EVERYBODY SLAP YOUR HEAD…
[Video][Website]
[5.62]
Josh Langhoff: The video for “El Coco No,” with its lurid depiction of a line dance that involves patting your head and dressing up like the devil, leaves me with more questions than answers. When seeking answers, I usually turn to Jeff Godwin’s book The Devil’s Disciples (Chick, 1985), and sure enough: “How did this motley crew of brain bashers rise to this dizzying height of success? Through a combination of [YouTube] and fateful accident, they now find themselves with the ability to infect millions of new converts with their perverse primer of sneering sexual degradation of [coconuts], violent psychotic thrills, and bowing awestruck worship of hideous Luciferian strength… Far too many liberal proponents of today’s permissiveness feel that kids flocking to hear and [torrent] [Roberto Junior y Su Bandeño] is ‘no big deal.’ I truly feel sorry for these people. They refuse to see the danger right in front of their noses: the fact that their kids are being savagely brain-pounded and tricked into running away from God to the tune of [wtf, are they ripping off ‘Rock Lobster’???].”
[7]
Jer Fairall: “Macarena,” Gangnam-style.
[5]
Alfred Soto: A Tex-Mex “Hokey Pokey” that I assure you is too tinny to play at parties.
[4]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Years of songs introducing dances have taught us that hearing instructions bellowed out of speakers makes for terrible listening experiences outside of weddings, family gatherings and packed nightclubs full of shameless people. We accept them grudgingly in these contexts – outside of these situations, everything sounds as clumsy as the time Michael Scott taught us how to dance The Scarn. “El Coco No” fits into this lineage of novelty dancepop, but its goofy facade may be important in pushing Latino-origin electronic music onto a global stage. Where Junior’s previous cumbias have leaned towards the traditional Mexican norteña sound, “Coco” attempts to engage with the relentless digital pace of tribal guarachero/3ball. The track’s bubbling meme status appears to be occurring at a time when Mala follows Cuban muses, A$AP Rocky raps over global-leaning Birdy Nam Nam productions and 3Ball MTY win Latin Grammys. It is an interesting time for these sounds to approach a global breakthrough, and the right time for a throwaway hit to mirror it. Of course, people said that “Gangnam Style” would break K-Pop on a global scale and that didn’t happen. The difference there was that Psy’s gonzo megahit could stand on its own two and call itself a song. Junior’s instruction manual of a song just can’t.
[5]
Ian Mathers: It actually gets more infectious once he gets to the part where he doesn’t end every line with the title, but it’s got strong earworm potential throughout and the song makes surprisingly good use of the fact that a tuba, played correctly, sounds a little bit like a cartoon fart.
[7]
Scott Mildenhall: Tapping your head repeatedly with your hand. It’s not exactly Del Boy falling through a bar, but it’s also not hard to imagine enough people finding it sufficiently humorous to make this a hit in the UK at some point this year. Then again, “no te me subas al coco no” is delivered similarly to “dale mamasita con tu tacatá” and that didn’t exactly catch on in Anglophone areas, so it could go either way. (Almost certainly the same way.) If it did happen though, it would be in no small part thanks to the strength of its hypnotic power — after two minutes of undeniable coconut dearth it feels like it’s accidentally been put on loop. It hasn’t, but it would be quite nice if it was. For now.
[7]
Brad Shoup: I don’t mind dance instructions if they’re set to something not-shitty. Unlike the very shitty “Cupid Shuffle” — an aural death march — these guys clearly enjoy filling in the spaces around the steps.
[7]
David Lee: Did I just land in an 8-bit video game where I have to fight off zombies who fail at humor and do the Cha Cha Slide all day?
[3]