Song Review: "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee (ft. Justin Beiber)

I used to think the world made sense... or maybe it does and this just came in a time of weakness. Maybe is a sign of perdition and impending doom. I don't know what is what anymore. It feels like the laws of reality have been bent beyond logical recognition and what's left is a sight only Lovecraft could've barely imagined. How has it come to this?

For those who don't know, I've lived in Latin America for 18 years and then moved to the US in 2014. Back in the early 2000's, Daddy Yankee was one of, if not, the biggest star out there and Reggaeton was the most popular musical genre. People loved it, but for others who were a little bit more "musically cultured" Reggaeton was a cancer inducing musical abomination and Daddy Yankee was at the forefront. In 2010, Reggaeton seemed to have slowly died off but another cancer surged in its place: Justin Bieber. Was it as bad as everyone thought? Maybe we overreacted a bit (specially since we didn't know it could get to Jacob Sartorius levels of bad), but at the time, it was pretty painful to listen to. Now in 2017, I've been noticing in my FaceBook feed something becoming a little bit of a meme: a song called "Despacito". I was noticing dance tutorials, memes, videos, and so many different posts about it, so I decided to look it up and see what the deal was. "Despacito" is a song by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee released in January 13th, 2017. In April 17th, 2017, Justin Bieber joined the duo in a remix where he lent his vocals for the song and his own verse in English at the beginning. This is going to be a disaster.


To my surprise and beyond all logical reasoning, "Despacito" is actually a pretty great song. For starters, it has more personality, energy, and, dare I even say, passion. Anyone that has been keeping up with my reviews will know that one of my main complains with pop music last year and part of this year is the droning, white-noise like beats of Hip-Hop/Rap/Trap. Artists like Migos, Rae Sremmurd, Machine Gun Kelly, DJ Khaled sound stagnated, lifeless. Even pop artists in general like Twenty-One Pilots's "Ride" and "Stressed Out", Rihanna's "Work" just sound like lifeless noise. It's gotten so bad that I've praised songs with a glimpse of energy and personality for the sole reason of "it sounds like something". "Despacito" in this case is comparable to a supernova of personality. It's instantly recognizable and you will not mistake it for anything else. Secondly, in the original version, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee sound like they are having fun singing. They are enjoying themselves which translates into a very contagious "feel good vibes" and passion that can be felt through the vocals and music. "Despacito" is a catchy, feel good song with passionate vocals and adequate instrumentality and perfect delivery from the artists involved. The guitar work, the fills, is just gorgeous. The best part, arguably, is that guitar solo at the beginning. It's a few seconds long, but it's such a delightful latin riff that invites you to listen. The song, however, is not without fault. The song is written based on the 4 chords of pop structure and when the Reggaeton starts hitting hard it is a turn-off to me. Overall, I believe that part of the appeal of the song is the simplicity of the music in exchange for a contagious energy and passion. Allowing the rhythm to easily sink in and take over our bodies.

One of the biggest complains about Reggaeton back when I lived in Latin America was about how vulgar they all were. Basically, they were all aggressive sex jams by meat-headed singers expressing either how hot you were or how they wanted to sleep with you (which I just realized it sounds exactly like Bro-Country music). "Despacito" doesn't fall that far from the tree. It is a sex jam about guys telling you how they want to sleep with you. It's not as explicit as the Reggaeton songs of old, but there's no room to misinterpret it for a love song either. "Despacito" at the very least does have some sense of poetry and both Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee do properly convey the sentiment of "making love to you slowly" and "enjoying the ride" (even if some lyrics are very stupid and make you want to cringe). "Despacito", for those who don't know, means "Slowly" and the song is about precisely that: I want to make love to you, slowly. There's really not much to comment about the lyrics or the song topic in general. It is what it is.

The first time I heard this song (around June), I was sure it was going to be one of the worst pieces of garbage I've had ever listened to, and to this day, I'm still surprised how good it turned out to be. I heard the Justin Bieber remix first (like most people I assume considering the song didn't became popular until he joined in the mix) and at first I liked it better than the original. However, the more I listened to both versions, I began to like the original better. While the Bieber remix is still good and the version that made this song popular, Justin Bieber is a flavorless singer and adds nothing to the mix. It's like a glass of water with your meal: doesn't change the quality of your food. So everything I've said about the original, technically remains true to the remix as well. Another point to note is that despite the slow sex jam theme of the lyrics, the song is not slow. As a friend argued, this doesn't make much sense, artistically, because of this theme of "taking things slowly". I would like to argue the opposite. While the song is not a "slow sex jam" like songs you'd find listening to Bedroom Jazz, it is a good "sex song" because of the contrast. This song is about pacing and enjoying oneself and the music reflect that. I know this song has been overplayed, but don't let the overexposure fool you. "Despacito" is still a good song, and most definitely better than anything thrown at us by the horsemen of the Trap-pocalypse.