Why you can’t stop hearing Despacito everywhere this summer
You are listening to history. It has been unfolding all summer, all around you.
With a dash of pop, a dash of reggaeton and a dash of Caribbean cumbia slushed up in a quenching summer cocktail, what you’re hearing is a sound for the ages. Quiero respirar tu cuello despacito Deja que te diga cosas al oído Para que te acuerdes si no estás conmigo Despacito ... Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” — and specifically its remix with Justin Bieber — is so far and away the Song of Summer 2017 that it’s shattering records left and right.
In July, it became the moststreamed song ever, its 4.8 billion plays on all platforms topping Bieber’s 2015 hit “Sorry.”
It is well on its way toward becoming YouTube’s most-watched video. It propelled Daddy Yankee to No. 1 on Spotify, a first for a Latin artist.
But the records are only part of the “Despacito” story.
There is now no corner of the world that doesn’t know “Despacito.” There’s a salsa version of “Despacito,” a metal version, an orchestral version.
There are versions in Arabic, Punjabi and Portuguese.
On the surface, it doesn’t make a ton of sense. “Despacito” is such a simple song, a romantic ditty backed by an acoustic guitar about a guy loving you so slowly, so passionately, that you’ll forget your last name. It is sweet but lightweight, catchy but also kind of flimsy.
But timing is everything, and the timing by “Despacito” couldn’t have been better. In one song, Fonsi and Daddy Yankee nailed so much about the state of pop music in 2017 — and specifically, how to craft an all-time summer single.
Here are three ways Despacito cracked the formula for summer success.
1. Novelty. “Despacito” is a novelty in the same sense that “Macarena” was a novelty in 1996 — it was a danceable Spanish-language hit on mostly English radio, something American audiences weren’t used to hearing. That alone helps it stand out from a lot of the ’80s-inspired synth-pop, dancehall-flavoured rhythms and hazy trap-hop that has dominated radio of late. But it was also novel in the literal sense.
Fonsi, 39, has been a huge star in Latin pop for years, but many American fans still didn’t know him. Hearing his voice alongside Bieber’s — with the Canadian idol singing in Spanish, no less — felt new and exciting.
2. Collaboration. Collaboration between artists in different genres is known to expand a song’s listenership twofold, even threefold. It happened last year with Sia’s “Cheap Thrills,” which took off only after reggaeton star Sean Paul hopped on a remake.
First released in January, “Despacito” was already a huge Latin-market hit by the time the Bieber remix debuted in April; his vocals pushed it to unimaginable heights.
3. Global appeal. It’s head-slappingly obvious in retrospect, but shouldn’t a summer single feel, y’know, like summer? Like vacations and beaches and sand between your toes? And reaching for the beaches is the most surefire path to song-of-summer ubiquity.
“Despacito” leaned into all these rules, and it leaned in hard.
And it may have changed the template for summers to come.