I thought that over the years I’ve managed to build a solid music tolerance because, you know – you need to if you go out sometimes – as the music is almost always there, waiting to get to you. Consequently, I was quite proud of myself when it comes to what I can take – I thought of myself as Hhitler turned Gandhi. But now all that work is gone ‘cos I’ve been travelling in Latin Americas and there’s an utter dominance of reggaeton. As a person who generally prefers music that is – let’s say – less played on radios, I don’t think I’m qualified to review reggaeton but I can bring you the first warning:
The reggaeton is coming!
Whether you like it or not, this genre has massive spreading potential. Its’ fearless, effective and very direct. Reggaeton is the -ing of populism, it’s Trump, Bolsonaro and Maduro together in a form of an explosive music genre. In other words, reggaeton doesn’t give a fuck and it will sweep your charts without fear of failure or opposition.
At present, it is just gaining power inside its Latino territory but even at this stage it already K.O.s the 90s dance floor in the first round. Reggaeton is a Chuck Norris of music. No wall will stop its growth. On the positive note, it makes me appreciate other commercial genres and the classic pop (hearing A-ha’s Take On Me in Bolivia was heavens), the same as Trump made GW Bush look kind of better, while Clinton now looks almost like a hippie, isn’t he?)))
Reggaeton is a Chuck Norris of music. It’s Trump, Bolsonaro and Maduro together in a form of an explosive music genre.
Dire Straits vs Reggaeton
Having experienced the sheer power of reggaeton brought some earlier memories to me. The whole music tolerance idea started to shake when I was sitting in my fav bar, Blatouch in Prague and they’ve played an entire album of Dire Straits. I’ve never heard the full album of that band before and there’s a reason for that. It’s not the name Mark Knopfler or the headcloth he’s wearing, although those two are already quite powerful reasons.
It’s the sound they make. It’s not just a sound – it’s the whole soundtrack to boredom. Imagine a food analogy – it wouldn’t be just the most tasteless food ever – it would also be without any nutrition whatsoever.
Dire Straits basically is the musical acronym of punk. It has less drive than a cheap 80s’ keyboard demo. It’s not even something you might call bad. David Hasselhoff is bad and that is, at least crystal clear. Dire Straits don’t even have that – they are not even bad. It’s a sound of a vampire who doesn’t even drink blood. It’s just there…
I would rather be horribly hungover without drinking anything the night before than listen to Dire Straits. If there was a nuclear holocaust, and listening to Dire Straits would give you a chance to survive for some bizarre sarcastic cyber-punk reason, while the only other option would be sacrificing your girlfriend, whom you love very very much – I’d spend some time considering that horrible “Sophia’s choice” – and allow her to sacrifice me to spare her the torture of Dire Straits.
That way I would however get eternally doubleknopflerred, because my sacrifice would have something (anything) to do with Dire Straits. It would be like dying in relation to the most boring drop of sand in Sahara, while all the other drops (trillions of them) were so bloody sexy and shiny and funny with stashes of space drugs and the best sound systems you have ever heard!
And yet, if the choice was between reggaeton and Dire Straits, I honestly wouldn’t know. Reggaeton has taken one of the certainties in life away from me.
Hell OST
I’m just agnostic – not properly religious – but the worst nightmare, or let’s say the concept of hell that comes to my mind now is if some reggaeton enthusiasts came up with the idea of covering Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms album in their own desire.
And the concept of hell? I locked up with 24/7 blasting the Brothers In Reggaeton Arms album from the shitty 20 years old 50W distorted speakers. Thank god there isn’t such an album. At present, there are so far only different attempts to cover Brothers In Arms – it’s not reggaeton yet, but it’s already quite hardcore, innit?
The featured image artwork is by Jan Alexander
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