El Mal Querer as a Visual Album: Spanish Symbology, Appropriation,and Transmedia Narrative in Rosalía’s Music Videos

Transmedia narrative entails a new configuration of cultural projects mediated by communication channels, combining traditional (television, radio, print media) and contemporary (online media, social media) ones. In them, the single management of messages is transcended and planned so that it makes sense through the media, and the timing of message delivery is diversified. As an heir to the conceptual rock album, the visual album establishes an extended music video format, whose prominent features are unity and coherence of the visual discourses. The article examines the visual motifs as recognizable symbols of the Spanish tradition and cultural appropriation by Rosalía’s visual album El Mal Querer (2018). The analysis is part of a reflection on the current music video and other well-known visual albums.