THIS BEAT IS KILLING LATIN MUSIC!

 In 2018, Grady Smith, released one of his most famous videos, 'This beat is killing country music'(Stop the snaps)' , in which he pointed out the excessive use of claps or snap tracks in country music. Often used in pop music (as it is shown in the video, for example, in Halsey's Without Me), the trend became a must in country pop and more in the boyfriend country subgenre, forgetting the use of country instruments for the confort and simplicity of the snap beat. 

Two years later the beat keeps on pop music and on  mainstream country music, like in Gabby Barrett's I Hope. Its spread has been so huge that it is almost in every genre, in latin melodic pop too ! 

Latin music is crammed by reggaeton and latin trap, as I said in my last post, and there is so little space for latin melodic pop. Almost every artist that made melodic pop in the past had to adapt and make urban music (Luis Fonsi, Álex Ubago, Pedro Capó...) and the artists that remain making it use this beat, letting latin music falling into studio beats and a huge lost of  identity,like in  Dvicio and Lali's 'Soy de volar'. 

 The Latin Recording Academy has accepted it and embraced it : Take a look at Sebastián Yatra and Reik's 'Un año' or Alejandro Sanz and Camila Cabello's 'Mi persona favorita' , both nominated at the Latin Grammys at major categories (The first one was shortlisted for Song of The year and the second took home the Latin Grammy for Record Of the Year in 2020). 

It is also used when artists want to slow down, show their 'romantic' side or the most acoustic one, as in Maluma's 'Marinero' .

This beat drives every song into a generic pop song, where anything  reminds you of latin music, but the language. In the 2000s we had this Pop-rock where the music was more complex and the lyrics too, like the incredible, full of poetry lyrics of Spanish group Amaral's 'Cómo hablar' (2003), Efecto Mariposa's 'Por quererte' or the rock and great lyrics of  'La casa por el tejado', by Fito & Fitipaldis. If you listen to previous hits from Alejandro Sanz, Aleks Syntek or Juanes, you will see that latin pop never needed to fall into this common game of snaps. The poetry of lyrics, and a deep alliance with instrumentation have always make latin pop shine. 

Like country, Latin music has set apart for the use of an specific instrumentation and their search on feelings. That was what made Latin music have their own charts, their own Grammys. That lost of essence does not benefit Latin music, making it ordinary.