When I first heard Karol G’s new single, ‘After you’, I thought: how influential The Marías are being! Then I discovered that Greg Gonzalez, leader of the dream pop band Cigarettes After Sex, is directly involved in the issue. Which makes all the sense in the world, since the instrumental part of the song couldn’t sound more like the authors of ‘Apocalypse’.
The collaboration -premiered at Coachella, and now published- is not surprising in commercial terms, since, although Karol G is higher than ever, those of Greg Gonzalez cannot say less: ‘Apocalypse’ is one of the biggest streaming hits of recent times, and the Texas band has accumulated four singles that exceed one billion views on Spotify alone. Bigger words.
Stylistically, the union is more unexpected, since Karol G is not only an artist known for her reggaeton hits, but she is directly immersed in the promotion of an album, ‘Tropicoqueta’, which pays tribute to the history of Latin music. On the other hand, the nocturnal and austere dream pop of Greg Gonzalez does not fit, in principle, into his universe.
But ‘After you’ is not the first surprising collaboration in history, and the best thing is that the song works on several levels: first of all, it’s nice to hear a song like Cigarettes After Sex performed in Spanish. Karol G, whose beautiful timbre and heartfelt way of singing are ideal for the song, laments a breakup and, in phrases like “After you, my life ended / I don’t learn to live without your company / Because of this pain, I make fantasies,” she remembers Rocío Dúrcal, at the same time one of the influences on her latest album.
Secondly, ‘After you’ reminds us that music will always manage to take precedence over identity and, while it forces us to recalibrate what type of song we expect from certain artists, it manages to make us melancholic and, at the same time, comfort us.
