Before there was Spanish pop, there was the copla. Blooming from the 1920s through the mid-century, it packed whole novels into three minutes: women wronged and unbowed, forbidden loves, small-town scandal, all delivered with the drama of a bullfight and the melody of a lullaby.

Its stars were household names — Concha Piquer, Juanita Reina, Imperio Argentina — and its songs, like Ojos verdes or La bien pagá, were written by a legendary team of composers who gave Andalucía its own Great American Songbook.

It had a complicated life. Adopted and broadcast heavily during the Franco years, the copla was later dismissed by some as old-fashioned kitsch — before a new generation of singers and performers reclaimed it for its sheer emotional nerve and its cast of defiant women.

Listen now and it feels startlingly modern: sung stories about desire and dignity, in a voice that refuses to apologise. The arrangements may be vintage, but the feelings never went out of style.