Chayanne has mostly been an unremarkable, if consistent, presence in these pages: this is his fifth appearance since 1989, and there's not really been any narrative throughline to the songs with which he has bobbed to the surface. Blandly glamorous, suavely sentimental, with a thin, high voice which rarely changes even as the production drifts from moment to moment. The title of this new #1 is the kind of thing which needs to be a hell of a song to live up to its unadorned directness: how many really great songs called "I Love You" can there be?
This isn't one of them. It's fine: the lyric even acknowledges how hard it is to make "yo te amo" sound new, and the rhythmic descant on the chorus is a nice touch. The spacy 70s synthesizer which warbles up and down the track is the most interesting thing about the production, once more handled by Colombian mastermind Estéfano. The shuffling gospel rhythm already sounds dated; and while a full choir never comes in, there's enough claustrophobic thickness to the production that it's unnecessary.
Estéfano's lyric is really good, actually, worth looking up and reading through, whether in the original or translation. It's a more or less ordinary love song, but in its details and structure it's the kind of pop-literary performance that deserves a better song, and a better singer.
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