sexuality, or what it's like to be twenty and not know what comes next that has earned them a devoted audience. Wikipedia ↗
Songs like "Bisexual" or "llorando en la acera" work exactly on this principle — a chorus you'll be singing after the first listen, and lyrics that name things Spanish mainstream pop stayed quiet about for a long time. At the same time, the band has never pretended to be bigger than it is: their recordings retain a homemade rawness close to demo tapes.
You can find the lyrics of three of their songs on SuperMusic.
The band was formed in 2017 and released their debut album Movidas two years later. Since then, they've been a fixture of Spanish festivals and one of the names always cited when the conversation turns to how Spanish indie pop has changed over the past decade.
Illustrative photo: Cariño. Photo: Pedro J Pacheco / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Cariño: the Spanish tontipop who sang about what was left unsaid
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