Have you listened to the new Bad Bunny record Debi Tirar Mas Fotos? It is an incredible record from end to end. Joy radiates through the track listing. For an album so sonically complicated, it is incredibly accessible and danceable. You don’t need to understand the complex orchestration (cafe con ron, baile inolvidable, la mudanza) to enjoy and appreciate the musicianship of what is going on. And the album doesn’t sound like a homework assignment, either. It sounds like a dance record that could play as easily at a wedding as a club. Hell, you don’t need to speak or understand a lick of Spanish to enjoy it.
What you may find if you do a deep dive on the album is that it makes you feel something. Songs like the title track express something that pretty well anybody can relate to – the fleeting nature of things. I wish I had taken more photos and appreciated the moment more. There’s a number of emotional hooks that can connect you to the album (weltita, turista, nuevayol). Without doing any heavy lifting, you can relate to what is going on even if it is in another language and pertains to a struggle felt in another part of the world you may never have experienced.
So, why was Bad Bunny caught up in the culture wars? Why was there controversy around his halftime show? I think the easier explanation is that he is opposed to ICE, speaks mostly in Spanish, dresses in a manner some would deem offensive, and together all those things are divisive at a quintessential American event. I think the actual answer is that he, and artists like him, can make you feel empathy for people in another part of the world and realize that you share similar life experiences and are not as different as the powers that be would have you believe. And to come to that conclusion, you don’t need to do anything besides listen and enjoy. Like Prof. Howard at Berklee said “art is an empathy machine.”
So, why subject yourself to Kid Rock voluntarily? The merits of the MAGA movement aside (none), he is a weird artist to which to hitch your wagon. Why subject yourself to the humiliation ritual of Robert James Ritchie (no relation to me) and his merry band of fucking awful musicians you have never heard of such as Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, or Gabby Barrett (who is herself an anagram of Brantley Gilbert)? I think it is so that art can be escapist and indulged in without any need to connect with anything that may have inspired it. Because, at least in the instance of Kid Rock’s 1999 rap-metal mega-hit Bawitdaba, there is nothing there.
Anyways, check out Debi Tirar Mas Fotos. It’s really good.
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