Friday, August 31, 2012

Hispano Madness



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So... Hello again.

 [A foreword: this is going to be more ranty and less analytical. Yes, believe it or not I have been trying to actually analyze not just rant. In this case I just don’t think such brainless works of “art” deserve me utilizing the intellectual power for something other than ranting.]




Initially I thought my next post to be on a book, but in the spirit of the dying summer, yes it's over believe it or not, I decided to cover a topic brought to me by a friend. A friend who lives on the other side of the world, yet we both seem to have noticed a rather curious plague spreading through the the radio stations… Hispanic disco songs.

 Everybody seems to go wild about them. Would they be playing so often and for so long else? The reason why someone would constantly request this... I simply cannot picture. The lyrics I don’t get, even with a translation… I mean I understand what they sing, I just don’t get it. Most songs in that genre seem to be singing mostly about dancing drinking and getting laid. And that revelation received only after a careful dissection because the structure and "sentences" quite often don't make any sense. Still, nothing new here. Hispanic songs are about drinking, dancing and sex, and American songs are about drinking, dancing and sex. I guess that's just what the people want in their music/culture.
 The melody, again it’s the same every time. One or sometimes two beats repeated over and over until the melody is so deeply beaten into your brain you want to find a zombie and have it eat it to rid you of this torturous existence. But joking aside, they all seem to sound exactly the same as any other mindless disco songs out there.
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But let’s get to the actual songs I wish to mention. To be fair they never really got high in the charts around here (higher in Europe) but every time I turned on the radio, entered a store, or went any place public with music, I would hear them at least 2 times. Thus here they are, the top three most annoying Hispanic songs this summer has to offer according to my aching brain and my annoyed friend.




Number one spot, no doubt, goes to Tacabro – Tacata

Well technically Tacabro is an Italian band but with a Cuban singer so they sing in Spanish and I will brand them Hispanic. In terms of melody and lyrics, as you might guess, this is horridly repetitious and mind crushingly annoying. It is easily the song I dreaded most, instantly reaching for my phone and headphones whenever I was unable to make it stop. The problem is: it’s catchy, and crappy, very, very, very crapy. Listening to it just once will make you sing tacata, tacata, etc, inside your head for eternity.

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When I first heard this song it reminded me of something but it was so vague I couldn’t make sense of it. It was when I did my research that I finally realized what that initial feeling of familiarity was. Paco Paco – Taka-Takata. True it has nothing in common other than those annoying "words" but it’s still worth mentioning. Especially when the original was quite the hit back in its days and definitely better than this crap released today. An honorary mention for Joe Dassin’s version too, which I had actually heard before and was the source of that uncanny familiarity I felt. I couldn’t find more information on those two on the net so I apologize for that.
Inexplicably, the two old songs can’t manage to annoy me, at all even, although they too contain the “taka” thingy.


 Oh I get it, I think! They have other words in them and the singer’s voice is actually nice.

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Finally, I felt asudden need to comment on the video… As far as my research went there are 2 video clips for this song. Both I find obnoxiously slutty, and seizure inducing with their blinking light, swirling colour horridness. And here I ignore the cheap looks, kindergarten editing, and god awful choreography, if it can be called such.
As a last commentary I say to the producers: for god sake have some bloody decency, you could have bought the girls a swimsuit or something not make them dance in what looks like their underwear!





But moving on.



Number two: Michel Telo - Ai Se Eu Te Pego  
The Pitbull edition because that’s the one that was popular around here… Do I really need to say anything else? At least he brings in some diversity to the monotonous original song. Wait… No he doesn’t.
Uh all right, I will add to this. Why I don’t like this particular song isn’t that much the repeatedness, although it is one of the reasons. No, I hate it because of Michel Telo’s voice. I cannot begin to comprehend why he became such a sensation when throughout the whole song all I hear is whine, whine, whine; whine, whiiiiiine. Seriously listen to it, it’s like the most annoying sound I have ever heard coming out of a man’s mouth. It’s even worse than Bruno Mars, and god do I hate Bruno Mars’ girly voice strings.

It’s truly sad when the moment these songs come on it makes me wish I was listening to Katy Perry’s Wide Awake instead. Hell, I’d even take Nicki Minaj’s Starships anytime.
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This song actually came out around the end of last year, but I am mentioning it here because its popularity reached its zenith this summer.
To be truthful I don’t find it particularly bad, I’d even dance to it in club, if I danced that is. Music and lyric-wise it’s just like all the other mediocre disco crap out there. What I find particularly appalling is… it’s just too noisy. I attribute that to the annoying female singer who won’t stop squealing her lines through the whole thing. How old is she anyway? 12? Or is she on helium or something. Seriously, is it just me, or does she sing kind of like a chipmunk?



Last I wanted to talk about one final Hispanic performer who became quite big this summer. Don Omar. There are two songs I wish to mention - Hasta Que Salga El Sol and Danza Kuduro
Again I don’t find them particularly bad or annoying or anything, really I’m neutral about it but when they just wont stop bloody playing them... Eesh...
Anyhow, it's the same type of lyrics, dance till you die, drink a beer, have fun, lather, rinse, repeat. In both songs there was something about hips. Actually a lot about hips, so I am beginning to think he might have some fetish about it.
They even got their girls some swimsuits!

 Else on the clip of Danza Kudro, it's the same boring crap of men jerking their hands in the air and women in scanty clothes lounging around. It's better produced that Tacata, definitely, but I attribute that to the bigger budget.

Seriously though isn’t there something else that could be playing on the radio instead? I know there must be, so cut it out with the endless hispanics and give me some variety.

That’s what I thought, and well I got my wish... They now play Flo Rida – Whistle…


And about that…
I...
Um...
Well...
Just…
No. Just no!




There. I am out of words. Happy crappy pop song?
In any case I doubt I could have added anything to what Todd in the Shadows already said. Here, watch his review(s) and support the struggle against crappy pop music.

(And yes, I know Whistle is not Hispanic but I thought it deserved some hatred.)

As for anything I could have said about it, here let me illustrate it with another pony.

3 comments:

  1. This was one of the most entertaining blog posts I've read in several years.

    We don't live in the same country so I didn't know all the songs listed, but I knew Michel Telo's Ai Se Eu Te Pego. It was constantly playing on all radio stations in my country this summer. I had no idea Pitbull did his own version of the song, tho. But if you think about it, at least he translated the shit into English. Now we can all understand the shallowness of the worldwide hit Ai Se Eu Te Pego.

    Personally, I have a problem with Latino songs because in my country, all the pop/house/disco wanna-be artists keep singing in Spanish although it's not their native language. It pisses me off! Why on Earth would we all sing in Spanish? It's not even an international language! And it's not a pretty language either!

    I wonder where all the real musicians went... Maybe they've landed on Mars.

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  2. Actually he only added stuff to it, it was a collaboration between the two, so at least we were spared the translation. Still I don't think it worth, at all, all the fame it got.

    Personally I don’t mind Latino/Spanish songs; some are kind of cool even. If it’s well-made I don’t care in what language it is sung. It is the today pop culture that I dread, regardless of it being Spanish, English or hell Gagarian.

    And nah, they are still around, feeding on scraps, getting all the bad program slots, and generally living in the margins because I guess people want to listen to stupid (sex, alcohol, dance) but catchy lyrics instead of bothering their brains with anything slightly less complicated. Then again Gotye did become quite popular this year and his music is very much an improvement. So yeah, still around, still lurking, waiting to be heard.

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  3. Като гледам нещата не са се променили много от този пост насам. Питбул има уникалния талант да разваля песните в които участва :D .

    Трябва да напишеш нещо за Майли и умопомрачителния и клип. И да не забравим хита "What does the fox say?" :D.

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