Spanish singer Lorena Gómez is marking 20 years in the music industry, and to mark the milestone she has shared a reflective message on Instagram about the doubts she has faced throughout her career and how she overcame them.
Gómez is currently on tour celebrating two decades as a professional artist, running through the songs that have shaped a show built around nostalgia and a look back at the road she has travelled.
In the post, Gómez said that if she could sit down for a moment with the girl who started it all, she believes she would apologise to her, because that girl only wanted to sing. She said the young Lorena knew nothing about number one hits, playlists, or what was commercially fashionable at the time. She just wanted to sing, and that alone made her happy.
Gómez recalled that as a child she used to set her stuffed animals on top of her bed to give them her first concerts, performing in private in her bedroom at her family home.
Listening too much to others
She said that at some point along the way she began listening too closely to outside voices telling her not to sing a certain way, to tone down her vibrato, or to change her style if she wanted to succeed. She said she followed that advice because she wanted to make it, since she was a girl full of dreams who wanted a number one hit, wanted to fill concert venues, and wanted everyone to sing her songs.
Gómez has appeared on a couple of editions of Cadena 100 por Ellas, an annual charity concert series organised by the Spanish radio station Cadena 100 that brings together women artists.
Losing her identity
Gómez said that for a long time she believed that to succeed as a singer and artist she had to change things about herself, and called that her biggest mistake. She said she changed her voice, the way she sang, the way she dressed, and even the way she felt music, and in doing so lost herself completely.
She said that when someone spends too long trying to be what works commercially, they eventually no longer know who they are, and lose their identity entirely, unsure whether they are doing it for themselves, for the audience, or for the industry.
The question that keeps coming back
Gómez said she still hears one comment repeated constantly today, in her posts and in the comments beneath them: people asking her how, with the voice she has, she has not gone further in her career. She admitted she used to ask herself the same question, until one day she stopped and asked instead what "going further" actually means.
She answered that question by pointing to her own long run in the business. She said she has spent 20 years singing, 20 years never stepping off a stage, whether in front of thousands of people or far fewer. She said she has sung in all kinds of venues and remains eager to grow and to see her music reach further, but not at any cost. She said she wants her voice to stay free, wants to keep her vibrato as it is, and wants to sing whatever moves her, because that is what makes her feel like herself and represents her most absolute truth. If her path takes longer because of that, she said, then it will take longer, but it will be hers.
A tour built on that lesson
Gómez said that realisation is precisely why her tour, titled "20 años de canciones" (20 Years of Songs), came to exist. She said she is singing the songs that have been part of her life so she can walk on stage and say this is who she is, without any filter or pretence, because after 20 years spent trying to find her place, she has understood that her place was always simply being herself.
She closed her message with a piece of advice for others: that no one should let anybody tell them what they have to do, sing, dance, or anything else.
