Another case of a delayed number one (tip of the hat once more to chart analyst Chris Molanphy's AC/DC Rule, though he's discussing albums), where the single after the breakthrough hit is the one that goes to #1 on the Hot Latin Chart. We've seen it most notably before with Daddy Yankee, whose worldwide hit "Gasolina" primed the pump for "Rompe" to become the first reggaetón #1; and now Fanny Lú, already well-known in Colombia as a television presenter, hits #1 with the single after "No Te Pido Flores", the song that made her famous throughout Latin America.
A word I haven't used before on this travelogue, even though it's occasionally applied, is unavoidable here: "tropipop," a specifically Colombian mixture of traditional genres like vallenato and cumbia with Caribbean genres like merengue, salsa, and bachata, plus international pop. It was coined to describe Carlos Vives' collaborations with Emilio Estefan, and it's generally been quite commercially successful, if not very respected by practitioners of either traditional Colombian or Caribbean genres -- surface-level pop stars taking sounds without respecting the history, is what the charge boils down to -- and there hadn't been a female tropipop star before. Until producer José Gaviria decided that Fanny Lú, who had been trying to get a music career going since the mid-90s but kept having to give her television career higher priority, should be the female face of the genre.
And so that's what this is: if it sounds like bachata timbales, vallenato accordion, merengue bounce, and generalized international pop singalong melodies, that's tropipop. Not that bets weren't hedged: there was also a bachata version in which she duetted with Toby Love, and a merengue version with Eddy Herrera; but neither of them is quite as solid as the original; and the original isn't quite as solid as "No Te Pido Flores." She seems to be imitating Shakira's phrasing a bit here, but expresses none of her wit: it's a straightforward love song, subcategory "I don't have the courage to tell you how much I love you." It's perfectly pleasant, if rather anonymous and a touch overproduced -- those massed background vocals, for example, are highly unnecessary; she's not such a weak singer as to need the support.
But this isn't the last time we'll see Fanny Lú, and when we do again it will be with one of the signature songs of the era, so this isn't just the valley after a peak; there's a higher peak coming.
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