“This album is a body of work. You have to listen to it all the way through, from track one to 16. Don’t use shuffle mode,” Alvaro Soler tells Apple Music, laughing. “That's forbidden!” Since the mid-2010s, the musician—born in Barcelona in 1991—has stood for cosmopolitan pop characterised by a blend of Latin American rhythms, Mediterranean ease and catchy hooks. With his fourth album, EL CAMINO, things come full circle: “The album title means ‘The Way’ in English. And of course, it’s my way. It’s been 10 years since ‘El Mismo Sol’, the first song that I was successful with. The last song on my debut album was called ‘El Camino’; I thought that would be a good title [for this album].” Soler sees the record as a metaphor for life. “I feel like everyone compares their life to a path,” he says. “There are many mountains we have to climb, many stones, but also beautiful waterfalls. EL CAMINO stands for everything I’ve experienced and what’s happening to me right now.” Below, Soler guides us through his personal highlights of the album. “Intro” “Last year, two very important things happened in my life, but also in the lives of my family. My grandfather died, and my daughter was born. That was super tough for all of us and involved a lot of emotions, difficult ones, but also beautiful ones. But it also reminded us that we are part of a circle of life: life comes and life goes. During this time, we stuck together wonderfully, which gave us an incredible amount of energy and strength. The whole thing was such a big part of me that I felt like I had to talk about it. In the intro, I therefore honour my grandfather. You can hear him say a few things that probably only my family understands—and that’s a good thing. In addition, there are seagulls, birds, all these sounds that remind me of him.” “Apágame” “This song is about turning me off. Much in our world is digital today—and at the same time, there are endless yoga retreats, offers to detox and all these attempts to come back down. Of course, digitalisation has many advantages, but it just came too fast. You have to learn how to deal with it first, like with everything in life. “Recently I was driving my car, and suddenly a woman runs onto the street—without looking, completely absorbed in her smartphone. We have two strategies at home. First, the phone doesn't come into the bedroom. Second, only look at it after showering in the morning. That helps to wake up without your eyes itching or being stressed right away. Fun fact: The song is initially produced normally. In the acoustic part, however, it switches to a simple iPhone recording. This also shows the contrast between the perfectly digital world and reality, without effects, compression or autotune.” “Lo Que Pasó, Pasó” “Here we have a feature from Marta Santos, a young artist from Seville with an incredibly beautiful voice. I think the song really only started to fly because of her. The title means ‘What happened, happened’. That’s something like my life motto. If something goes wrong or doesn’t go as planned, there’s no point in racking your brain. You shouldn’t dwell on the past, but move on. This positive way of thinking accompanies me through life. Each verse of the song begins the same and ends the same, namely with the words ‘If I in the next life…’ then follows with all the things I would do in the next life. The idea for this came from my wife. We were having dinner in Madrid and I asked her what I should write about the next day. She said, ‘Write about what you want to do in the next life.’” “Mejor Que Yo” “The album has two phases. The first is the external one: full of energy, with choirs, many voices, lots of fun and up-tempo. Just as you know it from me. Then follows this track, which acts like an interlude. Suddenly a cloud opens, a place where you don’t exactly know where you are. This passage stands for my inner self, for my thoughts. That’s why everything sounds so dreamy, almost floating. Here it goes from the loud world to quieter reflection. In the song, I ask myself a fundamental question: What would have happened if I hadn’t gone down the path of music? Would I be happier or sadder? Would I still have been successful in some way?” “Cero” (feat. Namayana Women’s Choir) “I love working with other people. On this album, I consciously turned it down a bit because I wanted to return to my essence. That’s why there are only two features. In this song, you can hear the Namayana Women’s Choir, from a region in the far north of Kenya, about 10 hours from Nairobi. The singers sing in the local language, Rendille. When I met them five years ago, I didn’t think about it that much—we just sang together. It wasn’t until the recordings for the new album that I remembered it. My cameraman sent me the old audio tracks, I put chords underneath—so “Cero” came into being. What the women are singing is actually a hymn: ‘Oh Lord, it is by Your might that we are here.’ A beautiful appreciation of life, a thank-you for existing at all. Especially in times when so many wars are raging and people are dying, it fits perfectly.” “Jardín De Los Recuerdos” “This is one of my absolute favourite tracks on the album. In English, the title means ‘Garden of Memories’. In fact, the title was there first, even before the song existed. For a while, it was even supposed to be the name of the entire album, but that felt too much like the past and not enough like the present and future. The idea for the song came during a sleepless night after my daughter woke me up. I went to the studio, played the guitar a bit and recorded it on an old cassette recorder. I was tired, so I played everything extremely slowly; when I sped up the recording, suddenly the melody had this very special vibe. I built the song on that. Originally, the production sounded completely different, but something was still missing. So we took everything apart and re-recorded it completely—this time with real guitar and real drums.” “Outro” “The outro is the grand finale. Where we hear my grandfather on the intro, it’s my daughter's heartbeat here. So it’s really a ‘full circle’ album. It starts with death and ends with life.”