Switched on Pop - Chartbreakers: Mexican regional y más

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

As summer comes upon us, it’s time for some Billboard shake ups. On this week’s edition of Chartbreakers, we’re looking at the recent iterations of the Hot 100 and a trend that has slowly been creeping up in popularity over the past few months: the influx of regional Mexican music. The past two years have seen many songs by Mexican artists making their way onto Billboard, all managing to highlight different scenes and sounds from the different states in Mexico.  We’re joined this week by the cohost of the NPR Music podcast Alt. Latino, Anamaria Sayre, who says that Mexican regional, or simply, regional, is a marketing “bucket term” that encompasses different Latin genres including everything from norteño to corridos, all genres that are comfortably finding a home in the top 20 of the Hot 100 in 2023. Of course, there’s more happening outside of Latin music. Much of the chart has been stagnant since our last iteration of Chartbreakers, but, as always, there’s been some shake ups thanks to the world of the TikTok sped-up remix, the legacy artist, and on some occasions, a mix of both (we’re looking at you, Miguel). Songs Discussed: Eslabon Armado, Peso Pluma – Ella Baila Sola Bizarrap, Peso Pluma – Peso Pluma: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 55 Grupo Frontera, Bad Bunny – un x100to Fuerza Regida – TQM Grupo Frontera, Fuerza Regida – Bebe Dame Los Tigres del Norte – Prisión De Amor Chalino Sanchez, Banda Brava – Alma Enamorada Chalino Sanchez, Los Amables Del Norte – El Crimen De Culiacán Ramon Ayala y Sus Bravos del Norte – Solo Una Patada Grupo Firme, Junior H – Tronando Ligas Banda MS de Sergio Lizárraga – Que Bendición DannyLux – Mi Otra Mitad Natanael Cano – Pacas De Billetes Miguel – Sure Thing FIFTY FIFTY – Cupid Lana del Rey – Say Yes to Heaven Taylor Swift, Ice Spice – Karma (ft. Ice Spice) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm producer,

Rianna Cruz. And I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And today we are doing another edition of our series, chartbreakers, the show where we look at new and notable things happening on the charts. Today, we're going to hear about some things in the world of TikTok and some things in the world of Taylor Swift. But I want to start today with something that I've noticed about songs that have been popping up on the charts recently. We've obviously seen a continuous stream of Latin music on the Hot 100 for several years now, but on the recent editions of Hot 100, there's been a particular influx of a certain categorization of Latin music, and that's Mexican regional. This brings me

This man That's not the hot It's This brings me back to my days Living in Southern California But you're telling me This is happening All over the place

It is And I'm not the only one to notice 12% of the hot 100 right now Is Mexican Regional And to talk about Mexican Regional I thought we would bring in an expert Hosts of NPR's Alt-Latino and dear friend of mine, Anna Maria Sayre.

Hi, Anna. Thank you so much for having me on to talk about my favorite thing ever. Absolutely. Hi, Anna. Hey, Brianna. How's it going? It's going good. So, Anna, what exactly is Mexican regional music?

Oh, you start me off with a really hard question. So some people would call it a genre. it's not really. It is quite literally what it sounds like. It's referring to a group of genres that are all regional to certain parts of Mexico. So when we think about regional here in the U.S., yeah, generally it's easier to just group it together as a term that refers to all of these genres that come out of the northern part of the country, as well as the southern part of the U.S. really what it is. It was used kind of as a marketing term by labels, by people exacts in the U.S. who didn't really know what to do with the music. It encompasses Norteño. It encompasses bandas. It encompasses corridos. These are all genres. have lived in the northern part of Mexico for a long time.

And now it's something that I think people are becoming a little more aware of the differences. But, yeah, basically just a bucket term. Anna, you call it a catch-all term. Is it also like a radio format? Is this a way of packaging a bunch of different music into one kind of airplay? Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, you'll hear people kind of refer to this in different ways, depending on where you are within the U.S. as well. So if you talk to someone in Mexico,

they're never going to package it as regional because that doesn't mean anything to them. So it's definitely something that I would say more mainstream U.S. wise was used as a packageable term. So even though this is not one genre, are there any hallmark sounds that we hear perhaps across Mexican regional music? You might hear accordion. You might hear a lot of brass. like tuba and trumpet, things like that. You might hear like 12-string guitars that are pretty characteristic and amazing, these vocal harmonies that come

when you have a larger group. The one thing I will say is that the lyricism is always really strong. There's always a lot of storytelling involved. Generally, I would say stories of the heart always. In terms of straight ahead corridos, it's like you have your guy drinking at the bar and La Rancho wearing his boots being like, she left me, blah, blah, blah.

So that's like a huge characteristic of it. That's always a key piece of this genre. So like you said, there's a bunch of different subgenres inside the umbrella term of Mexican regional. Can you break a couple of those down? I mean, there's a lot. So you have banda, which is kind of like the bigger sounding. Like when you think of Grupo Firmé and they're 20 guys on stage and they've got like the full

brass section and the all. all the guitars and they're super loud. And if you heard it, you would know it. The matching suits. Matching suits are literally an instrument that is part of on the... No. So that's kind of like the bigger sound. You have Cirrieno, which is more like stripped down guitar-based.

If you know, like artist Danny Lux, he's doing a lot of that lately. Again, people will argue with me on this. My co-host Felix argues with me on this all the time. The tejano technically fits under it. A lot of the tejana you would think of, the most famous, obviously being Selena, had a little bit more of like an electrocumbia flair to it. We have Norteño, which is like very ballady,

but also has kind of like a cumbia sound to it. So there's really like a huge variety, and a lot of it, again, is tied to specific, like, states within Mexico, basically. So it's really, really tied to a people, to a region, to, like, a history and a heart that comes from certain places. Super helpful for us to hear what's going on on the charts as not just 12% of this music is representing all of Mexico, but rather it's coming from very different styles and sounds. It's been a long time goal to try to break down a little bit more of what this is. And it's been interesting to see the way that different streaming platforms and things are responding. Like, I know Apple has a huge playlist that they named like Musica Mexicana, like, not even regional. They just called it Mexican music, right?

And it's like, I mean, Mexican music is extremely vast, right? And this is like one piece of one piece of one piece. Right. Surely you have like variations of like metal and punk and electronic music and just like every kind of. genre is going to exist in Mexico. So yeah, that's an even more inaccurate umbrella term. Yeah, I'm like, don't even get me started on the Chilango music scene. It's, that's a whole other thing. So, Anna, before we dive into the songs that are on the charts right now, why do you think, you know, Mexican regional as a term is like having a moment on the radio and on the charts? What is motivating this sort of push? I will tell you my theory.

think likely what this is is because of streaming, because of these young artists who are making this genre really cool, because of an enormous increase of this young, young generation of Latinos in the U.S. born, oftentimes Latinos. And basically, you have a whole generation of really, really young people in the U.S. who are Latinos who care about this music and are now listening to it. And that's why we're seeing such an enormous build, I think, is really related to what's happening here in the U.S. and these young people. And I will say, like, if you look at Pesopuma, for example, he's touring right now and he's hitting Texas and California like five times back and forth. Like, it's really about what's happening here in this country and the way that it's

bringing Mexico to the world. Well, speaking of Pesopuma, that takes us to our first song. which peaked at number four on the charts. It's called Eyeba Ayazola and it's a collaboration between Pezo Pluma and another group called Eslabo Normado. So, Anna, right off the bat, what genre would you put this under? I would say that this.

very comfortably lies within the Corridos Tumbados bucket. It has been kind of an older genre, something your grandparents listen to more melodic, a little ballady. Now, in recent years, starting probably popularized by Nathan El Cano first. He was the first young artist to really bring this to a larger audience. It's basically this mix of your super old corrido genre and you take kind of like hip-hop and rap sensibilities and you mash them together, you speed it up,

it has that kind of trumpety like da-da-da-da-da-da-da-ta-da-tta-tta-tta in most of them. And you get a corrido tumvado, which is all of a sudden really cool and you can like wear Adidas simless it to it. I think it's notable that the song has spent multiple weeks in the top 10 of the Hot 100 and doesn't really contain the hallmarks of pop production. Like, we don't have any electronics, there is no 808 bass. It doesn't even have like a chorus or any sort of real repetition in the lyrics. It is clearly, like, extremely narrative.

It's full of hooks that my ear is like, oh, I've heard that hook again, but it's, always under a new set of lyrics. And that very rarely happens on the charts. The only thing that I hear is like very contemporary is the production. It's very in your face. It's very bright. It's aggressive. It feels like it's mixed like a pop song. But it's not looking to like quote unquote crossover by borrowing things that are already very cool on the Hot 100. It's just in its own lane. 100%. I think the thing to me that is so fascinating about the explosion of Corridos Tumbados is that really the last time that we saw anything within this space have a big U.S. presence. Like the thing that people think of is Selena, right? Because, you know, you think about 90s Latin pop and people actually around the U.S. listening to Selena doing this kind of tejano electrocumbia thing. She almost She almost

To go Zipucused She almost To like U.S. Popify to make interesting to people And there's none of that In this music Even thinking of a song of her

Is like Technocumbia, you know? Like it's right in the name Like it's right in the song She's bridging those gaps You know, those culture gaps. I mean, for me, what stands out about Ella Baalasola is Pesopulma's voice specifically. Yes. Which Vulture editor Alex Suskin described once as being squeezed through a sev, like kind of just ringing everything out of it, you know?

And I don't find it particularly like attractive to listen to, but it somehow works. You can hear it more clearly on Bezo Pluma's recent session with Becerap, which is stuck in my head. Like there's such a distinct texture to it that I think brings a lot to the production of whatever song he's in. So famously, Chalino Sanchez was one of the most widely beloved Narco Corrido artists. And famously, his voice was kind of like a little grating. And I think that this is something that historically the vocals of this genre, it's not always like the most straight ahead sweet voice to listen to, I think that's kind of part of the roughness of it sometimes is you're telling stories of the heart, you're telling stories of heart. I mean,

this is like a genre that is so heart-wrenching and it's matched oftentimes by, I think, maybe imperfect vocals is the way I would say it in a way that I think you just want to be as loud and as intense and as emotional as possible. And sometimes the more imperfect voices are the best wants to communicate that. Yeah, a lot of the sound is in the nasal cavity. It's very forward sounding. And I think that perhaps it's also working because the production here is so thick, right? There's just so much instrumentation filling up so much space. So if you want to be heard, you've got to be like way up in here and you got to point through. It has to be a voice that you can't not listen to. You can't look away. So we've talked a lot about Pessoel Plum.

We haven't talked as much about Eslabo and Amado, but this collaboration between the two has them linking up for the first time. So, Anna, who are these guys? Why should we care? Pesso Pluma is blowing up. He started making music a year ago. And is now, yes. Wow. Charlie, your face is correct. It's not too late. Yeah, it's been a wild ride for him, I would say. He's from Guadalajara. which is not a Northenio city in Mexico. He went to high school in San Antonio, Texas, and is half Lebanese.

So he's kind of a lot of different things that are not necessarily characteristic of a Northenio artist, but I think in many ways that is why he is representing this. I think it's important to look at this phenomenon as something that is very Mexican-American tied in many ways. And so for him to have that time in Texas, makes sense in a lot of ways. Eslaubano Armado, they're a band from Patterson, California. So same kind of thing in a way. This kind of like Mexican-American group of kids bringing this to the world,

they started a couple years earlier. But both of these artists or groups are really young. Pesso Plumas 23, that's kind of really something that's super characteristic of what's happening with this explosion right now as well, is everyone is super, super young who's participating. And they're bridge builders between cultures. I mean, it has a demonstrated success. Pesopuma literally has eight songs on the Hot 100 right now.

8% of the chart is Pesopuluma. Wow. And I feel like that's a number that's reserved for the Taylor Swift's of the world, right? The Rion is of the world. Or Beyonce drop. Exactly. Exactly. But you have to understand, like, in Michigan.

Pesu Pluma is like Beyonce level. Like he is like superstar celebrity status. Yeah. New royalty. Well, speaking of superstar celebrity, let's transition to another Mexican regional collaboration featuring none other than global superstar Bad Bunny and his collaboration with Group of Frontera,

1%. Different vibe. This track peaked at five on the Hot 100. Charlie, what do you think? Well, it makes me want to know, again, what style we're listening to within this umbrella category because this is a very different feel. Yeah, I was so surprised.

Well, A, when I heard Bad Bunny was going to be on that regional track, but B, when I heard what it was. So this is him collaborating with Gruber Fontera, which they, again, are one of these vexionaltrakis. American bands, they're coming to us out of Texas. And so this song Norteño with maybe like a cumbia light mix to it, it's something that's kind of like a straight ahead tejano cumbia, if anything, very characteristic of like the southern part of Texas and the music that's come out of there again, referencing back to

like Selena and all of these tejano artists. I'm hearing like the accordion, you have the cumbia rhythm. Uh-huh. But yeah, the sort of slower ballady kind of thing. Yeah, the ballady piece of it is very key to any Norteno music. And it's also something that you get with a song like this that does have some of that cumbia feel as well. So it's an interesting marriage to me. And I am fascinating that this was the track that Bad Bunny chose to participate in.

Right, because of course he's Puerto Rican. And this would be far outside of the expected, you know, world of reggaeton or like, Latin trap that we know him for. Totally. And I mean, him doing a regional song is not that surprising because, like, a lot of other artists are hopping on it right now. It's what's really popular. Carol G. had a regional track on her recent album. He's not the first litigaton artist to get in on this. However, of all the things that you could do, I mean, Nortenos don't really move. Like we said, their validity. What is the main cumbia rhythm? How does it go?

It's like a t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t. It's like... Yeah, exactly. I'm like, if that makes sense, me singing it. Maybe the reason that Bad Bunny fits so well in this track is that the Cumbia rhythm layers really well with the Dembo beat. Like even though Cumbia and reggaeton don't originate in the same place, they have this rhythmic overlap that makes sense for a Bad Bunny track, even if coming from different cultural pathways. Yeah, so I mean, a cumbia is originally a Colombian.

genre and before even that it came over from from africa on the slave trade but it's something that has become like one of the most pervasive latin-american sounds right like you have your mexican cumbia you have your cumbia just all over the map the caribbean central america etc and so yeah i mean the influence is definitely present in much of latin music because of how pervasive the genre is and so when you look at regional which is made up of polka and waltz and different things like that too. The Nortenio is practically a cumbia, but kind of mixed up a little bit. So it does make sense, I would say, that there's a bridge there for sure.

Super interesting factoid about the rhythm. It's actually, so it's a dance rhythm, right? Like, basically it's like this step back and forth. I wish I could show it to you, but you probably don't want to see that anyways. But it's kind of like this back and forth step in and out. And it was actually designed, like I mentioned, it came from the slave trade. And it was designed as basically something people could dance to while in shackles. So that's the origin and that's what ties it up.

That's what keeps it that tight is so that people can do that. That's pretty different, actually, from a lot of the other beats you'll hear too coming out of the north of Mexico. Well, I think something else about this track that I find exciting is that it leans more into the mainstream pop production. Like right off the bat, we have like a reverb-laden vocal, simple strip-back guitar intro, and it feels very at home in the world of other charting more ballady pop songs. I mean, and then when Bad Bunny comes in, the song totally flips and becomes super contemporary. I think the other words noting here is thematically

how contemporary it is. Like the title itself, like 1%. He's singing a song talking about his phone being on 1%. Like in talking to this girl. So it's like, what gets more contemporary than that?

They're not just modernizing the sound, but they're modernizing the sub- matter. We're not talking about our heartbroken caballero who's on the rancho waiting for his woman to come back. We're talking about Bad Bunny texting some girl and being on 1%. And I think they even do it in the way that they sing it. Like the melodies feel like they could be sung by a post-Malone or certainly Bad Bunny who's singing them. They have this very 2020's sensibility in the melody. Also, I just want to know what he just said, where he goes, Boracho at your Insta, he's saying, like, I'm drunk looking at your Instagram.

No one's ever done that before. King shit. We all know Venipo sitting there drunk looking at her Instagram. And I will not say who her is because anyone who knows knows. We keep on moving. Let's keep on moving. So let's keep going down the charts. Peking at 35, we have Tekeme by Fuerza Avejida. So right off the bat, we're hearing a lot of stuff that we already talked about, right?

We're hearing the like rough, you know, textured vocals. We're hearing the same, you know, brass, heavy. Right, exactly, exactly, the brass forward production. Anna, what would you consider this? I'm going to go once again with Corrido tumbledo. This kind of has all those characteristics sounds again that we talked about earlier with EGA Baila Sola. Like I said, you have that really funny.

I don't know why this is characteristic of all the Corridos Dumados, but you have the like, that trompets out that I just did horribly, but that's there. You have the guitars for sure, like a 12 string in there. It's like pretty guitar heavy. Again, like we talked about the vocals a lot

and that is relevant here. It's every Mexican mix, I would say, always just go super upfront on the vocals. It's just like a thing that everyone does. It's how Mexicans like to listen to their music. We want upfront vocals. It's pop music. Exactly.

And it's really about the lyricism, too. You're getting really funny themes again here, like just these guys being like, when I roll up in my BMW, like you pay attention to me, blah, blah, blah. And again, when you're talking about corridos mashed with like a hip-hop kind of tone to it, they're not in the traje of, you know,

the traditional banda garb. Like they are rocking, designers and they know it and they want everyone to know it too and that's characteristic of the music. I love these guys. They released a song earlier this year that really blew them up, Bebedame, which was with our friends that we just talked about, Grupo Fontera. And the thing that is really amazing to me too is like, these songs work super produced and they work super stripped out.

I actually know the guy who wrote this song and I've heard him perform it just himself in a 12 string. And it holds 100%. Just the way that these songs move, the way that the melodies are written, they're so strong. It doesn't really matter how much production you have on it. It still works either way. That usually is what defines a great song when you strip it down to just its bare bones. Does it still hold together? And this definitely does.

Well, these three songs are not the only things tearing up the charts right now. When we come back from break, we're going to talk about some of the other trends that are peppering billboards hot 100. Attention Spotify. Has arrived on the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Caroline Herrera. A fragrance intense with character Gourman and addicive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy, tofu caramelized, and tonka-tosted. A combination that seduce from the first instant and he has a wella.

Good girl Jasmine Absolute, hypnotica irresistible. Discoveringla today and let's take a look at what else is happening on the Hot 100. As we've discussed on the show previously, the TikTok to Spotify to chart success pipeline is as strong as ever. I want to talk about a few examples on the charts now that made that jump, starting with Cupid by the K-pop group 50, Everything old is new again because you could just like straight up mash this together with Love Fool by the Cardigans and I am transported back, you know, two decades. I mean they're the same concept, you know, Cupid, Love Fool. It all brings us down to that element. Love. And honestly, like we talked about on a like heartbreak, you know. Also, like, breaking to that rap break right there was giving me very, like, 2012 pop song energy. It's like, you have your bumpy chorus, and then you're like, all right, let's break it down.

Phone in the rapper. I mean, most K-pop groups have, you know, a rapper that pops in, delivers a verse. But I agree. This whole song feels very 2012. I'm so early, holy, telly. Don't know. I'm going to make you mind. I feel like some A&R was like, hey, can we get like a Nicki Minaj style 2012 drop in in the middle of this pop song?

It has completely that vibe. That is exactly. I'm like, and all I need is the beauty and the peat. All right, Rihanna, bring us back. So what's going on? We got a little lost. We did. So Cupid is currently at 23, peaked at number 17 on the charts, and it's spent 11.

and it spent 11 weeks on there. And it blew up originally on TikTok because of the sped-up version. I'd never realized this. Rihanna, you did a whole amazing piece on the sped-up phenomena, but I feel like part of what makes them so successful is our global exposure to the genre of hyperpop.

It reminds me of hearing, like, Sophie's Lemonade. It has that really high-pitched, ridiculous vocal. That's not even a sped-up version. That's the original version. And now so when we hear sped-up versions of pop songs on TikTok, it has this connection to that world of hyperpop, the very avant-garde pop genre, which has been happening for about a decade now. Some songs that are also finding life on the Hot 100 based on their sped-up counterparts include hits by legacy artists as well. No one is safe looking at a song like, Sure Thing by Miguel. Sure thing is holding 40s with 44 total weeks on the chart And the song came out all the way back in 2010 Anna we were just reflecting on

Should we be going back to the early? The golden era? Yes. Oh yeah. No, it's crazy. and the song was even issued to US pop radio in February. It is still being pushed, you know, 13 years after it's come out. And I think a huge part of it is like the lyrics are these, you know, corny, honestly, analogies that I see a lot on TikTok, you know, like people with their partner being like, you'll be the cash, I'll be the rubber band.

You know, it's, it's corny and it's silly and it appeals to like people making content, you know? Content music. That is a sad phenomenon. Is it, Charlie? Is it? I'm a purist. I made a podcast about listening to music. I'm not sure. I'll think about it. Well, another legacy artist finding chart success in 2023 is the elusive chanteuse, Lana Del Rey, with Say Yes to Heaven. This is the exact opposite direction, though, Rihanna.

Like, I feel like I've always thought of her music as Lana Del Cave. I'm going into a subterranean crystalline giant open space and everything is slow and reverberated. This is the polar opposite of what we just heard. But this is also a TikTok thing? So let me drop some Lana lore on you real quick. I know you are more than a fan. Resident Lana Del Rey fan has logged on. So the song is currently at number 90 and debuted at number 54 and has perhaps one of the weirdest

weirdest journeys. So the song was originally recorded during sessions for Lana's album Ultraviolence, which came out all the way in 2014. These songs are sort of circulated in the Lana Stan community. You know, you can find them on Twitter. You can find them on SoundCloud. Say Yes to Heaven first had snippets leaked in 2016. Then in 2020, the full track leaked online. And then last year in 2022, a sped-up version made it big on TikTok, prompting an official release of the song in May with a officially sped-up version. Officially sped-up.

What? Officially. I mean, Lana's in this stranger to sped-up songs we talked about on the sped-up episode. her song, Summertime Sadness, had a really big sped-up push. And I think a lot of these more sparsely produced Lana tracks have an impact in that regard because they're so stripped down that when you speed them up, it gets to the point quicker, which I feel like is, you know, one of the purpose of speeding up songs. Takes you out of the cave, puts you on dry land.

I really like the song. I had no idea, even that it was recorded in total. 2014 until my roommate was like, oh, do you know the story about say yes to heaven? And I was like, no, tell me. But I think it can motivate pop stars officially releasing their old leaks through this sort of TikTok proliferation of these songs, you know, like I feel like these songs and these leaks that are traded around in fan communities and get sort of like a mythological meaning imbued onto them. I feel like it would be very easy to translate that sort of buzz into official releases. I mean, even in the hip-hop world, that happens all the time. Lil Yadi did it with Poland last year,

you know. Bob Dylan has made an entire career off of this releasing the unreleased material. But this isn't, I don't know, unique to me, the fan community's bullying. Bullying might be strong, too strong of a word, but like pressure from the fans to create the official release. interesting phenomena. I'm like, do you really want to be encouraging this? It's kind of like telling every artist, like, you too can have a Taylor's version. Yeah, do we want this? We're great with the segues here because one of the most successful songs on the charts right now is sitting at number two, and that is the Taylor Swift song, Karma, but specifically the remix with Bronx-based rapper Ice Spice.

So the original is a fire in your house, and she bought a pop up unannounced, and she never leaving you alone. Watch her put your ops on a throne. So the original was released back in October, off of midnight, and Taylor has been riding the charts since that release. Similarly, Ice Spice has had a lot of chart success recently, being on Boys a Liar with Pink Panthers, which peaked at number three. She has three separate credits on The Hot 100, all on remixes, either as the remixer or the remixe.

A good niche to occupy. It feels like back to what we were commenting on Nicky and Minaj, she had for so many years been the sort of number one collaborator on every pop song. Ice Spice seems to be filling that role. Well, I feel like Ice Spice, and I don't want the Barbes to jump at me for this, but I feel like Ice Spice has a lot of similarities. to Nikki Minaj. And I could see Ice Spice having a Nicky Minage trajectory where she's firmly placing herself in the sort of bridge between full pop like Nikki does on, you know, Beauty and the Beats, Starships, Moment for Life. And then more serious, you know, hard-hitting rap like, you know, the stuff on Roman Reloaded, for example. Ice Spites fits perfectly on this glittery,

pop production, which is honestly different than the other stuff that she's on, which leans more drill. Poma is your text about a bounce. Poma is a fire in your house. And she's about to pop up unannounced. And she never leaving you alone. You know, honestly, I didn't get it. To me, like, I'll say it.

People can come for me. I just, it didn't quite work for me in the way that I would have liked. I do think that the way that ice comes on the track, like it works the best that it could have worked. I think, like, I don't know, it feels like a lot softer to me than some of her other stuff. And I think that that blends really well with Taylor's vibe because Taylor is such a, even just vocally, like, she's so kind of like within this very specific range. It only does certain things. And so it makes sense to me in that sense.

But I don't know. Overall, I don't think it did the song a lot of favor. I think that it's already so full, like Rana said, the production is this very glitzy kind of like experience, and I don't think it needed it. I didn't want to like this track because I'm not a fan of the let's re-release a very recently released song with a remix with a rapper. And often what is done is like they don't even change the production. It's the exact same timestamp. The song is equally as long, and they just put in a new vocal. I hate that approach.

It just feels like phoning it in. They at least changed up the production to create space for Ice Spice. That said, this is definitely not the mashup that I was looking for. And pure speculation, this doesn't feel like a one of those, oh, we actually are best friends and this just happened naturally kind of thing. This is a legacy artist pairing up with the hot rising new thing and see if we can get a chart hit kind of vibe. It's the part of pop music that is the sort of most yuck.

Yeah, I don't think anybody was particularly asking for this. Someone in A&R, though, is very pleased with themselves right now. Yeah, it's doing great. Absolutely. It's number two right now. We heard songs earlier that lacked repetition in its lyrics here. Taylor Swift, I think, is partially winning us over just by the sheer repetition of the karma line. She's also all over the charts, motivated by, I think, the Ares Tour. I'm sure, and I'm sure her personal life drama.

Antihiro is still at number 11. Somehow still netting gains after 32 weeks on the chart. Wow. Hits different is at 27, which is a midnight's bonus track I've gathered. Snow on the beach is at number 30, which is a re-entry because I think to bring it back to the bullying artists to do what you want. People complain that there wasn't enough Lana Del Rey on the Lana Del Rey feature. So Taylor added more Lana Del Rey and now the song was charting at number 30. Cruel Summer off of Lover in 2019 is at number 45 and is still gaining somehow where it reentered last week for the first time since 2019.

Lots of Taylor on the chart. And it speaks to what you were talking about earlier, Anna, about the power of fandom, right? that if you're feeling on Mexican regional music is that there just is such a large young fandom for this music in a way that there might not have been in previous decades, the Taylor Swift fandom is enormous and is working very hard and is obviously streaming a lot of this music

over and over again, which is helping it propel its way up the charts. So we've gone from Mexican regional to the Taylor Swift phenomenon, but before we go, Anna, I have one more question for you. Do you think there will be more of a Mexican presence on the chart?

charts from here on out, or do you think it's just kind of a momentary, quote-unquote, fad in America? You know, I've been joking, telling everyone that the Reconquista is happening and it's happening through Bezo Vuma. It's a good question. I think it's hard to predict because, again, like we've kind of talked about, the genre doesn't really have the same kind of danceable beats that say, like a regettone is, you know, like, It's so disparate from what we would consider, like, your traditional pop sound that I don't know if it's something that's here to stay. I do think generally there's a movement towards kind of returning the epicenter of what is the export of music of Latin America to Mexico.

It kind of shifted itself to the Caribbean for a little bit with reggaeton and the PR. But traditionally, Mexico has been the lifeblood. it has been really the center for centuries. And so I think if anything, that's maybe what's here to stay is a shift towards there, but is Reginalal specifically going to persist as a global phenomenon? Only time will tell. I can't say. You know, I've learned today that if fans want something,

all they need to do is bully their favorite artists into doing it. So let's get more remixes. Go bully your favorite artists to do. Go hit them out. That's what's going to happen. Fans can make it happen. Switched on Pop is produced by Rihanna Cruz, edited by Jolie Myers, engineering by Brandon McFarland, illustrations by Iris Gottlie,

community management by Abby Barr. Our executive producer is in the Shot Kerwa, our member of the Vox Media Podcast Network, and a production of Vulture. You can find those anywhere you get podcasts and on social media at Switched on Pop. Tell us what songs you want your favorite artist be bullied into releasing.

Absolutely. Lady Gaga Brooklyn Knights, official release, when? We'll be back again next Tuesday, and until then. Thanks for listening.