On the way home from the beach last weekend, as we got into the car and turned on the radio, I immediately heard the familiar plucks of the cuatro, a steel-strung Puerto Rican guitar, on. When the song ended and the station went to commercial, we switched to another station, and within minutes the falling melody of the cuatro came on again. Having just heard the song, we tried another station. And then we realized that we’d run out of pop stations before going 10 minutes without hearing “Despacito.” The sweltering pop reggaeton-love ballad hybrid has been everywhere this summer, playing in cities and suburbs, at house parties and barbecues, at wedding receptions and department stores, in people’s headphones during their commute. “Despacito” is inescapable and inevitable. You couldn’t avoid the song if you tried. “It’s massively popular.
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