No Lo Puedo Borrar, Baby

Rauw Alejandro “Dime Quién???”

I think when people look back on the early part of this decade one of the key sounds that will spark nostalgia will be this driving, ambiguously melancholy quasi-synthpop style that manifested in mega-hits like The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” Harry Styles’ “As It Was,” The Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s “Stay,” and Rauw Alejandro’s “Todo de Ti.” The latter is the most interesting of the bunch, mainly because Alejandro grounds this vibe in reggaeton aesthetics and arrived at a mutant sound that was genuinely unique. “Dime Quién???,” from his new follow up record, goes even deeper into this sound, though it’s structurally and tonally closer to actual ‘80s synthpop. You lose maybe 20% of the novelty of “Todo de Ti” but the trade off is a high level of focused craft. This is an absolute nuke of a pop song, it’s the kind of tune that makes you yield to its charms, its emotional gravity, its hooks, its sheer momentum. It’s sung entirely in Spanish but even before checking for an English translation I was picking up on its romantic angst loud and clear. You can just feel this guy’s jealousy and yearning in that chorus, the specifics of it – which involve BeReal, a thing that will really ground this in 2022 for all eternity – are besides the point.

Buy it from Amazon.