Luny Tunes & Baby Ranks
Mas Flow 2
Universal

When Don Francisco capitulated, I knew I had to go with the flow. Don Francisco, as you surely know, is host of Sabado Gigante, the world's most-watched television show, which goes out all over Latin America and the USA on Saturday nights. It's an old-fashioned variety show with skits, jiggling babes, gong show contests, makeovers, people's court, wheel of fortune (win a new car!), celebrities, and musical acts, all rolled into one overdose of Latino culture on a weekly basis. He regularly asks people simple questions, like "what kind of music do you like?" And lately they've ALL been saying "Reggaeton" to which Don Francisco (real name Mario Kreutzberger) would shrug like, Whatever... I'm too old to understand that stuff! But now he not only digs it but has been bringing reggaeton music into the show, & his chat show Don Francisco Presenta, on a regular basis. It's the latest flava of hip hop, sung mostly in Spanish, with reggae (dub actually) and samples, but the best part is the riffing merengue guitar from La Republica Dominicana, along with Cuban and Puerto Rican percussion, New York barrio attitude, and even Hindi filmi samples, so I asked I.J. to spin me some good reggaeton. IJ said it was a passing fad but was peaking right now (the section is as big as the Cuban section on the Berkeley Rasputin mezzanine) and he fired up Luny Tunes & Baby Ranks for me. Boy, was he on the money -- for once! (Thanks IJ I am going to overlook -- temporarily -- all that crap you've been trying to fob off on me because you get a Big Up for this one: -- Just one though!)

This stuff sticks like white on rice, as Zeca Tatu is fond of saying. I am sure I'll be heartily sick of it in a few months but right now I hit the start button every time it stops! There only seem to be about two tunes on this album and about thirty-two performers, and they just keep coming back for a scratch like mosquito bites. Furthermore I can't stand the second half of the album, and, beyond furthermore, there's a second disk which I think is meant to be remixes (though that is redundant since it's all a remix). I listened to the first iteration, also a double album, and it too is the self-same riffs endlessly recycled. So I edited the most persistent riffs together and made my own MAS FLOW DOS-E-MEIA. There's a good drum and bass beat that emphasizes Latin percussion (timbales, cowbell, instead of drum programs) and some really awful synthesizer riffs, even a dread vocoder (I deleted those tracks). The last song is in English and is really nasty, so it goes to show, when you are not paying attention, you can get into this sh*t. Actually it only approximates English on "Oh Johnny" but the riff that won't quit gets under your skin and makes it crawl. The Duchess sniffs and says it sounds like the Macarena. In a way she's right, except the macarena had a little more to it! She adds it's just thugs and munchkins. But at least that is novel! Luny Tunes and Baby Ranks are a production duo from Puerto Rico, and they are into production in a big way, which is why I am especially grateful to IJ for narrowing the field for me: they have TWELVE albums forthcoming on their own label and also a DVD of 'nuttin but booty' in case you need to jerk off but can't stop listening to the music.

The TV ads (on the Miami-based Spanish station) imply much, but it seems to be disembodied female parts, so let's not go there. Baby Ranks' "Tu Bailar" is my favourite track right now with a skittering Dominican guitar and a backbeat that reminds me of good Brasilian Pagode. And you gotta admire two grown men trying to look like Borincuan hoods in white suits and shades with the monikers "Luny" & "Baby"! The weirdly atonal Hindi-style vocal & the merciless return of the Dominican guitar are truly exciting. I can almost overlook the "Show me the way"-vocoder chorus in the background. Almost. Oddly it goes into one of those wet ballads, "Querer y amar," that I normally kill after a few seconds, but then the backbeat comes back up with a synth lead replacing the merengue guitar and I have to let it roll. It's very odd they put this out as a CD and a half. The 6 bonus tracks could easily have been worked into the first disk, but then some artists are too vain to edit themselves properly. "Querer y amar" peters out in a long fade when it runs out of steam. One of the best tracks, "El Tiburon" has a two-note quote from the JAWS theme which shows these guys do have a sense of humour. Six of 'em team up for "Mayor que yo" the first version of the wild merengue guitar track that slays me. All I can say is you'd better go with the flow and check this out for yourself, and you just might end up with a new guilty pleasure. - Alastair Johnston