29th May, 2010
The more things evolve and expand on the Hot Latin chart, the more the white male rockers on it remain entirely unchanged. Although Sin Bandera only had one #1 hit, their influence remains omnipresent: Noel Schajris co-wrote this song, perhaps the most uptempo thing he's been involved with that we've encountered.
We haven't encountered Diego Torres before, even though it feels like we have: Luis Fonsi, David Bisbal, Cristian Castro, and even the last few songs from Alejandro Fernández all sound pretty much like this, which is to say they sound like every generic post-R.E.M. rock act to get radio play since 1990. True, the opening notes suggest a groovier, bluesier track than it ends up being, and Torres plays the trad rocker game at least as well as Maná: the Motown stomp on the chorus is particularly attractive. But ultimately it still feels disconnected from and irrelevant to the more current sounds on the chart, even the centtury-old banda formations. The generic love-song sentiments, in which he compares his lover to a guardian angel who gives him wings, don't have anything to do with the bouncy music, and both have equally little to do with the broody video, in which Torres plays his own guardian angel who helps him undergo a generic Hollywood emotional catharsis.
Torres is a second-generation pop star in Argentina: his mother, Lolita Torres, was a popular film actress and singer during the Perón years, specializing in the Spanish and Argentine folk repertoire. His first band was formed in 1989, but he's been widely popular in Argentina since 1992, and had solidified his international reputation by 2000. This will be his only visit to the #1 spot unless the future is less youth-oriented than the present: his 2021 album presents him as an elder hippieish statesman of Latin pop, lending rockstar credibility to his younger urbano guests and getting world-music cred from the guests his own age.
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