CHAYANNE, “UN SIGLO SIN TÍ”

6th September, 2003

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Mere weeks after I complimented Ricky Martin for not letting himself be defined by songwriter Franco De Vita's lugubrious chest-beating sentiment-rock, I find that Chayanne has done exactly that. It's probably the best song, and almost certainly the best performance, that we've heard from him throughout this travelogue, but although he's well-suited to De Vita's sturdy, gospel-based sweeping chords and lead-footed rhythms, the result is a kind of emotionally-extravagant narcissist-rock that you have to be keyed into the emotions of or it will fall dispiritingly flat.

"Un Siglo Sin Tí" means "a century without you," and the lyrics of the song are a description of the singer's desolation at having been left, his contrition at having behaved badly, and his insistence that he has changed. Put that way, it doesn't necessarily sound very appealing (every abuser ever could sing along), but I've made the mistake before of believing that pop songs expressing sentiments that would be questionable in actual interpersonal relations are therefore worthless, and (especially) should not appeal to the female audience which does, in fact, enjoy them. Which is just an aesthetic extension on my part of Nice Guy syndrome. Nobody needs my thesis on why Chayanne's grand gesture at the end of the video is creepy.

Pop is, among much else, an idealized version of reality, a safe space where all emotions are allowed to play out without the repercussions that would attend them in life. Even in the real world closing out the possibility of actual contrition and actual forgiveness can be a mistake; but even if there are no good men in fact, let there be some in fiction.

RICKY MARTIN, “TAL VEZ”

12th April, 2003

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After two major crossover dance-pop albums whereby he had become the Disney-prince handsome face of Latin Pop for the English-speaking world, Ricky Martin had earned a self-important Spanish-language record. The credits for Almas del Silencio (souls from the silence) are a who's who of Latin pop producers and songwriters, from the omnipresent Emilio Estefan and Estéfano to (masculine) stars who were famous in their own right like Ricardo Arjona, Alejandro Sanz, and (still to be met on this travelogue) Juanes. "Tal Vez" (perhaps), the first single and first Hot Latin #1 from the album, was written by Franco De Vita, who we haven't heard in his own voice since 1991, but who was responsible for my favorite Chayanne song in recent memory.

True to De Vita's form, the song is a power ballad with Srs Rock Instrumentation, and Ricky Martin's soulful voice very nearly gives it the sweep and cheesy emotional heft of a Bryan Adams song. Doubling and trebling his voice in the studio, he fails to match the grain and sounds instead like his own duet partner, a gesture towards solipsism which will mark his career going forward. Like many of the charmed generation who came of musical age around the turn of the millennium, he no longer has to try: he's going to be rich and famous no matter what. All that's left is to fill in the details.

So "Tal Vez" represents one path toward a sustainable career in maturity: the chest-beating ballad singer, attractive because brooding, bleating out his masculine pain. It's not an uncrowded field: many exponents are already regulars here, from Chayanne to Enrique. But it's not entirely a comfortable fit for Ricky, and not even necessarily because of any reluctance to enact traditional gender stereotypes. The key line in "Tal Vez" comes at the end of the third verse: "Tal vez yo nunca supe a quien amaba" (Perhaps I never knew who I loved), a stealth uncloseting under the guise of a straightforward "I did you wrong, babe" ballad. The video makes it a generalized love song, about parent-child and even friend relationships as much as romantic ones, Martin himself only a watchful spirit above it all.

A waste of his dynamic boy-band-bred physicality, you might say. But he'll be back.

CHAYANNE, “Y TÚ TE VAS”

15th June, 2002

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The last time Chayanne appeared in these pages, I complained that (at least as far as his #1s history goes) he lacked a real identity beyond "smoldering jawline," his thin voice and limited expressiveness held hostage to his choice of material, and his production rarely keeping up with the times. As if in answer to my complaints, his new #1 begins with a twitchy electronic rhythm which sounds exactly like 2002.

Unfortunately, it's then overlaid with a pillowy bed of bombastic ballad signifiers, less of its time than of the generic "anywhen" of adult contemporary, and all that's left is emoting.

Surprisingly, the emoting works. That's because the song itself is a good one, architecturally well-constructed, and Chayanne's overdriven performance matches the heightened emotions that the chordal structure, the pacing, and the production dynamics evoke. For this, we can thank the song's writer, an almost forgotten name which we only met once, in 1991: earnest Venezuelan singer-songwriter Franco de Vita. I sneered rather heavily at him then, in terms that I now think are not entirely warranted, but his emulation of pop craftsmen like Billy Joel pays off here: "Y Tú Te Vas" (and you leave) is a strong song, its sound structure able to overcome a self-pitying lyric. When Chayanne allows a little pseudo-soulful grit into his voice on the chorus, it's the most effective singing I've ever heard from him.

The video is exactly as lavish and generic as the song: but I like it because its sympathies are never entirely with Chayanne, who smolders ineffectively; the woman leaves anyway, and all his self-pity is for naught.

FRANCO DE VITA, “NO BASTA”

30th March, 1991

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This is our first real encounter with a phenomenon that will be with us for years to come, the middle-class attempt at a Serious Rock Statement. A quick overview of Latin American culture, unforgivably simplified, is probably in order here.

Most of the Latin Pop we've encountered so far has been descended from two traditions, which is really one tradition: folk music and show business. (The American equivalents would be blues/country/r&b and Tin Pan Alley/Broadway/Hollywood, respectively.) This is complicated by the fact that the Latin Pop industry encompasses two continents, several dozen countries, and innumerable local cultures; but the general principle, that Latin Pop is traditionally a vehicle for poor, working-class, and marginalized people to achieve wealth and fame and adoration even if only briefly, holds. (This is also true in American pop, from Jersey punk Sinatra and Tennessee hick Presley to blue-collar Madonna and white-trash Britney — pop is dominated by people who have a story of transcending their origins to tell.) In contrast, rock has been the music of middle-class respectability since at the latest 1967, and even more so in Latin America, where only the well-off have the resources to really get into American and European music. Despite what some will tell you, rock has never really been a international lingua franca, remaining a symbol of aspirational, and even elitist, cosmopolitanism while dance music and, more recently, hip-hop have been more solidly identified with the masses of any nation.

Which is probably several conclusions too many to draw from the fact that Franco De Vita sounds like he wants to be Billy Joel, up to and including the use of an American-style gospel choir for his Serious Statement Ballad. I call it a Serious Statement Ballad because it is; even if I didn't understand the words, the video would make it plain that this is hectoring pop in a "Cat's In The Cradle" mold. The title and two-word refrain translates as "it's not enough,"and the list of things which aren't enough — bringing them into the world out of obligation, taking them to school, buying them what they want you to buy them, blushing and running when they ask about sex, punishing them for being out late — adds up to a public service announcement to Talk To Your Children About Drugs And Bullying. It's all very middle class once more, and even if Latin culture was particularly in need of De Vita's message (Latin fathers are traditionally authoritarian and unapproachable, like all traditional fathers) the wussy piano-rock makes it clear exactly what strata of society it's being pitched to.

Someone like Ana Gabriel could have sung this song with a big synth-mariachi backing and been far more successful both politically and aesthetically; for Franco De Vita, it was his big moment in the spotlight, the highlight of an earnest singer-songwriter career, and the moment in the concert when all the lighters come out.