TITO EL BAMBINO & MARC ANTHONY, “¿POR QUÉ LES MIENTES?”

19th January, 2013

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The streaming-era chart can still be punctuated by one-week wonders, especially on songs like this that unite two proven hitmakers who can marshal their overlapping fanbases to stream their newest single. Although radio helped as well: the single was released in November, and it peaked at #1 on the Airplay chart two weeks before it made its appearance here. It would remain there for two further weeks, while the streaming-included chart moved on to a more resounding crossover hit.

I took Tito El Bambino's previous appearance here as a breath of fresh air, but this song harkens back to his first appearance back in 2009, another high-drama cumbiarengue song combining classic Latin tropical arrangements with modern plainspoken urbano -- unless I'm much mistaken, this is the first time that the word mierda (shit) has been heard at this chart's #1.

The full line is "me trataste como mierda ante la gente" (you treated me like shit in front of people), an accusation toward a former partner who is now attempting to cause drama about the singer's current partner; the entire song is a refusal to be pulled back into the self-pitying narcissistic vortex of a toxic ex, which would, I'll admit, be more attractive to me coming from women towards a presumptively male interlocutor. But Tito and Marc make it work, particularly Marc -- who had recently been in the news for his separation from Jennifer Lopez; art is not biography, but fans undoubtedly read this song in reference to her.

But then Marc Anthony could make anything sound gripping and real -- El Bambino's more vacuous tonality, digitally smoothed and auto-harmonized as it is, has to rely on reggaetón-trained rhythmic variation in order to even the playing field and not be outshined on his own song. He doesn't quite pull it off, in my estimation: the penultimate chorus, which he takes instead of Marc Anthony, feels weightless by comparison with all the others. But I have to applaud the construction and especially the arrangement of the song: with its glossy strings, punchy horns, and busy percussion, it has a classic Latin sound but enough of a modern bite to make it more than an exercise in nostalgia.

Airplay Watch:

• Tito El Bambino & Marc Anthony, "¿Por Qué Les Mientes?"
• Discussed above.