And from Venezuela, a folk singer?
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[4.62]
Will Adams: The only restraint found in “Rio” is the intricate guitar arrangement. Jesus Hidalgo lacks vocal control, wavering around certain pitches and drifting off meter. This is only made more apparent by the song’s length — when he dipped into that unsettling spoken bridge, I thought it was the end, but there were still two minutes left. If you’re gonna write five minutes of music, you better be able to carry it.
[3]
Alfred Soto: About a minute too long and Hidalgo holds notes for maximum sap, but the flamenco passages and pizzicato bits bend in unexpected ways.
[6]
Anthony Easton: The rain stick sounds could be as cheesy as the spoken interlude in the middle, but both work delightfully and almost prevent the piece from being a sentimental mess.
[7]
Juana Giaimo: While the guitar work is subtle and delicate, his voice is all over the place, making it a dull and antiquated song.
[4]
Iain Mew: There’s one of those chimey twinkles at the start that’s often the herald of a garish ballad, except that it’s barely audible. That about sums up what makes “Rio” so painfully dull: it doesn’t even have the strength of its convictions to commit to cheese properly.
[2]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “Vamos a las aguas,” Hidalgo whispers — “let’s go to the waters,” he’s saying, certain he can find a higher power, a rebirth in the waters. He wants you to go with him, to share the baptism, and as heavy-handed as his plea is, you believe in it. There may not be a certain bone elsewhere in “Rio”s body, but Hidalgo sure as hell means it here. His drive is your drive. That drive fades shortly after the spoken-word bridge, but dammit it’s got some conviction behind it — you’re knee-deep in that stream before you even know it.
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: I appreciate a system that can squeeze this Venezuelan folkloric singer in among the pop stars, self-important rock bands, and reggaetoneros that make up the usual Latin Grammy fare, but that appreciation doesn’t extend as far as not being bored by the same kind of self-congratulatory reverence to the material that is the bane of folkloric musicians the world round. Calling for panamerican solidarity via the juxtaposition of the Orinoco and Mississippi rivers is certainly a worthy sentiment, but unfortunately the somnolence of that other song about the Orinoco inevitably intrudes.
[6]
Brad Shoup: Theoretically, we need many ballads about rivers. But you know it’s got to be stagier than this. “Rio” is admirably arranged for natural resonance, but as any exotica cat will tell you, the weirdest instruments can sell geography. Hidalgo ends up as the sole attraction, but he can’t stop the show.
[4]