17th October, 1992
We've heard dispatches from Chayanne twice before, but this is the first time in which, for my money, he sounds like the globe-straddling pop star his single name and my vague awareness of modern Latin Pop over the last few decades would suggest. (Meaning his Greatest Hits are always in the Latin section of the local Wal-Mart or wherever.) (And in case you were wondering, his name is pronounced Shy Ann, though the last syllable varies considerably depending on where the DJ is from.)
The production is sharp and dynamic, as glossy and spirited as a Foreigner power ballad from 1982 — which, lest you misunderstand me, is not a complaint. We are well into the 90s by now, as the crisp, live-sounding drums attest, and the use of electric guitar, as a sort of emphasizer to symphonic bombast, begins to see a way out of the rock/not-rock dichotomy which has sort of hung over my understanding of non-dance Latin Pop over the course of this exercise.
Chayanne himself is almost the least interesting thing about the song, his thin voice just another instrument to convey the build and crash of the melody, a delivery system for lyrics about how dizzying love is. Although if his voice carried more authority — if he was Luis Miguel, in other words — it might be more difficult to take the bit where he suggests that she's planned it all out, and he's only the passive recipient of her seductive embraces. Chayanne, however, sounds just weak-minded enough for it all to sound plausible, and not even necessarily a bad thing. Some guys need to be pulled into love.
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