One of my favorite things about my music journey in 2020 is the fact that I finally stopped sleeping on Bad Bunny. I have always loved Latin music, specifically Reggaeton, and I have appreciated Bad Bunny as being one of the best in the genre, but it took until recently for me to truly realize how great he is. I regret not reviewing his full-length album YHLQMDLG released earlier this year, as it has become one of my favorite pieces of music to come out in 2020. Now I do not speak Spanish well, but I do understand it a bit and am not opposed to looking up the meaning of the lyrics if I like the music. YHLQMDLG is proof that music transcends language and culture because it is pretty tough to deny how great this record is regardless of if you speak Spanish or not. YHLQMDLG is just full of good music that makes you want to dance and party. Because he so prolific and can not stop working, Bad Bunny just released his second full-length record of the year, El Último Tour Del Mundo. This record has just as much quality as it’s predecessor from this year. It incorporates so many different styles of popular music, excellently uses features, and it proves that Bad Bunny can do more than make songs to party to(this record is decidedly more emotional and calmer than any of his previous works). With that being said, this is how I feel about Bad Bunny’s El Último Tour Del Mundo. Please let me know in the comments below how you feel about this record, and let me know what your favorite songs are from it as well.
One of my favorite things about El Último Tour Del Mundo is also probably going to be considered one of the most polarizing things. Bad Bunny has always been somewhat controversial within the Latin Music and Reggaeton world. If you look at a lot of reviews from old school Latin Music listeners online of Bad Bunny’s previous albums, there is always a lot of negativity that comes through. Bad Bunny has always been an artist that has infused modern Pop and Hip Hop music with traditional Reggaeton, and that sound has not always resonated with all fans of Reggaeton music. On El Último Tour Del Mundo, Bad Bunny pushes and expands his sound even more than he has in the past. This album probably has the least amount of traditional Dancehall/Reggaeton music as any record he has released so far. There are songs like ‘Te Mudaste’ and ‘La Noche De Anoche’ that do have traditional Reggaeton tendencies, and of course, they are some of the best songs on the record. But this album has way more Hip Hop, Rock, and Electronic sounds on it than any of his previous records. Now all of the experimentation on this record does not completely work out, in my opinion. Particularly, some of the songs with Rock influence are kind of messy. But one of my favorite songs on the record, ‘Yo Visto Así,’ is a song with a Rock Rap sound that reminds me of some of the music we heard in the early 2000s. The Hip Hop influences on this record are excellent. Songs like ‘Hoy Cobré,’ ‘Booker T,’ and ‘120’ are the kind of Latin Trap songs that are sure to fire up any club they are played at in 2021. As I mentioned earlier, I also appreciate the Electronic music that is on this record. Songs like ‘Dákiti,’ ‘Sorry Papi,’ and ‘Antes Que Se Acabe’ all of the different kinds of Electronic music elements to them. Even the Electronic music on this record is diverse, as ‘Dákiti’ has a House music feeling to it, ‘Sorry Papi’ has a bit of a Tropical Techno sound to it, and ‘Antes Que Se Acabe’ has a bit of an EDM Trap concept. El Último Tour Del Mundo does an excellent job of highlighting so many different kinds of music while still keeping the album sounding succinct and not all over the place.
Up until this point, Bad Bunny has always been an artist that uses a lot of features on his own albums and features on a lot of other people’s music. Both of his LPs released before this one, X100 PRE and YHLQMDLG, have features on more than half of each of the records. A lot of his biggest songs up until this point have had features on them. One of the reasons Bad Bunny is so popular is because of the songs he has been featured on. Bad Bunny has been featured on some smash hits in the last few years, such as ‘Un Dia’ with Dua Lipa, Tainy, and J Balvin and ‘I Like It’ with Cardi B and J Balvin. El Último Tour Del Mundo does not contain a lot of features compared to his last two albums, as only 3 of 16 songs officially contain features. The few features on this album are excellent, though, and add to the songs in such a perfect way. All three of these songs are among my favorites on the album. ‘La Noche Del Anoche,’ which features Rosalía, is a low key Reggaeton track that is just so fun and easy to listen to; this song has such a sweet melody, and is the kind of song anyone should love regardless of the language it is sung in. Bad Bunny and Rosalia is a combination of artists that many people have been craving since they both popped off, as they are both so talented and so adaptable and can sound good on any kind of song. Bad Bunny and Rosalía compliment each other so well on this track, and they both prove why they are two of the best artists in the world right now. The second song containing a feature, ‘Dákiti,’ features Jhay Cortez. This track has been one of the top songs in the world for weeks, now, so I do not have to explain why it is so good. It combines Reggaeton music with European House music and has a very fun sound that will get all of the clubs around the world bumping once they open back up. Jhay Cortez’s voice magically compliments Bad Bunny’s sound on this song. I would love to hear more music from this pair, as Bad Bunny’s deep and husky voice matches up excellently with Jhay Cortez’s higher-pitched voice. ‘Sorry Papi,’ which features Abra, is one of the more experimental songs on El Último Tour Del Mundo, as it has more of Electronic music feeling to it than most of the other songs on this record. As I previously mentioned, this song has elements of Tropical EDM and Techno music; it still does have a Reggaeton-style drum pattern in the background, but the melody and beat of this song have a foreign Electronic sound to them that has not shown up much in Bad Bunny’s music before this. Out of the three of the features on this record, I think I like this one the most. Abra’s unique voice and way of singing add a lot of texture to this song. Her performance feels like less of a feature and more of a collaboration in the best way possible.
I would say that it is pretty safe to say that when people hear that new Bad Bunny music is coming out, they expect to be able to party to it. His first two albums, X 100PRE and YHLQMDLG, are full of Reggaeton music that one would expect to hear in a club. A lot of his music on these records has been infused with Trap music, which is also another genre that most people like to party to when it comes on. When the public heard the only single for El Último Tour Del Mundo, ‘Dákiti,’ most of us assumed that this record would be a party album as well. But for the most part, this album is a lot more mellow and melancholy than any of his previous albums. As I have stated throughout this review, Bad Bunny’s El Último Tour Del Mundo is full of a lot more than typical Reggaeton and Latin Trap music. A lot of the songs have different genres infused into them, making them sound a lot calmer than a typical Bad Bunny album. Quite a few of the melodies on this record are a lot more moody and melancholy than one would expect his music to be. From what I understand, a lot of these songs are lyrically sad and downtrodden as well, which is also not typical of Bad Bunny but does match the sound of the record. Bad Bunny has stated that he wanted to make music that matches the mood of people who are quarantining now since we have not been able to party to YHLQMDLG this year. That sentiment is reached with this record, and it proves that Bad Bunny is more than a one-trick pony when comes to the temperament of his music.
Bad Bunny has always been an artist that likes to push boundaries, and he has always been a polarizing artist because of this. People who are into more traditional Reggaeton music have always had a problem with his approach to it, as he has always to infuse new sounds and styles of music into his records to make him stand out. I would imagine the reaction to El Último Tour Del Mundo is going to be even more extreme, and that those people who do not like his previous records will not be into this one. Personally, though, I think that El Último Tour Del Mundo is great because of the way Bad Bunny thought outside of the box for this record. Not every single song is necessarily a hit, but I appreciate the fact that Bad Bunny is always willing to try something new and infuse so many different genres and styles of music into this record. Some of my favorite songs on El Último Tour Del Mundo are tracks that genre-bend in a very interesting way. El Último Tour Del Mundo is not the album that people would expect from Bad Bunny, but it is the one that we needed as we wait out the rest of this quarantine.
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