30th June, 2012
The "post"-reggaetón era continues: producer turned would-be heartthrob singer Gocho, who netted his first Puerto Rican hit when he made the beat for Don Omar's "Dale Don Dale" as far back as 2003, earns an unlikely week-long #1 by applying urbano slickness to a straightforward merengue. Although as Billboard acknowledged, a remix with Wisin was probably the key element in getting it all the way to the top, another indication that the personnel of reggaetón's first imperial era, if not the sound, is still a key ingredient in urban tropical Latin success.
And that shallow industry analysis is about all that there is of interest to say about the song. It's nice to hear some genuine merengue this late in the game instead of a more commercial merenhouse adaptation, and Gocho acquits himself fine as a singer, although he's devastatingly free of personality. But the lyrics are the generic (if romantically heightened in classic Spanish love-song fashion) lamentations of a man wanting to be taken back by a lost lover; on the remix, Wisin's guest verse only lards on more evocative imagery.
The law by which urbano singers don't hit #1 until the single after their breakthrough hit applies here: "Dándole", a livelier, hornier, and more party-forward merenhouse track where rapper Jowell of reggaetón duo Jowell y Randy is incorporated from the start rather than tacked onto a remix, was the first single from Gocho's 2011 album Mi Música, but it peaked at #22, a full year before "Si Te Digo La Verdad" was given a last-ditch marketing push. But like Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina" before it, "Dándole" will have to be contented with greater lifetime streaming numbers than the #1 followup.
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