There's nothing slow about that
Let me just throw it out there. Let’s talk “Despacito”. It is the most played song around the world, so there is no getting around it even if you wanted to.
When I was flying to the States, recently, I had a transfer at the airport in Houston. Looking for information about boarding a domestic flight from that location, I quickly noticed none of the domestic flight info was given in English anymore. It was all in Spanish. While talking to people on the plane about it, they quickly confirmed that there are parts of the States where Spanish is now the first language, so it’s no wonder that Latin music is a big and booming business and that a Spanish song is the most played song around the world.
The song checks all the boxes of a contemporary Spanish pop song. As much as it sounds like any pop song today, the Spanish influences in the guitar are what makes this undeniably catchy.
“Despacito” had been blasting from every radio at the office for several weeks, but it actually caught my attention when Justin Bieber got slammed for not knowing its lyrics. Uhm…. Ok.. I don’t either. Shame on me, too. Luckily, I have the valid excuse that I didn’t feature on the remix, so I can get away with this.
Curious about the song, I played it and realized it’s the song I’d been hearing for weeks. As I blogged before, we always get a few Spanish songs charting here, especially around the summer time. To me, they are the kind of songs that go in one ear, and out the other, so I have to admit that I had been living under a rock and the hype had passed me by.
Since, there have been many other artists who have taken to the mic to prove that they are able to sing the song, even though it’s not in their native tongue. You can find various covers of it by well-known artists and YouTube singers, but it in no way is slowing down the success of the original version by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee. They say the song is heading back to the number one position this week. For Luis, the success is leading to a full blown US tour and it’s leading an uprise of Latin success worldwide. I’d better start a Spanish course, I think.
