This is how we do it down in Puerto Rico
August 28, 2017 4:02 PM   Subscribe

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About ‘Despacito’ - Ethnomusicologist Wayne Marshall explains the "Despacito" phenomenon from a musical, cultural, and historical perspective at The Vulture.

'While I don’t believe in any single magic explanation for the remarkable resonance of “Despacito,” there are a few crucial factors that are worth our attention if we’re curious about this momentous occasion in American and global popular music.

The first is relatively straightforward but not to be neglected: simply put, it’s a good pop song, combining decades of songwriting experience, a weaponized chord progression, inspired performances by seasoned professionals, and access to an international music industry. The second factor helps to explain why “Despacito” was able to break out of the Latin pop realm and into the Anglophone and the global: Audiences had been primed to receive a pop-reggaeton song in the midst of an ongoing and unabated vogue for “tropical” sounds. While either of these two factors could have applied to previous historical moments in pop, the third is the one that most clearly locates “Despacito” in the early 21st century: in short, YouTube.

Taken together, these factors reveal “Despacito” to be a complex, profoundly collective phenomenon that points as much to the past — whether Tin Pan Alley, San Juan, or Kingston — as it does to the future, to a world remaking global pop in its own image.'

Mentioned in the piece, this video from Genius website: An episode of the series Deconstructed, 'The Making of Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito," with Mauricio Rengífo and Andrés Torres' (the producers of the song).
posted by TheGoodBlood (25 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
You might also enjoy an episode of the Switched on Pop podcast with the same topic.
posted by signal at 4:25 PM on August 28, 2017 [7 favorites]


My nine-year-old son loves it. Say it's "incredible" because it three different voices with three different styles in two languages to make one song. Doesn't know a word of Spanish, perhaps mercifully.

My take: a person who could pull off this song in a karaoke bar would bring down the house.
posted by Caxton1476 at 4:33 PM on August 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


I just finished that Switched on Pop episode and it's fantastic.

I won't spoil they part where they find that the chord progression is 1) extremely rare for pop music but 2) used on one very popular song from a long time ago. You gotta listen for yourself.
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:53 PM on August 28, 2017


I've never heard this song so I wanted to check out what this magnificent and rare chord progression must be... it's really vi-IV-I-V? I waited, figuring there must be some breathtaking change around the corner, but nope, they never change from vi-IV-I-V.

The progression vi-IV-I-V is not particularly rare - there's a Wikipedia entry listing songs that use it, in fact it's in so many familiar hits it inspired the joke song "Four Chords" by Axis of Awesome.
posted by scrowdid at 5:32 PM on August 28, 2017 [6 favorites]


the chord progression is 1) extremely rare for pop music but 2) used on one very popular song from a long time ago

Huh? Is it not just i VI III VII? (I really don't care for Switched On Pop, so I haven't listened, but maybe they covered that.)
posted by uncleozzy at 5:34 PM on August 28, 2017


It's Bm-G-D-A. (Jump to 21:20 in the podcast).

If I also said "chord progression" instead of something correct like "movement" or "harmonic progression", my apologies.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:41 PM on August 28, 2017


Oh good, I have a place to put this now: Ernie and Rubber Duckie - El Patito.
posted by hippybear at 5:58 PM on August 28, 2017 [19 favorites]


This song has been pre-ruined for me by the fact that its fans on YouTube have flooded the comments of every other popular music video with trash talk about how it has more views than them. How obnoxious.
posted by hyperbolic at 6:14 PM on August 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've loved daddy Yankee since first hearing reggaeton in NYC in 2005. Despacito is a jam.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:33 PM on August 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


I won't spoil they part where they find that the chord progression is 1) extremely rare for pop music but 2) used on one very popular song from a long time ago. You gotta listen for yourself.

OK, so I've managed to avoid hearing this until literally this thread - no kidding - but having listened to it just now, this song seems incredibly well-engineered to have a bunch of different hooks in it that makes it accessible to a wide variety of audiences. Those opening bars are like a gateway drug for people who like Hotel California, for example, which I suspect is entirely by design. There are other parts of the song that briefly echo other major hits in various ways, too.

It kind of feels like a pastiche, not just reggaeton and the other mentioned genres, but of the most accessible parts of a lot of other successful pop songs.

OK, now I'll go read the articles.
posted by mhoye at 6:43 PM on August 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


A list of songs with this chord progression. It is not rare in the slightest.
posted by jpe at 6:48 PM on August 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


I was in Helsinki this summer and for some reason, decided to go clubbing. At one point Despacito started playing and everyone on the dance floor lost their shit, screaming and clapping like clubbing girls anywhere and everywhere when their favorite song begins to play. It was beautiful. Our love for this amazingly catchy fucking song unites us all.
posted by the turtle's teeth at 7:01 PM on August 28, 2017 [6 favorites]


From the article,
'Closely related is the progression used by “Despacito”: vi-IV-I-V, which begins on the minor chord and then cycles through the major ones, creating a sense of suspense and unresolvedness. This particular order has been enjoying a remarkable resurgence over the last 20 years, as chronicled by journalist Marc Hirsh who first drew attention to the growing popularity of this permutation of power pop’s favorite chords back in 2008. Hirsh maintains a list on his blog of songs that use this particular ordering, and in the last ten years, such instances have ballooned.'
The article is long and he says a lot of things about that progression.
posted by TheGoodBlood at 7:02 PM on August 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


Early on I dismissed this song without much of a listen as sounding like a commercial. The pastiche element mentioned above I think comes from focus grouping.

I'll give it another listen based on this thread, though, and because my 10 year old daughter wanted me to give it a chance.
posted by grubby at 7:20 PM on August 28, 2017


Oh nice! I love reading music theory breakdowns of pop songs. And this song is an excellent jam.
posted by aka burlap at 8:02 PM on August 28, 2017


My six-year-old only likes the original version, and tells me to change the channel when the Bieb-ified version comes on.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:14 PM on August 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Your son has been raised right.
posted by hippybear at 8:23 PM on August 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


When she hears the song, Niana Guerrero must dance!
posted by blueberry at 9:20 PM on August 28, 2017 [6 favorites]


TheGoodBlood: “'The Making of Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito," with Mauricio Rengífo and Andrés Torres'
That's just outstanding. I love how they play the track with all the programmed elements, and it sounds fine. Nice beat, easy to dance to. Then they add the human beings in and it takes the whole thing to another plane.

Thanks for posting this, TheGoodBlood.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:45 PM on August 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


i do not think it hurts that the video is v seksi (while also sweet and warm, which counts as a neat trick)
posted by Sebmojo at 2:48 AM on August 29, 2017


Why are sound engineers the cutest humans ever :3
posted by winterportage at 6:18 AM on August 29, 2017


I have spent all summer not hearing this song. Thank you NPR.
posted by Ber at 7:56 AM on August 29, 2017 [2 favorites]


I saw a fair-to-middling party band at a street fair last week play this. They were obviously trying something new, because the singer was literally reading the lyrics off of her phone while she sang -- and she still nailed it. It was actually pretty impressive.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:00 AM on August 29, 2017


Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About ‘Despacito’

I read the article and listened to the song, but I still don't know why you kids won't get off my lawn.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:19 AM on August 29, 2017 [2 favorites]


I remember such discussions around Macarena, Gangnam Style, and La Bamba

::pondering face emoji::
posted by infini at 9:32 AM on September 22, 2017


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