album rating: ★★★★☆
Genre: Rock / blues / rumba / pop / reggae / singer-songwriter. Cosas Mías ('My Own Things') is the fourth and final album by Antonio González Flores (Madrid, 1961 – Madrid, 1995), known as Antonio Flores — the son of legendary Romani singer and actress Lola Flores ('La Faraona') and flamenco guitarist Antonio González ('El Pescaílla'), and younger brother of singers Lolita and Rosario Flores. A restless and genuinely gifted songwriter who had spent the early 1990s writing for his sisters — notably co-writing the albums De Ley (1992) and Siento (1993) for Rosario, both major commercial successes — Antonio returned to his own recording career with an album that displayed his full range: rock, blues, rumba, reggae and semi-acoustic ballads, nearly all self-composed, with direct and intimate lyrics full of urban poetry, irony and personal feeling. Key tracks include 'Isla de Palma', 'Cuerpo de mujer', 'Una espina', 'Alba' (dedicated to his daughter) and 'Siete vidas'. Antonio Flores died of a drug overdose on 30 May 1995, two weeks after the death of his mother Lola Flores, at the age of 33.
Label: BMG Ariola S.A. (Spain), 1994.
Producers: Fernando Illán and Arturo Soriano.
Recording studio: Sonoland, Madrid, Spain. Recorded February–March 1994.
Critical reception: The album was received with considerable warmth on release. The Spanish music press recognised it as the most accomplished and personal work of Antonio's career. RockSesión described it as displaying 'a total author, capable of immediate and ironic lyrics, and others that are moving and intimate.' La Fonoteca called it 'a good album, with far more light than shadow' and 'the beginning of a new vein in Antonio Flores's career.' After his death, critical recognition grew further, and the album became a landmark of the Spanish singer-songwriter tradition of the 1990s.
Commercial success: Cosas Mías sold 500,000 copies in Spain during its initial release. The album's sales continued to grow substantially after Antonio's death, and in 2005 — on the tenth anniversary of his passing — he was posthumously awarded a diamond disc for total sales of one million copies. A tribute album, Para Antonio Flores. Cosas Tuyas, was released in 2002, on which sixteen Spanish artists including Joan Manuel Serrat, Miguel Ríos and Joaquín Sabina covered his songs.
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