Menorca is already something else
The Menorcan musicians also call for the sustainability of the island, in a social commitment that extends to genres where it has not been so common, such as the contemporaneity of the tradition of Anna Ferrer and the electronics of Snowman Lost His Head
Palma“Some kind of activism is being done, doing it from the territory and in our language”, says Menorcan Anna Ferrer, who in ‘Glosa a Menorca’ from her previous album Parenòstic (2024) already sang two years ago: “For an island that is a reserve / and is in danger of extinction [...] that there are fish that are already floating / in s’Albufera des Grau / its posidonia is dying / that preserves the coast / It talks to me about housing / and cries to me for the youth / that whoever doesn't have an inheritance / has it very very bad”. A contemporary glosa that cries for the local effects of global warming and the housing emergency. “It inspires me to sing about present-day Menorca, truly. And it’s no longer that green Menorca where there was almost no one. Menorca is already something else”, she confesses to ARABalears.
“I believe it is necessary to sing about Menorca, not from romanticization nor solely from nostalgia, which is also there”, comments Anna Ferrer, “but from a real awareness of which Menorca we are singing to and which is still in such transformation that it is difficult to know what we are referring to when we talk about the island. It is political, too”.
“I am not against tourism,” acknowledges Alan Florit, who is behind the evocative and landscape-focused electronic project Snowman Lost His Head.
"I'm not against tourism," acknowledges Alan Florit, who is behind the evocative and landscape-oriented electronic project Snowman Lost His Head. L’altra illa (2026) is his third and new album. "20 years ago or more we also lived off tourism and the island wasn't like this, but nowadays I have a feeling of saturation in the summer that I don't like."
The danger of being a polished landscape
“One of the dangers for Menorca is that it becomes a pretty landscape,” adds Ferrer. “And Menorca is not a landscape, but rather the land that is worked with our hands to extract food from it, and a sea where there are the fish that feed us and the water with the salt that heals us. I am inspired to sing about a time when the land and humans had a more intimate relationship; not to romanticize it, but to make a conscious apology for that relationship,” the singer continues. “We live externally to the territory. Humans have become so alienated from the territory that we see it as separate from ourselves. The way tourists, new residents, and new owners interact with it speaks of alienation and how it imposes itself, instead of being a part of it,” she reflects.
“Right now I don't know what it means to be from Menorca. The meaning is being greatly expanded and it's being done in a way that is disrespectful and unloving towards the culture and people from here,” states Ferrer. “Integrating is also in the hands of those who come and they should do it in a tender and humble way. There is such a despotic, insensitive, and unloving attitude, with so little listening and so little awareness regarding the people who are and live in Menorca and who at the same time are experiencing such a profound transformation of their culture…,” reflects the singer.
“Slowly the island has changed a lot and I don't think it's for the better. What hurts me the most is probably the impossibility of enjoying the Menorcan summer. We've gone from going camping with friends and family to practically not being able to go to the beaches because at seven in the morning the parking lots are already full,” comments Alan Florit. ‘When we were little’ and ‘Camping’ are titles of this new nostalgic songbook that evokes a Menorca that is being lost. “I remember when La Vall was like a village where the people from the town went to spend the summer and we stayed there for weeks, and also the camping trips to Cavalleria with the family and to Macarella with friends. My daughter can't go camping. It's difficult, in fact, to go there and enjoy Macarella because there are so many people. I also tell my daughter about when we used to play football in the middle of the street; totally unthinkable right now”.
Thinking of the children
And it is that during the creation process Alan Florit has kept his daughter very much in mind. “I have thought a lot about the Menorca that she has lived from a child and the one I lived, and also a lot about her future if she wants to live in Menorca, and what island they will find themselves on and how they will live it. Today's youth find themselves with many problems that my generations did not have. I was able to buy a house and currently it is almost impossible for a person who has just studied to be able to do so. The Menorca I have lived and the one my grandparents lived is also very different. My grandmother used to go from place to place by cart and many days there was what there was to eat. They are generations on the point of disappearing and I believe they have lived through one of the most radical changes in history as a society. On the other hand, technological transformation has totally changed us as people, it has changed our values, the way we relate to each other and see things, act, live. A tradition and a way of life that is being lost and that possibly has much better values than the current society that goes at the pace of infinite scrolling on mobile,” he criticizes.
The other island, created in winter, which is precisely when Menorca is another island, begins with ‘Refugi’. “I don’t think I could survive a Menorca that was like August all year round. It’s very lucky to have a few months when we can still enjoy our space and, in a way, find ourselves as inhabitants of this small island”. In this sense, the album vindicates “tranquility, calm, and serenity”, says the author. “Being calm, being well, and wanting nothing more, I think, is one of the most revolutionary attitudes one can have today. Menorca is still a small microcosm where this is even more present due to the limitations we have as an island”.
PA (2026), the new songbook by Anna Ferrer, one of the most recognized Menorcan voices – whom Pedro Sánchez has even recommended these days – is her healing tribute to the tradition of a family lineage of four generations of bakers that she has broken. Towards the inherited heritage, tradition, dedication, wisdom, and craft. As she sings in ‘Los panes, los hijos’, it is a songbook as evocative of worlds that are fading, as it is of social commitment at the same time. “I feel deeply sad and very angry, but I try to learn from the people who have preceded us and have opened a path of defense for this territory”, she says.
“These are changes that have happened slowly and that now are almost impossible to fix without a lot of will from everyone”, points out Florit. In the same vein, Ferrer considers that “hope and faith rule that, if we unite, the people have more strength than anyone, because a territory is its people. I try to transform it into action in order to reverse the message that, if we want to, it is possible”.
The two new releases from Anna Ferrer and Snowman Lost His Head, PA and L’altra illa, respectively, are fanning the flames of Menorca's musical outcry against the transformation of what is or was the most sustainable Balearic island, and adding new songwriters in genres where it hasn't been as prominent, like contemporary traditional song and electronic music, beyond the more explicitly protest genres. This is well represented by Rudymentari, who, on the occasion of their latest album Mala herba sempre creix (2026), tells ARA Balears that “when we approach a limit, when it seems we’ve reached it, we overcome it. From the housing crisis to the rise of tourist platforms, the situation has become unbearable. In Menorca, we now have the phenomenon of buying farmhouses and converting them into rural hotels, which not only creates even more touristified spaces but also threatens the survival of the countryside. It’s one thing to transform to avoid dying, and another to get used to the arrival of owners who buy not one place, but four or five or eight. It’s outrageous that a man in Madrid owns 3% of the island’s properties; it shouldn’t be allowed.” They sing about the predatory example of ‘Ca la rata’.Global changes that are also local in effect and to which, for some time now in Menorca, artists like Cris Juanico have sung – to only mention ‘Aquest puny d’illa’ from the album F(a)usta (2015) where they sang: “Exquisite island, fitting in my fist, so full of life, roots, and light. Salty rock, belonging to everyone, a flower that endures so much pain” – from the carefree critique of Miquel Mariano and the protest rap of Orgànic, to the most popular names in Menorcan pop. In fact, over a year ago, ‘Convindria’ was released, a choral song featuring, among others, Anna Ferrer, Pèl de Gall, and Verlaat.The denunciation has become a popular earthquake throughout the Balearic territory, and in the Pitiuses, one of the latest exponents is, for example, Karlus, who sings an ode to the Ibiza lost to its transformation in his latest conceptual album Nova Ebusus (2026).And in Mallorca, the latest case in a summer that's just beginning is ‘In Paradise’, created by Amulet and Xisk, a new pop outcry against tourist massification, where they sing about the “safari” the island has become. And they do so with verses like: “It’s been a long time since there were doubts, there are so many that they block out the light. Na Prohens bares her teeth, always resistant.” It’s another song in the list of new protest pop that adds to a substantial body of work from the most popular names in song: from Antònia Font to Joan Miquel Oliver, through Tomeu Penya, Ossifar, Rock’n’Press, Carlos Garrido, and Raphel Ferrer, to the currently most emerging names like Maria Jaume, Maria Hein, Júlia Colom, Joana Gomila, Fades, Da Souza, Salvatge Cor, Llampuga, and The Deaf Buffalos.