Diego A. Manrique: "There are people who have written about music in 'El País' who had no fucking idea."

One of the first things that the music critic and journalist Diego A. Manrique (Pedrosa de Valdeporres, Burgos, 1950) says when he takes a seat in the lounge of the Hotel Emperador —that place halfway between the diplomatic and the theatrical, with views of the Gran Vía— is that this book he is presenting, The best job in the world (Efe Eme, 2025), he didn't want to do it at first: "But Juan Puchades (director of Efe Eme) made me see that it was coherent and that the pieces fit together and that, in a certain way, it was a portrait of the profession at a certain moment." This volume is an anthology of texts that appeared in the section "La última bala " (The Last Bullet) of the magazine Cuadernos Efe Eme , where Manrique reviews with meticulous incorrectness some of the experiences that have marked more than half a century of music journalism. There are no morals or formulas for success here, but rather anecdotes and streetwise, mistakes and passion: fragments of life told with the mordacity of someone who no longer apologizes. The room is large, but Manrique doesn't raise his voice. His words fit in the short distance.

QUESTION. Right at the beginning of your book, you mention that in the early 1970s you had made a "dazzling" discovery: you were being paid to write about music. What piece was it about?

ANSWER: Well, there are two things... I used to write a newsletter for CBS—which was the leading company at the time—called Nuestra Música . They published, I don't know, nine or ten issues... until I stumbled upon Neil Diamond —I wasn't at all interested in Neil Diamond's specific music at that time, like the soundtrack for Jonathan Livingston Seagull —and I had a falling out with José Luis Gil (Tomás Muñoz's "dolphin" at CBS). But the first article I sent was because I challenged the people at Triunfo , which was the leftist magazine at the time, and from time to time they published articles on rock, generally based on people who had been or lived in California, in Berkeley. They were very poor articles, and I sent them a letter saying: "You have no right to publish these articles by Luis Racionero, María José Rague, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán ... they make no sense." And then they responded: "Oh, well, if you can do it better, send us a sample." I wrote an article about Jesus Christ Superstar and the religious rock scene that was happening at the time, with various musicals, gospel, and especially the somewhat underground Jesus Rock movement that existed in the United States. They published it, and three weeks later they paid me, and I said: "Good news!" Besides, I had no training as a journalist or writer or anything, but hey, reading leaves its mark. From then on, I wrote articles for Triunfo , including quite a few on international politics—you can find them and they're decent—which was something I followed at the time with great interest.

Opinion

Q. When did you become a professional?

A. Starting in 1975, Àngel Casas invited me to write for Vibraciones . Disco Expres also invited me to write, and I had a revelation—I think I'm telling you this—when I asked when I got paid, and they said, "Oh, you're one of those who wants to get paid." At the same time, I started doing radio programs on Radio Castilla and also contributing to a program on Radio Nacional de España hosted by Carlos Tena called Para vosotros, jóvenes . Practically overnight, in a matter of months, I became a professional, also because it was clear that my calling wasn't law, which was what I was studying.

Q. Would you have still practiced this profession if you weren't paid?

A. Yes, but with much less enthusiasm. I'll try to explain this: being paid is a clear demonstration that you're valued. If you don't get paid, it means you're considered a fool, a piece of shit, naive, a fan who wants nothing more. No, the nature of the game is that you become a professional and try to get paid. And I've been lucky enough to get paid for practically everything , except in a few specific cases.

Q. How do you see it now?

A. What I have are references, and not very recent ones. My son (Darío Manrique) also wrote, and I was sometimes amazed at how much he was paid, at the prevailing stinginess. So, I imagine these aren't good times for music journalism , which has always been stifled by intrusion. It's an astonishing thing. I remember people who wrote about music in El País who didn't have a fucking clue, and no one noticed. And in other media, I've seen people with no knowledge, no culture, no writing skills, no writing ability.

Q. “Who would refuse to be part of the human happiness industry,” as Immediate Records’ motto goes?

A. I think that compared to other branches ofjournalism , such as crime reporting or economic news, our field is much more rewarding, because we're talking about artists and that strange relationship that develops between musicians and listeners, which is a very different relationship than that with novel readers or movie viewers. I think it's more intense and emotional because of the mysterious nature of the way songs captivate us.

"Being close to artists is incredibly dangerous. An artist will always have an excuse for everything they do or don't do."

Q. However, he warns that in this profession it is very dangerous to be close to the artists.

A. Yeah, well, the "scarf-wearing" critic has always worked a lot here. I think it's tremendously dangerous for obvious reasons. An artist will always have an excuse for everything they do or don't do: "This album turned out badly because the guitarist became a junkie...", "There were budget problems with this album...", "We got really angry with A&R on this album..." These are facts to keep in mind. But at the end of the day, you don't write for the artists or the record labels; you write for the public. And so you shouldn't fool the public, or at least not accept easy excuses.

Q. There are journalists and collaborators who don't earn enough and combine this work with doing press for an artist or a record label. It's obvious there's a conflict of interest there, isn't it?

A. Well... The first law is: take care of yourself and your loved ones. I can't criticize someone who's had friends who ended up in record labels or management offices. You can't criticize them, especially when I've been lucky enough to have been able to make a living from this for more or less 50 years, which is terrifying if you think about it; it's a kind of record.

P. Tomás Muñoz, the big boss of CBS, offered you the position of press officer for the label, but you declined. Why ?

A. Well, on the one hand, it forced me to move from Burgos to Madrid on a salary that wasn't terribly high (on top of that, with the problem of my pending military service). So, I don't think it was an act of bravery, but rather one of cowardice: "Fuck, am I going to get into this?" Besides, the description he gave me of what the job of press officer was like, according to what he told me, was becoming more terrifying, like accompanying artists. That was a time when no artists came, or only two or three came a year. But then, when Gay Mercader came into action, artists came every month.

"The relationship between musicians and listeners is more intense and emotional than that between readers or moviegoers."

Q. Whose tape recorder broke down and who reminded you about it some time later?

A. With Rubén Blades. It was the most horrifying thing in the world, because it wasn't the tape recorder's fault, it was the cassette, which was a three-peseta one. I'd put it in and it would skip, and there came a time when I'd press the button and it would skip too. But Rubén, who's adept at that and more, acted as if nothing had happened. And he remembered it, of course.

Q. Do you prefer a notebook and pen over a tape recorder?

A. Not necessarily. I think you can bring a tape recorder , even better. What do a notebook and a pen do? Well, they make your work easier, but you're not sure you're writing down exactly what they're saying. There are artists who are, who are very black and white, but there are many people who, in the interview, are verbalizing things they may not have even thought about. So, having a tape recorder and being able to see the mental process by which the guy comes to tell you this is very useful.

Q. You once had to choose between interviewing Michael Jackson or... Quincy Jones ?

A. No. It was with Berry Gordy, founder of Motown . One of his sons, Kennedy William Gordy, known as Rockwell, had a brief singing career ( Michael Jackson sang on his single "Somebody's Watching Me "). Rockwell came. Jesús del Pozo, the head of Motown in Spain, who was from RCA, was there. Jesús was a very witty and forward-thinking guy, and he treated Rockwell very well. He was so pleased that when he said goodbye, he said, "If you want, I'll get you an interview with Michael Jackson. Whatever you want." Jesús del Pozo told me about it, and I told him no, that I didn't want to interview Michael Jackson because I knew it wouldn't be any good, that what I wanted was to interview Rockwell's father, Berry Gordy. I happened to be in Los Angeles , so I called Berry Gordy's secretary, and they put up all kinds of obstacles. In the end, my aunt invited me to the Motown office to see Berry Gordy's office, and while I was there, she said, "Would you mind doing it over the phone?" I was 10,000 kilometers away from home, so I wasn't going to use a phone.

Q. Did you manage to interview Berry Gordy?

A. In the end, the interview was done, which was... Well, Berry Gordy is the kind of person who isn't going to tell you how they experienced the business and the music industry. It was tremendously predictable, even down to the fact that, for example, he hated rap (even though rap was making him millions from the samples in his songs ). But hey, I'm glad I did it and I don't regret having chosen it. If I had chosen Michael, seeing what he was like, well, I'm sure it would have been a very striking background piece and all, but not at all revealing. And it's terrible because I'm sure Michael did have very clear ideas about what he was doing and what the music business was like. But he didn't share them because he came from a time when artists were errand boys and only the smartest ones realized how to act so they wouldn't eat you up.

Q. Do you think it's more difficult to reach an artist now?

A. Well, yes, certainly, because before the structure was more agile. You spoke with the record label's press officer, the record label spoke with the office, and that was it. Now, however, there are possibly image consultants, there are community managers , and it's certainly more complicated. I can't say for sure one way or the other, but I have the feeling that now it's more odious, especially because things have come up... It's already quite deplorable having to do an interview via Zoom, but well, before Zoom there were written interviews, and except in some cases where you could see it was the artist—like Pete Townshend , who is a graphomaniac—in others you'd say: "Who swears to me that the artist wrote this?" Because they were such bland answers that they could have been given not by the press officer, but by the guy in the office.

Q. They explained to you that you couldn't ask anything of Dylan when the commission to translate and adapt a series of songs into Spanish came up... Was Bob Dylan the big machine?

A. No, it's just that he couldn't be bothered at all, not even the record company, which had no leeway with him. Regarding the commission, I've always wondered if it was really his own idea or if it was an idea from Dick Asher, president of Columbia. He was a very right-wing guy, a former marine and everything, and he came up with the idea that since Dylan wasn't known in Latin America, he could break into the band through singer-songwriters he thought were leftist. I don't know how complicit Dylan was in this translation scheme, but anyway, the project was outlandish: recording over the instrumental background, using a language he didn't understand... The explanation they gave me was that he had a Latina girlfriend, which also wasn't true.

Q. Did you ever treat Dylan?

A. The truth is, it was many years later when I treated Dylan in that way. It was at a roundtable with European journalists. I thought I'd have a moment alone with him, and I even brought a bottle of wine , because I knew he really liked it. But it was a bit embarrassing because there were like eight or six of us journalists from different countries, and we were all there, like, "I'm the coolest," "I know the most about you." You can't compete with Dylan by saying you know more about his life than anyone else, because the only one who knows about Dylan's life is him, especially someone who is so evasive and so peculiar. I felt like it wasn't a much more relaxed occasion.

Q. Were you able to deliver the wine?

A. No. It's also because I was already pissed off. We traveled to London for two or three days, because we arrived, had the interview, and the next day was the concert at Wembley Arena. And then you think: "Fuck, they treat us like shit, they don't show any kind of attention." And well, yes, the interview stopped and they brought us some tempura vegetables. Damn! We were eating tempura and the guy ran off to another room. I don't know, the situation seemed very contrived to me. But well, I understand: it's very difficult to deal with Dylan.

"There's a blacklist at Radio 3. And I'm not the only one on it; Ordovás and many others are on it too."

Q. Are you still banned from Radio 3?

A. Yes. With the previous book, Riders on the storm , I was even, and with this one ( The best job in the world ) I've been on television, but never on Radio 3. There's a blacklist at Radio 3. And it's not just me, because Jesús Ordovás and many others are also on it. These things are so absolutely deplorable that you have to laugh, because there's no justification whatsoever. In fact, for this book, Santi Alcanda was going to interview me, and then "this guy" reviews the content of the programs, and when Alcanda went to tell him that I would be on next Tuesday, "this guy" said: "Over my dead body."

Q. I suspect you're talking about Tomás Fernando Flores (director of Radio 3)...

A. Yes. It's a sick obsession. Annoying, but not too much. And yes, I'd love to be able to meet with the head of Spanish National Television and say, "Hey, thank you very much for continuing the good habit of blacklisting." I'm telling you, the same thing has happened to Ordovás.

Q. What do you think about the state of public radio?

A. I don't listen much because it makes me angry. But hey, I occasionally listen to new programs, and I don't think it's a bad idea. The problem is that I have a somewhat holistic idea of what a radio station should be. It doesn't just have to be an accumulation of good programs, but there has to be some kind of general spirit. And I get the feeling that spirit isn't there, on the contrary; there's a kind of fear of entering the danger zone and that Tomás sees you as someone who's not on his wavelength.

"You often say impertinent things that annoy managers and artists, but two years later the artist thinks you were right."

Q. Has Serrat called you again?

A. No... Well, the truth is, I was with him later at an event for authors or writers. It was with his wife and daughter. He was charming. I also think Serrat is very fickle. I mean, he can get really angry one moment and forget about it the next. And, surely, because of his lifestyle and his immense popularity, he knows millions of people. So he doesn't have the capacity to do what we have, which is a section for people we get along with, another for people we get along with "so-so," and another for people we don't get along with. But he was formidable. It's not that Serrat is the nicest person in the class, but he can be extremely kind.

Q. So – as you say in your book – for “that shit they pay for,” is it worth making enemies?

A. Yes, yes. I hate the idea of journalism looking for friends. I insist: you shouldn't be there to make friends or to make enemies, you have to be there to serve the public and your own curiosity. That's something that was said in meetings and conversations about the reviews of El País de las Tentaciones . You often say impertinent things that really bother managers and artists, but two years later the artist thinks you were right, that the truth is that album was shit. What if he says no? Okay, man. Very well. As friends and until next time.