Although at first it seemed like the exit door to failure, María Isabel Meneses García-Valdecasas (Madrid, 1978) was blessed with the “first expulsion” effect, that is, the success that usually accompanies the first participant eliminated from a program. television with a huge audience. In her case, it happened in the second edition of Operación Triunfo, more than 20 years ago. She introduced herself as Mai Meneses and being eliminated so soon did not undermine her morale. On the contrary. She came up big, risked her own money to launch I've Lost My Shoes and soon proved to the judges and the public how wrong they were: transfigured into Nena Daconte, she went further than the majority of her former colleagues from that edition and those who would come later.
Mai Meneses, 22 years later, feels the name she owes to a story by García Márquez as her own and has proven to be a brave artist: she told in a book how her inexperience in managing almost sudden fame meant descending into a dark well from which, fortunately, , was able to leave on time. She returned to music, she was a mother, she continued composing and releasing albums and this coming Friday she will present her latest work at the Splau shopping center in Cornellà: the album Almost Perfect and the single If you go to two voices with Alberto Jiménez, leader of the band indie Miss Caffeina. It will be this Friday, March 22 at 8 p.m.
If you leave is your new single, which you sing in two voices with the vocalist of Miss Caffeina, a song that you resisted recording but of which you feel very proud.
When the topic came to me, I passed it on to Sergio Sancho, the producer with whom I always work. Even with his arrangement, it was still very different from the usual pop rock that I usually do. And I didn't just see it. Several months passed and when I started working on the demos of all the songs, I listened to it again and I really liked it. I spoke with Alberto Jiménez and we decided.
Why is your new album titled Almost Perfect?
I came to the conclusion that in life it is not necessary to be perfect, that things are good even if they have flaws or errors. Reaching these conclusions has cost me almost my entire life because I have always been a very perfectionist, which leads to you not enjoying yourself because you feel that you are not perfect physically, on the inside... In the end, a little in all.
You have been with Universal and BMG but now you publish with the Subterfuge label. What is the reason for this change?
It's the label with which Dover succeeded with Devil Came to Me, which has been releasing Marlango, Alaska for years... They contacted me when Lala Love You wanted to do a version of I Had So Much to Give You and they wanted me to do it. will sing with them. At that time I didn't have a record label, although I continued working with BMG – and very well – at the licensing level, but I did everything for myself. Carlos Galán told me that he really liked just that, the idea of a complete artist.
The overwhelming success of I had so much to give you gave you fame that you did not know how to manage well. Coupled with the fact that at that time you had been indulging in hashish and drinking more than necessary, you were close to staying in the hole. You tell it all in a book. What do you feel when you reread it now?
When I look back, I really tell you, I see the story of a brilliant life because I have done many things, I have tried many things and in the end I have managed to get out of everything in time. Thus, I am left with the fact that I have always known how to save myself at the last moment. Skip the boiling oil in time.
Are you not ashamed that your children read it when they grow up or is it the other way around, do you prefer that they know everything?
Well, in the end the issue of alcohol and drugs is something that must be talked about with children; Avoiding it isn't going to keep them out of trouble, so if you know your mom has gotten into trouble, maybe it will be easier for you to ask her. And have a little more head. I think intelligent people learn from the mistakes of others.
How did being a mother change you? I mean on a personal level, but also on a compositional level, on an artistic level, on a sensitivity level.
Not so much artistic, really. Although I did compose I only bite for you, dedicated to my first son. By the way, I still owe the second one a song. Above all, it changed my perspective on life a little, my scheme of values. Many times, when I have difficulties, I only think about them and on a personal level, for example, that I cannot give up. Well, since I became a mother I have been super cautious: the world suddenly seems very dangerous to you (laughs).
What would you like to sing to your little one?
I would like to make him a logbook that would serve as a kind of instruction manual for life.
Do you get tired of singing I had so much to give you at your concerts?
Not at all. Furthermore, it is a song that gives such a good vibe at concerts that when it arrives it is like a party. Every time I play it it's like a new party. I don't even have to remember to sing it.
What are you talking about?
There are other songs lately, it's quite curious, that when I sing them I try to put myself in the person I was when I composed it. Because they are like my life summarized from the last 20 or 25 years and I am liking how to remember that specific moment in which I composed the song. But with this one or with In what star will it be, I simply let myself be carried away by what the public is giving me at that moment.
It is 22 years since the first edition of Operación Triunfo and its return on Amazon Prime has achieved more success than the last editions on television. What do you take away from this new OT?
I haven't had much time to follow him but I do know that Martín sang I had so much to give you. And I saw it. When you hear your own song in someone else's voice, like for example now in Alberto's, from Miss Caffeina, it is very curious. As if the song took on another importance.
And do you feel jealous or picky about the interpretation?
Noooo, I feel super proud as a composer.
Miss Caffeina has just participated in Benidorm Fest. What did you think that Zorra was finally the song chosen to go to Eurovision?
Well, the truth is that I really like it as a song, what I don't know is if it meets the Eurovision parameters. I compare it a little with Vicco's Nochentera, those types of songs that socially I think are a lot of success.
