I’m actually more impressed to see that a Masha and the Bear episode is the sixth most viewed video on Youtube.
According to this* critique/pisstake, speaking Spanish may be an impediment to enjoying the song.
I remember a segment in Charles Duhigg’s book The power of habit where he talks about how songs which are archetypal tend to be listened to a lot. People will leave the radio on when a song is very typical of its genre even if the song itself is nothing to call home about. Think of, say, Celine Dion’s songs not really bringing anything new but rather being extremely representative examples of their genre.
Despacito is very much that. The Latin tempo, warm & simple strings, thumping bass, the singer being a tattooed bro with sunglasses, the beach and the sea, the “whoo-oo-ohh-oo yeeeahhh!”. The song is many clichés assembled together in a way that’s hyper-conventional.
Perhaps this is related to another phenomenon: when we average out pictures of faces, we get a result which is usually more aesthetically pleasing than less typical faces**.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xujvwo87Xj0 (worth a look, especially when he translates the lyrics. I think you’ll enjoy knowing about the labyrinth)
Well, if you look at a translation of the lyrics, it’s considerably saucier than anything you’d normally hear on pop radio;
I think it loses something in translation, but if those are euphemisms for what I think they are, then this may be the first song about cunnilingus to ever hit #1 in the US.
“Same as the scene with “Lima Bean” Green”?
Just kidding. That was a line from a long ago Hudson & Landry comedy album. The bit (about football) begins with “What’s the deal with “Hips” McNeal?”
Probably not all that funny today.
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Sorry, I was trying to phrase my comment not to implicate you directly but apparently failed. I’ve just seen a thousand “Oh, there’s prettier girls at the supermarket” comments any time some actress, singer or model’s looks get brought up in threads.
As a side note, I don’t think I could find any song with the line “Let me trespass your danger zones” to be sexy.
Lana. LANA. LANA!!! 
No offense taken. I was just playing off your comment… gave me another opportunity for a quick jab. 
BTW, this cracked me up.
When I first heard it became the most viewed song I checked it out. I figured it was something catchy that I had heard but didn’t know the name of or something catchy I was too old to know. Either way I figured it would be memorable. Nope. It’s not not even an annoying earworm like the Macarena. It’s totally forgettable and I still wouldn’t recognize it if I heard it play. I don’t get it. Most songs I can point to a reason why they are popular even if I don’t like them. Not this time.
I think the song is just another one of those ‘happened to catch on’ songs. They happen every couple of years, and there’s usually not a single thing you can point to that makes them extremely popular. If someone could point out a simple ‘what made this song get so big’, record companies would produce 4000 albums doing whatever the thing was that made this one so big to cash in, but there doesn’t seem to be an exact formula for success.
It also amazes me that some people think there’s not much ‘sauce’ on pop radio, and that the latest song with fairly explicit lyrics is the first. And while this might be the first to hit exactly #1 on Billboard, Janet Jackson’s 1994 single “Any Time, Any Place” hit #2 on Billboard and #1 on R&B charts, Missy Elliot’s 2002 single “Work It” did the same thing (#2 on Billboard, #1 on R&B), and Khia’s 2002 “My Neck, My Back” only got to 42 on billboard, but is worth mentioning since they cleaned it up for the radio and it’s still more explicit than the translation above.
My experience is the reverse. I looked it up after I heard it being played in several bars in Europe back in May, because I thought it was particularly catchy. I Googled it based on a few snatches of lyrics I remembered, and then watched the video and downloaded it. While I liked the song a lot, I was surprised when I saw it being discussed as being one of the most popular ever.
Well …
About a dozen people in this thread, myself included, reported that as a result of this thread they watched the vid for the first time. That’s a dozen people who wouldn’t have done so except for the power of social media and curiosity. And a willingness, or affirmative desire, to join a bandwagon.
IMO that’s how a moderately popular tune becomes a vastly popular tune. How did Kim Kardashian displace whoever was People magazine’s previous cover story chick? And how did she become 10x bigger than that one had been?
Being famous for being famous is an exponential effect. When something goes far/long enough it becomes being famous for being famous for being famous.