TS: Juanes' "La Paga" vs. Krisspy's cover

ihttp://baniny.com/merengue/krisspy2.jpg

I must confess that the only time I've heard Juanes was on a listening station at Borders. He's ok. I've never even heard of Krisspy. Juanes is very popular in D.C. I was heading to the Kennedy Center at 7:30 one night for a salsa show or something when the free 6 p.m. Juanes show audience was leaving. Some salsa purists still hate merengue. They probably don't like Juanes' pop either.

What do you think of Juan Luis Guerra or Marco Antonio Solis? They're playing on a bill at the 20,000 seat MCI Arena in DC on June 5th. I've seen Paul Simon comparisons for Guerra, and Kenny Loggins ones for Solis.

I'm not that familiar with Juanes. A friend told me about Krisspy and this song. (I wasn't familiar with him).

I liked the Marco Antonio Solis segment on the Latin Grammys, but other things I've heard by him haven't done much for me. It's not really my area of Latin music.

Guerra is huge, but I haven't heard much by him. Most of what I've heard has just sounded very mellow in a way that I didn't find to engaging.

There's nothing wrong with hating merenge. I don't, but it's a pretty different thing from salsa. This Krisspy cover really straddles the line between cumbia and merengue. I had to ask someone which it was. She declared it to be merengue, but understood the confusion.

Johnny Pacheco hates merengue.

steve-k let's get into an argument or something. This is the same circle we always go around in.

Anyway, I think Krisspy is relatively new, or his popularity is, and I believe he's Dominican. He's doing merengue tipico, but somehow it comes across soundng pretty contemporary.

Actually I was thinking of trying to post this thread on the Yahoo group e-mail thing, and seeing if that would get more folks to post here. Or maybe we need to get those 5th grade NYC kids I saw salsa dancing in the preview of the new documentary movie 'Mad Ballroom,'to post here somehow.

In none of those other black and white threads have I noticed anyone pointing out that this is a multicultural world, and yet the threads on ILM don't always reflect that (for various complicated reasons).

I meant posting the "Rolling salsa" thread.

Hmmmmm, a fight...hmmmmm. Cuban son rules, Puerto Rican and New York and Central American music is just a poor imitation!!!(I keed, I joke)

I think I like the Krisspy version better.Until recently I didnt even know it was a Juanes song. I heard Krisspy's La Paga on the radio thought it was a weird song that sounded like La Camisa Negra. Later it occured to me to see if Juanes made La Paga also.
Tonny Tun Tun did a cover of La Paga as well.Its more of a merengue bomba version and it was my favorite song off of his latest cs.

But the Krisspy version IMO is the best, its more complex and has more of a tipico feel than the Tun Tun version and being merengue, is more danceable than the Juanes version. And like Mala Fe, there is kind of a humorous undercurrent to Krisspy's singing. You sense he is joking around but he is doing it with almost a straight face, so you are never quite sure if he is serious or if tis whole singing thing is just a farce.

JLG bores me. I listen to him, but dont dance to him. I prefer my merengue energetic and hard.

I think a lot of salsa purists hate merengue simply because its always being lumped together with salsa at clubs and they feel the need to have something to hate to differentiate themselves from the masses. Merengue in all its forms, is pretty complex though most of the stuff that gets air and clubplay is run of the mill stuff. I'd say that salsa is only more complicated musically than merengue because salsa encompasses many genres, rythyms and styles.

"la reina del merengue"

Covers of Juanes' "La Paga" (did he do it first?) have become a Latin music phenomenon in the past couple years. I am seriously wondering if there is some sort of informal, but actually agreed upon, contest going on to see who can do the best cover.

"phenomenon"