1st September, 2012
Over the past few years of coverage, I've continued to use the "reggaeton" tag for tropical urbano dance songs that don't actually use the reggaetón rhythm, often because the performers got famous doing reggaetón and would return to it by the end of the decade, so it's more of a scene tag than a strictly musical one. But one effect of doing that is that a tabulation by tags might not be able to indicate just how good it feels to finally get the proper dembow riddim in a #1 song again, even if it is just a goofy horndog one-week-wonder.
I have no specific memory of hearing this song at the time, although it's familiar enough that I'm sure I did. It has very little distinctive about it; for example, it's neither as rhythmically, melodically, musically, or even lyrically interesting as Tito El Bambino's previous appearance here -- but that was a proper song, carefully written and produced to appeal to a wide number of audiences, and this is just a club banger. I say that with love: I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about "El Amor" despite its virtues, while "Dame la Ola" strikes me as a breath of fresh air despite, perhaps even because of, its genericness.
"Dame la Ola" literally means "give me the wave," but the wave it's requesting is not a motion of hands but of hips. "Give me a shake" might be a closer translation; "dance up on me" might be truer in sentiment. The video, all sunshine, tourist-friendly boardwalk, and a rail-slender model gyrating unconvincingly, does a good job indicating what thin gruel this is for fans of reggaetón's origins in whining-and-bouncing dancehall. But even so, this is this travelogue's first reggaetón proper song, with no other genre inmixing, since 2008. Even if it's shallow and lame, it feels good.
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