18th February, 2012
Víctor Manuelle's second and final appearance in these pages comes eight years after his first, which I called overdue at the time; his one-time rival, Marc Anthony, has been and will continue to be a much more regular presence. But Manuelle seems content to settle into an early middle age here, with a lively song about the delights of kissing; in the video he plays a smiling, slightly stocky Cupid to a young, spectacularly beautiful interracial couple in the streets of San Juan, and despite the modern, hustling urgency of the salsa music, with a buried reggaeton pulse deep in the mix, it reminds me of nothing so much as one of Maurice Chevalier's midcentury Hayes-compliant odes to love and romance in which he merely plays the role of avuncular observer.
The real delight of the song is in the soaring melody, which Manuelle's longtime band swerves into with gusto, and the engaged musicianship of his own performance. Once more, his legendary ability as a sonero is given short shrift here, as the ecstatic son which closes the song is only really a couple more choruses that he improvises slightly over, more in an r&b tradition than a salsa one. And the lyrcial promises of devotion, safety, and sexual gratification that will be the beloved's if she kisses him are all fairly generic and rote, more focused on the singer's desire than hers.
But then it's just nice to be able to hear some genuine salsa at this late stage in the Hot Latin chart; Marc Anthony was last heard bellowing the chorus to a Pitbull party track, the kind of sellout move that Víctor Manuelle would never consider (or, perhaps, be invited to at this point in his career). Like every other new song so far in 2012, "Si Tú Me Besas" was only at #1 for a week, a pattern that will carry throughout much of the year until the shift to streaming happens. The last gasp of musical diversity at #1 will be glorious while it lasts.
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