So a couple of months ago, I was sitting at my computer. And you know I received this message on discord (which is this neat instant messaging app that all the kids are using nowadays, kind of like AOL Instant Messanger if you’ve ever used that). So I think “Oh” and I open up the app, and there’s this chubby cartoon man staring back at me and the word “Despacito”. What does Despacito mean? Now I’m a busy human being, not like some of the younger folk being raised today, mind you, and I don’t have a whole lot of time to be researching random words just out of the blue.
It wasn’t until a few months later that I learned that Despacito was actually a song. Yes, you heard that right. Naturally, my curiosity was peaked at this moment, and I made my first mistake. I decided to listen to the song. In hindsight, an absolutely stupid move. Give the unending truckloads of garbage music in the world today, the odds were pretty good that I was about to experience something absolutely horrendous. And boy, did I ever.
This song, “Despacito” is without a doubt the worst piece of “music” that has ever been created in the history of the human race. Yes, I even imagine that cavemen banging on rocks and hollering made more pleasant sounding music than whoever came up with this inane track. And that’s going to be the subject of my “rant” if you will. Despacito is not only a bad song, but an actual threat to our culture, the safety of our children, and the future of the world as we know it.
Despacito opens with the sound of Spanish guitar. Beautiful instrument, Spanish guitar, so to see it ruined like this really breaks my heart. This guitar riff, if you can even call it a riff, doesn’t have any of the emotion normally associated with the instrument. It’s a couple of lame triplets which repeat over and over again. Of course, the late great Agustín Barrios would be rolling in his grave hearing this pathetic display of musicianship. Now, interesting fact about this, actually I don’t know that you’d say it’s interesting, more like very concerning actually, but there is a music video for the song “Despacito”, and in that music video at no point does a guitar player ever get shown on camera. *dramatic pause*
I know. What seems surprising to people like us is the new normal. And what this symbolizes is actually something pretty awful that millennials are guilty of. Musicians don’t matter anymore to this new generation, they don’t care about instruments. Most of the time they don’t even use musicians, if you’ve ever seen a live show for any rapper or whatever (don’t, if you haven’t already been subjected to this) they don’t have any actual musicians on stage at any point. And the reason for this is simple… THEY’RE FUCKING LAZY! Why take the time to learn an instrument when you can just hit a few buttons in Windows Music Maker or whatever it is that people use? That's how they think anyways. I've played the piano, the guitar, I worked hard practicing 8 hours a day just like Jimi Hendrix so I could make my music. And of course some of these people, absolute morons, will laugh and press their space bar and BOOM, there's a 3 minute pop song.
Anyways, moving on. I doubt anyone will be that surprised by this, but the song follows a 4 chord progression. It’s incredibly formulaic in that sense. You know, with music these days they have to make it dumbed down so all the people of today can understand it. People are actually becoming dumber over time, and there are many studies which can attest to that fact. There's not much else that I can say about the instrumentation, which is sorely lacking.
Let’s get into the lyrics though. The first thing you here is some guy screaming “FONSI”. Now he’s not talking about the Fonzie you and I know, the beloved character from our childhoods. Actually that’s the “singer”, that’s his name you know. Louis Fondi, Fonsi, however you say it. You know, it just makes me sick you know, this display of complete and utter narcissism to shout your own damn name in your own damn song. Can you think of a Beatles song where someone shouts “McCartney!” in the beginning of the song? No, because nobody would listen to it, because people had standards back then. Of course, the lyrics to this song are in Spanish, not that there’s anything wrong with Spanish, great language and all. I mean this is a pretty horrible usage of Spanish, but I guess there’s plenty of songs in English that are nearly as horrible as this one. Anyways, I looked up the lyrics to Despacito in English, being that I don’t actually know Spanish (I do know a bit of French, also a pretty beautiful language, here’s hoping that we don’t get a “Lentement” any time soon.)
The song itself is, for lack of a better word “rapey”. We’re talking “Every Breath You Take” levels of creepiness going on here. And it’s not at all surprising, if you watch the video, you see that the guy looks pretty much the biggest tool you’ll ever see. This guy he says “I want to breathe in your neck slowly”. And of course I’m going “Heck no you won’t, get your stanky breath off my neck thank you very much!” He goes on like “Firmly in the walls of your labyrinth.” And of course you’re thinking it’s a sex song, he’s talking about that pussy. But he calls it a labyrinth, what, is this guy so dumb he gets lost inside a vagina? I wouldn’t be surprised. He says “We’re going to do it on a beach in Puerto Rico, until the waves scream Oh lord”. Yeah I bet the waves will scream “Oh Lord”. I’m screaming “Oh Lord” right now.
And if you watch the video to Despacito, it just doesn’t make any sense you know. There’s of course this tool guy “singing” on the beach of some country, probably Trinidad and Tobago if I’d had to guess, looks kind of like that. There’s that guy singing on the beach, there’s this model wearing short shorts who just walks around. I don’t think she’s even a member of the band, if they even have a band. Then there’s this really sexual dancing going on in the background, I don’t think you can even call it dancing because it’s basically just people humping each other. There’s some people playing some sort of board game, no real consistent logic to this. I remember back in the 80s, you know Michael Jackson was a guy who really had great music videos. Compared to this stuff, there’s not even a way to compare it actually. We got this other tool here, he’s got the gold chain so you know he’s important. I’m guessing this is Daddy Yankee, the featured person. Seems like every song nowadays has to have a ft. thing. They didn’t do this back when music was good you know. There’s no Nirvana ft. Dumbass Mcgee, it’s just Nirvana. Anyways, this Daddy Yankee guy is more like… Son Yankee. He’s got some serious babyface going on. Guy should think about growing some facial hair or something really. This guy definitely isn't a daddy of any kind.
Anyways, that’s my summary of Despacito. And you’re probably thinking, well that sounds like just a shitty song, there are tons of shitty songs out there so why single out this song? What’s so bad about this anyway? I’m getting there. First, let me tell you a story about something that happened to me.
So I was minding my own business, masturbating to Pink Floyd album covers like any decent human being does, when I hear this song “Despacito”. And it’s the neighbors of course, blasting their dumb music across the street, a bunch of dumb teenagers probably eating pot and sharing their memes with each other. I get so annoyed at being interrupted, and the music hurts my ears to hear. So of course, I have to retaliate. I pick up the Bob Seger record I keep by my side at all times, you know the one. Find my old speakers, I got a ton of speakers cause I used to be like a rock star (Kind of a local rock star though, you probably wouldn’t have heard of me. (The reason for that is that the record companies did want to sign me, but of course they had this bullshit deal where I had to write pop songs instead of the progressive melodies I wanted to play, being an experimental artist and what not (One of the bands that I loved the most at that time was Rush (And you know that Rush would never release a song like Despacito, or put out “2112 ft. Jon Anderson” (I mean I love Jon Anderson as much as anyone, but he’d just ruin 2112. (Of course, Daddy Yankee can’t ruin Despacito, it was already ruined to begin with)))))) Anyways, plug in all the speakers, slam that record on the vinyl because I’ve got self-respect. The kids across the street hear the opening piano riff. It’s the calm before the storm. Second time the piano riff again, some of the kids starting to panic now. One kid covers his ears, this kid knows what’s about to happen, smart man. Then it comes. “JUST TAKE THOSE OLD RECORDS OFF THE SHELF” and I watch as hundreds of mindless teenagers cry out for mercy, holding on to their ears in a vain attempt to save their eardrums from rupturing completely. Some of them are lying on the ground now, holding their vape cigarette things in their mouths like pacifiers. Police got called, situation is resolved now, but you know a lot of those teens will never hear the song “Despacito” again. Good riddance. If you’ve ever done something like that yourself, you know how satisfying it can be.
So back onto the topic at hand. “What is so bad about Despacito?” I asked. Surely there are worse songs, like “Gangnam Style” or that song where the girl sings about how she loves someone like she loves some baby or whatever. Despacito isn’t just a song, it’s a declaration of war. This is the war on music that the new generation is trying to start. They want to destroy music for good, completely replacing the culture we know and love with mindless sex songs.
If you look at the statistics, and you can go on FBI.com or whatever and see the crime statistics, you can see that directly following the release of Despacito, there’s been a huge wave of crime. Puerto Rico was hit the worst, but America actually received the second largest blow. And it’s understandable, one listen to the song and instantly you just want to go on a murdering spree. I didn’t, but some weaker minds might. And of course its also a sex song, so teenagers are going out, and they're having sex all over the place, not just "On the beach in Puerto Rico."
It isn’t just that either. If you look at IQs and how they’ve changed over time, you’ll see that teenagers are actually getting progressively dumber over time. In the 1960s, teenagers had an average IQ of 120. And now they have an average IQ of only 85. That’s a true fact, you can look it up if you don’t believe me. Songs like Despacito are the main factor in this dumbing down of generations.
If you’d like to learn more about the topic, you can pick up my book “Despacit-NO: How Millennials are Destroying Our Music (And what we can do to save it)”. There I talk about all the ways that the music industry has gone downhill, and how the younger generation is actively taking a role in the war on music, attempting to destroy the very foundations of our cultural heritage. Anyways, thanks for listening, I’ve got another important talk to get to, have a good night everyone.