24.2.20

TITO EL BAMBINO, “EL AMOR”

16th May, 2009

Wiki | Video

Héctor y Tito had flourished as a reggaetón duo before reggaetón came anywhere near disturbing the placidity of the Hot Latin #1s; they split in 2004, two years before Daddy Yankee broke through. And since Héctor El Father belatedly appeared in these pages with "Sola", it's only fair that his one-time partner gets his own showcase. But where Héctor had applied the dembow riddim to vaguely socially-conscious portent, Tito El Bambino abandons reggaetón entirely for a cumbia/merengue hybrid that would otherwise be choking in sentimentality.

"El Amor" was named Billboard's Hot Latin Song of the Year for 2009, as well as being nominated for numerous Latin Grammy, Lo Nuestro, and Juventud awards. It's exactly the kind of well-formed, classily-produced, tradition-respectful (and of course high-selling) song that industry awards exist to celebrate, its lyrics a string of platitudes about love that nobody but a dialectical materialist would disagree with, the slight digital-processing sheen on Tito's voice the only concession to the technofuturism that reggaetón and the broader dance-oriented landscape were imposing on the pop charts.

With string charts, horn charts, and complex Caribbean percussion giving the song a merengue bounce and a cumbia shuffle, it satisfied every aging tropical-airplay DJ annoyed by the urban hip-hop derived music driving out the merengue and salsa that had been their bread and butter for three decades. As if to shore up that support, Tito released three duet versions of the song: a salsa version with La India, and two remixes of the original with Mexican-American ranchera singer Jenni Rivera and Puerto Rican ballad singer Yolandita Monge. (I believe this is, sadly, as close as Jenni will ever come to making this travelogue, an indicator of the chart's limitations at capturing true greatness.)

But despite the institutional support, "El Amor" was only on top of the chart for two non-consectuive weeks, separated by a two-week reign from the next entry. We'll see Tito again, but it won't be for a while; the next several years are among the most crowded in chart history.

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