Switched on Pop - The Many Worlds of "Despacito"

Episode Date: August 10, 2017

What has catapulted Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito" to the top spot on the Billboard charts? Sorry, typo—to its status as the biggest song in the world? Your hosts explore the many worlds of "Despacito" in search of an answer. Featuring: Lusi Fonsi ft Daddy Yankee - Despacito Luis Fonsi ft Daddy Yankee y Justin Bieber - Despacito (Remix) Luis Fonsi y Juan Luis Guerra - Llegaste Tú Major Lazer ft Justin Bieber - Cold Water Los Del Rio - Macarena Daddy Yankee - Gasolina Avril Lavigne - Complicated Toto - Africa Further reading: Petra River-Rideau Interview in The Atlantic Remezcla Roundtable on Despacito w Isabel Herrera and Julianne Escobedo Shepherd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Welcome to SwitchDunpop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Nate, let's get right to the point. Whoa, okay. We have received over 100 requests of listeners wanting to know why Despacito is such a successful song.

Oh, it's time. It's time. Our date with destiny. If you've been living under the rock for the past few months, Despacito is the so-called Latin crossover. collaboration between Puerto Rican stars Louis Fonzie, known for his poppy love ballads, and Daddy Yankee, known as the king of reggaeton. Gasolina.

Exactly. Justin Bieber also adds his vocal in the remix, which helped break the song to English speakers, and it has in only a few months become one of the most commercially successful songs of all time. Wow. So there's been ample, excellent writing about lyrical interpretation. and cultural analysis of Despicito. I particularly would like to point people

to an interview in the Atlantic with Petro Vera Rodeau, author of remixing reggaeton, The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico. And, you know, Nate, as non-English speakers with an embarrassingly narrow exposure to Latin culture,

I think it would be inappropriate for us to tackle the song for its cultural importance. But I do think that Switched on Pop can offer is insight into what makes this song musically so compelling.

Why does this song capture our immediate? attention. Yes, please. Let's listen to a little bit of Despacito and drop the needle. Whomp. What a hit. Whoa. Do we have to stop it? It's so good. Well, I have bathed myself in this song for the last many days preparing to present to you this three-point argument as to how despisito is the most

popular song perhaps ever certainly of the summer whoa okay i love that i love that sexy metaphor of you bathing in it too take me there i'm ready we're going to go in three parts first success begets success second something for everyone and third the cheese stands alone No idea what I was in for. This is like a whole three-part drama. Episode one, success begets success. So basically this argument is the argument that a lot of people have been writing about in various forms, which is that the story of the song's success generates more stories.

And so the song becomes more successful. And this is, of course, sort of the more cynical approach to looking at popular music. It is just a mass-consumed form with mass marketing dollars behind it in order to make it successful. But the song does have an interesting story, right? We have Justin Bieber so-called discovers the song while at a club and decides that he wants to remix this Louis Fonzie Daddy Yankee tune, which had been doing well on the Spanish-speaking charts, but had not crossed over into the top 40. So Justin Bieber does his remix. The song rides on the darkest day

Got me feeling some kind of way Make me want to savour every moment Slowly The song goes bananas It becomes number one in 50 countries It becomes the most streamed song of all time With I think nearly 4 billion plays The song is so sexually explicit

That it's actually banned in Malaysia That generates a big media cycle People are writing about it being the only third Spanish language song on the top 40 after La Bamba and the macarena. Wow, is that right? Okay. It's true, it's just holy wild. And all of the great news is bolstered by some bad news. You know, all news is good news.

Justin Bieber tries to sing the song live at a number of concerts, and he butchers the lyrics rhyming Despacito with burrito because he's not a Spanish speaker. and that generates a lot of hate online. Yeah, that was hard to watch. Really hard to watch. So each one of these points has generated a news cycle. And so the news cycle generates more attention for the song, and then it generates a more news cycle.

It's a positive feedback loop. But that's not what we're really interested in, not at Switched on Pop. What are we really interested in, Charlie? We are interested in the musical content, and that brings me to the second point. You kind of set me up there, but I'll let it go. This song has something for everyone.

Let's let the song speak for itself and play it from the introduction. I want to argue that the entire song is contained within the introduction, and that it gives you every single bit of something for everybody just in that tiny moment. there has not been one lyric and yet we have been taken through an entire world of sound and are potentially kind of confused as to what's going to happen

next. Ah, okay. In the introduction, we actually get the whole world of this song. It's a Latin love ballad as represented by Louis Fonzie and the melody of the song. It's a reggaeton tune, as represented by Daddy Yankee and the rhythm of the piece.

And it's also a modern pop hit as represented by Justin Bieber, its form, and the way that it not so subtly appropriates from different cultures. Are we going to go through one by one? We're going to go one by one. Okay, very cool. Latin love ballad. Louis Fonzie is known for being just this like love crooner, has these wonderful tunes that open up the heart. If you want to get a sense of Louis Fonzi, take a song like Gigaste 2.

There's like, I'm watching the video right now, and it's like Fonzi and this other guy, Juan Luis Scara, playing guitar is like surrounded by candles. Exactly. And so in that music, what are we getting? that acoustic guitar, the introduction from Despicito, the Louis Fonzi ballady kind of vocals, that is what we expect from Fonzie. Yeah, having heard and seen this other track,

that is totally what I would be prepared for hearing the very beginning of Despacito. And he delivers. If we listen to the original Despacito, not the remix with Justin Bieber, and we listen to the verse, we get a big, soaring melody that really feels reminiscent,

of Fonzie's other word. We're going to talk more about what makes the melody so spectacular in the second half, but the melodic material, the feel, there's a good part of this song feels like a love ballad. Totally. However, this song is not just a love ballad. After a minute or so into the song, things go in a different direction. We get a heavy, amazing beat dropping right with the chorus when they sing.

Yes. This is the reggaeton rhythm. And this rhythm drives throughout the rest of the song. It's what makes it so successful on a dance floor. And it is shepherded by Daddy Yankee, who is one of the most renowned reggaeton stars in the world. He introduced reggaeton to the mainstream with his song Gasolina, which shook dance floors forever, continues to do so.

Yeah. And so this song shifts from a love ballad into a reggaeton beat. And I think a lot of folks are saying this is a reggaeton song. But as I was saying, I think the song really has something for everyone. Because on top of being a love ballad and a reggaeton song, it is also a mainstream pop song. And this is represented by Justin Bieber. Both, you know, obviously his voice and his place in the main but also let's talk about how it's a pop song in a couple of different ways.

It's a pop song in its sound. When you listen to the verse of the song, underneath it are these sort of plucky electronic music chords. So these plucky chords that we're hearing feel very familiar. They appear in all sorts of electronic music, especially artists like Major Laser. This is Diplo and Company who often collaborate with or write for Justin Bieber. You could take any number one of their songs, and you could find those. sort of plucky, synthy chords.

But there's an even more interesting connection to mainstream pop as guided through Major Laser. They did a song with Justin Bieber called Cold Water. And what's amazing about this track, its harmonic and rhythmic connection to Despacito are undeniable. Cold Water has a basically reggaeton beat.

Right. And it uses the exact same four chords. as Despacito. It uses them in a slightly different order. It's not surprising that Justin Bieber, when he heard this song in a club, said, hey, I like that song. Maybe I could do something with it. Because, you know what?

He'd already done something with a song really similar previously. Okay, so let me, this is fascinating. So you're saying it's like part of the argument for hearing Despacito as pop music is the fact that top 40 pop music pre-despecito was already, kind of appropriating the sounds and style of Caribbean music and using it in their diplo-produced hits. So we've been naturally primed to hear this style anyway. That's exactly right. Okay. That's cool. Isn't that wild? So the point being here, this song has something for everyone. If you are into love ballads, you're going to get that in the verse. If you're into reggaeton, check out

Daddy Yankees verse. It's amazing, right? And if you like Justin Bieber and want his voice on every single pop song as it seems to be, you also can have Justin Bieber on the remix and basically channeling all of the things which have already been happening on the pop charts. This song is a ballad, it's a reggaeton piece, it is a pop hit. The song captures, I think, all of its identities in the outro. I'd like to take a listen to that together and see how they all unite. I love it. So what do you hear?

Okay, so now the outro consists of the second half of Daddy Yankees' verse. Exactly. So this song has hooks within hooks, basically. Well, yeah, because it's overlapped with Louis Fonsi's post-chorus. And so you have these two different sections of the song, the reggaeton feel. And you have the... the love ballad feel, and you have underneath that all of the pop sensibility, and it all comes together in this amazing outro from the song.

Right. So, I mean, this is kind of wild to me because it's like going with your theory of this song, having something for everyone, it has two hooks, which is like double the hooks of most songs. It has the actual Despacito chorus, and then it has Daddy Yankees' Pasito a Pasito So outro, it's an embarrassment of riches. So far we have established that the song is successful because it is successful recursively. We have shown that it has something for everyone. But I also want to argue that it is an entirely unique song.

I think that's why I said the cheese stands alone. Terrible title for Part 3. But I promise you, an impeccable look at the unique, beautiful melody and harmony which brings this song together in the second half of our show. I'm excited. See you there. Barra Records. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly

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So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up instead of the top down. That's this week on America Actually, every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. There are so many surface ways in which this song distinguishes itself from other things on the top 40.

And that's part of why it's incredibly successful. But what I want to argue is that it's not just those elements. What makes this song totally unique and immensely powerful is that it has a harmonic progression, and melodic movement, unlike anything I've heard in quite some time. All right. So I'm excited for this. Let's hear how Luis Fonzi and his co-writer Erica Ender constructed this melody. I'm very curious to see how it ticks.

Supporting the melody, and we're going to get there, is this fascinating chord progression. I looked it up on one of my favorite sites, Hook Theory, where you can look at other songs that use common progressions. And this movement is really rarely used. It goes from a B minor to a G, to a D, and then to an A. And we've heard it in some other places. It is in Averill Levine's Complicated.

I thought this sounded familiar. And before that, and perhaps a much bigger song, Toto's Africa, actually uses this progression as well. Whoa, yes, it totally does. However, very few songs employ this progression. And I think that there's a number of reasons. It's a little angular. And what makes this chord progression strange

that makes it stand out, really, is that it has this mixture of modalities. You are kind of ambiguously moving between a minor feel and a major feel, and it leaves us a bit unsettled. this ambiguous chord progression opens up on this B minor chord, and the melody will later support that. When they sing Despacito, the Despacito goes down the minor scale,

landing firmly on B, and we know we are in this B minor feel. Definitely. But the chords move away, and the rest of the chords, the G, the D, and the A, are all major. By introducing this ambiguous chord progression, it constantly refreshes itself. It never gets boring. Every single cycle that it goes through. And this core progression goes through the entire song.

They don't use any other progression. Nope. They don't have a bridge. They don't do anything but this progression. But internal to it is this want to just keep falling back on itself. And I think that's the first half of what makes this song so compelling. I agree. It's one of those core progressions that just keeps on.

giving and every time you don't know, am I in minor or major back and forth, it really keeps you on your toes. Okay, I'm with you. What else? What about the melody? I jumped the gun earlier now. Can we go there? Can we go to Melody Land? Of course, because a chord progression on its own is not enough. It has to be supported by a powerful melody and Despacito delivers over and over. So in contrast to what I hear as a trend of simple verse melodies, often using a single note with a very simple rhythm, let's take Taylor Swift's Welcome to New York as an example. In contrast to these really simple verse melodies, Despacito starts us off with a big moving melody going up the scale, building tension, telling us that there is going to be able to. be a journey throughout this entire song. But I want to focus our discussion of the melody on the chorus and post-chorus.

Because here we really get the core melodic thrust of the song. We have a melody that moves in two directions at the same time. Ah, because the melody has kind of an upper part. And a lower part. Yes. So when Louis Fonzi sings Despacito, it walks down three notes declaring itself in B minor. And when we get to the note that's on the syllable C of Despacito,

we are on the B home chord of this song. We are on that pitch, B. So in stating the title of the song, they established this downward movement, Despacito. and a downward movement in the melody. And then we go to the lowest note immediately in the scale, and the rest of the chorus, this song is going to be struggling to pull itself back up,

and it's going to be doing so while constantly also falling back down. So check this out. After Despacito, we get this note, the F sharp here, and it's a low note, and it slowly works its way back up over the next part of the verse before it falls back down to the next. Next note, the G. It goes from an F-sharp to a G. It's going to be working its way up the scale. And then, again, it's going to fall back down. It's going to fall down to an A. It's got an F-sharp, G, A, building sequentially up the scale.

And eventually, the whole thing is going to build back up so that it's almost to that B, but it never actually hits that home note again. It actually goes above it only for the thing to recycle itself, repeat, Despacito, playing that downward motion. So this repetitive fall and then a struggle back up and then a fall back down again. Exactly. The core melody of the song undulates up and then down. Internally it is both rising and falling at all times. Just like the dancers to the song, just like the lovers who are doing things which cannot be said in Malaysia. Whoa, Charlie, slow down. I got to undo my collar here. This is getting steamy. Yes. Okay. So this I see what you mean. It's a very sexy melody.

And so if something's going to undulate back and forth and not resolve, what has to eventually happen? Eventually, you need to come to some sort of resolution. Well, perhaps before resolution, there has to be a climax. Okay. Tell me about the climax. This song employs a wonderful technique called a post-chorus, in which we have the Despacito chorus.

and yet it's not enough. Louis Fonzie needs more material. He's going to create a climactic moment in a post-chorus, a section after the chorus, which continues the material. And what he does is that he takes everything higher. It becomes rhythmically more intense. I think we should just listen to Louis Fonzie serenade us. Right, and this is so cool because it's the same principle as the chorus,

as in starting low, struggling to get high. But it's all happening in an even higher register than the chorus. So the sense of drama has been ratcheted up even further. And eventually we get our resolution when they will once again sing Despacito and land on that right on the home note. We eventually do resolve. And how satisfying. I totally agree, man.

This is like a melodic and harmonic tour to force. and that's another reason why it's so irresistible. There are so many things that are different about this song, which might be on the surface. And some of those differences are really important. But ultimately, what I think catches our ear is always a song which is well written and that we want to hear over and over and over again.

I am so pleased that Louis Fonzie and his songwriters and his collaborators have made something which both bridges cultural divides and is also, oh my gosh, just like a sexy song with incredible internal melodies and rhythms that just keep referencing each other and happening in these tiny moments so slowly and then fast moments so perfectly.

Boom, so good. I couldn't agree more. That was a really fun dive, Charles. There's still much more to be said about this song. I'd love to hear what our listeners are hearing that we're missing. And as you said at the start, there's so much brilliant cultural criticism about this piece. So we'll link to some of those articles so you can read more.

Absolutely. Nate, it has been a pleasure. As always, Charles. Switched on Pop is produced by me, Charlie Harding. And myself, Nate Sloan. Our editor is Bill Lance, design by Luke Harris. Switched on Pop is a proud part of the Panoply Network. You can catch more episodes of our show.

Switched on Pop.com, iTunes, where we would love it if you would leave us for review. And we would also really like it if you would like to talk with us. You can find us on email, contact at switchedonpop.com, or on Twitter, Switched on Pop, Facebook, Switched On Pop. We've had some really great dialogue with listeners over the last couple of weeks. So keep writing to us. We'd love to keep it up there. We're going to be taking a little bit more of a summer hiatus.

Nate and I are going to go on vacation together, record some episodes together. And we will see you again the first week of September. Until then, thanks for listening. listening.