Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on Rolling Stones, hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversialist.
I'm Britney Spanos and.
I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them so great. And this week we're going into Gasolina by Daddy Yankee.
Yes, the song is at number fifty on our list, rounding off the top fifty. I mean, like, is there a bigger kind of like cultural moment than this song droppet.
I feel like.
It's still one of those massive, massive songs that it's just like so high energy and kind of is such an adrenaline rush of a pop song.
It's never not an excitement when it comes out.
Yeah, And I mean it is a barrier breaking song too. I mean, this was a song that really helped Catapault reggaetone into popular consciousness. I mean, and even was ahead of its curve in a lot of ways. Like not only did it kind of help break through, but then it still took so many years for that kind of foundation work that Daddy Yankee made with this song with his career to reach its full potential.
Yeah, but talk about a song with an impact on the feature. It's really wild to look back over the last twenty years in pop music and think of the world that this song dropped into and how different it was. Yeah, and a definite before and after a moment. Yeah, in the history of pop music, there was a thing where there was nothing like this before, Nothing had had this kind of impact before. Yeah, and it was just innovative on every level.
Yeah.
I saw on that if it were released literally this week, it would hit number one and immediately, you know, like it's it's kind of surreal, how still fresh, it sounds still how like, like you said, ahead of its time, how influential. I mean, there's not a single I get to an artist who is not cited Daddy Yankee this song or Barrio Fino his album that the song was
on without you know, it's like completely foundational. There's no like, not a single artist that's you know, the most streamed artist right now of course, like Bad Bunny, Carol Ozuna, like none of them would not cite the.
Song absolutely and that it had the impact it had. It's almost hard to imagine the last twenty years without it.
Yeah, So the song came out in two thousand and four on Barrio Fino, which was Daddy Yankee's third album. And I mean this was a massive breakthrough of an album. He had already been a big artist in Puerto Rico, but had not yet broken worldwide. And I mean there weren't a lot of artists, Spanish language artists, let alone artists doing reggaetone that were breaking out at all at
this time. But you know, this was a song that ended up kind of shattering that ceiling and becoming the biggest song in the world.
Yeah.
I mean, reggaeton is very much a Puerto Rico thing at that time. It's not really spreading out the way it would internationally with this song. Yeah, And it's a wild to think that this song was a sound that just so many people around the world were hearing for the first time and it blew everyone away.
Yeah.
I mean this was also like such a time in the early two thousands where I feel like Latin pop was something that was like both becoming very very popular but also appropriated a lot by a lot of artists. Like this was a really big time kind of posts. Ricky Martin and Rickquae Glcia is starting to break through, you know, Shakira of course kind of crossing over and making her first English language album was around this time. This was a time where that kind of was becoming a bigger
part of pop music. I feel like a lot of you know, English speaking pop artists were kind of touching on a lot of like Latin fusion Latin pop influences in their songs. You know, you could hear it on like,
you know, like a n Sync er Brittany album. So there was sort of this like air of pooling influence from Latin America at this time, even before, of course, seeing someone like Daddy Yankee, who is rapping in Spanish kind of singing a genre that was already very controversial in Puerto Rico because it was coming from you know, a lot of poor communities. It was sort of this you know, kind of looked down upon genre at the time.
But there was kind of this this thing was happening in the air and pop music in that moment.
Yeah, and like you said, it was spreading all over in the US in terms of influence, but there was still this wall that it was unthinkable that any Latin artists, any Spanish speaking artist could have a hit song in the US without doing that compromise, without doing that English language song. It's really amazing that that was a template for success that was just considered inevitable. That's just how it was. And Shakira was already super famous when she
had her first US hit. She did a song in English, That's how it was done. Ricky Martin was a star in Puerto Rico four years before he had American impact. He did a song in English. And these were great songs that they did. But this was a compromise that wasn't seen as controversial. It's what you had to do to translate that to an American hit, And it was just really amazing that a song this uncompromising also had that huge international impact it did.
Yeah, I mean even thinking of someone like Selena in the in the nineties who spoke English as her first language and was able to have much more success and break through as a tehana artist and who was singing in Spanish and then suddenly had to kind of go back into an English language song to kind of see that really go to fruition. But yeah, it was such a common thing, expected thing, and such like a requirement
in the industry. To be seen as viable in specifically an American audience, to you know, sing a song, rap a song in English and to kind of have that even if you were one of the biggest artists in on you know, any Spanish language country and having number ones in ten, fifteen, twenty other countries, and it still mattered so much to kind of get radio play, to be seen as an artist that's worthy of getting the MTV rotation or anything else, to kind of have that crossover.
But of course Daddy Yankey proved that was not necessary, that didn't matter. And of course, you know, Gosolina of course has that really really great propulsive beat.
It is like so so energy.
It's like it really feels like you're in like a car going like two hundred miles per hour.
But you know, it's.
Also just no matter if you don't speak Spanish, you could very much sing along to that chorus like you get it.
Yeah, yeah, it did not need that translation. The old school idea of this song started to be a hit, Oh should do an English language version of it, you know, that was the ninety nine Lift Balloons became ninety nine Red Balloons. That's just how it was done. Major Tom was starting to be a hit in German, so he did it in English, Peter shilling for Gasolina. There was
no question of that. But it was so axiomatic before Gasolina that no matter how huge you were all over the world in Spanish, it just did not matter in the US without that English language song, that that was just an insurmountable barrier. And for this song to just smash through, like the barrier wasn't even there. It's the confidence in this song, the arrogance that Daddy Yankee sounds like he's absolutely on top world.
Yeah, and I love reading interviews that he's done in the year since the song Glowing Up and especially looking back on it, and just the fact that, you know, he kind of calls out the fact that there was so much of this idea of like this must mean something really like inappropriate, that like Gasolina must be like must be like slang for like alcohol or for sex or for something, or for drugs or whatever.
And he had a really great quote in.
Interview where he was like, this is probably the most innocent song I think I've ever written. He was like, in my entire career, this is He was like, there's nothing more straightforward than like this song, it's like the most innocent lyrics I've ever penned. Of course, reggaetone is a very like hypersexual genre. It's like very kind of you know, there's a lot going on in a lot
of reggaetone songs. But he was like, this song is it's literally about cars and about kind of the idea of a girl liking, you know, someone with a really fast, expensive car. You know, it's just it's just like so funny that he's just like there was so much of this kind of like what's it about?
What's it really about? And he's like, it's it's about gasoline.
It's about gas there's no double on tundra. It's the eternal mystic collusion of car and girl. Yeah, you know a car song that's a girl's song. That combination is just it's undeniable all through ages, every genre, every language, every language. And Gasolina just so urgent, like you said, perfect word propulsive for how it sounds, and that it didn't need to cross over. It just it was on its own terms and everybody heard it said yes.
Yeah, I'll tell you of being at a seventh grade dance when the song came on.
Yeah, incredible because.
No one knew our teachers were going to translate it.
I had no idea, didn't matter.
Catholic school.
Yeah, not cars, you know it's.
About cars, yes, but for some reason, against all the conventional wisdom that Americans needed that English language content. It was also pretty easy to tell that this was a song about gasoline and just such a powerful sound.
Yeah.
And of course you know, this song kind of again like breaking that barrier, allowing this idea that like to be marketable in the US in America no longer meant that you needed to speak in English, or have a song in English, or be able to have a hit with that. I mean, Broke Berry's on a lot of levels.
You know, we've talked about this, and you know, of course, like the BTS episode and things like that, there's all these like barriers that ended up sort of being shattered over the last two decades in pop music, and especially with the rise of social media and streaming like that, where this idea that to have a hit it is universal no matter what language it is.
If the song's good, it's good, and it.
No longer matters this idea that you have to kind of forsake your native tongue in order to be a success story.
Absolutely, he proved that this was possible, and so many people have done so much with it since then. I mean, yeah, BTS a great comparison. It would have been ridiculous to think of them doing a hit song in English to make themselves popular in the US. They became stadium act in the US by doing exactly what they did and what they wanted to on their own terms, in their own language. And it was only then that they started
playing with like doing songs in English with Halsey. Yeah, for Gosolina, it's well that reggaeton was such an unusual and unprecedented sound. It was such a fusion of different things that sounded so extreme, and it was still a relatively new genre and as you said, very still a very controversial genre in Puerto Rico. It's well because reggaeton seemed to get very big. It was something you heard all the time in New York, even if you didn't
know what it was. You know, like there were songs that would break out and people would know the names, they would know the artists because of those songs. But it was still seen as a genre that was rising and didn't have a breakout start, didn't have a breakout song. There were some examples besides Gosolp, but like nothing was as big as Gasolina.
Yeah, I mean, of course, even just like the sound of the genre, this particular song, whereas reggaeton comes from reggae music, it comes from you know, this fusion of kind of nineties two thousands rap music, and as that was sort of evolving very quickly, it was very much becoming like very fused with with what the sound of reggaetone was, and of course very traditional sort of Puerto Rican and Latin Latin pop and traditional sounds that were kind of all coming together to create this like very
high energy, very club forward music that was so much blowing up in clubs in the underground, like in sort of you know, again hearing it at block parties in New York or in the streets of New York well before Gosolena blew up, or I mean kind of the way with any sort of reggaetone artist that's blown up in the last twenty years, you know, you kind of hear it sort of people play now of their cars, people playing at the clubs, people playing at parties, as
it sort of kind of builds up hearing like someone like Bad Bunny for so long, just like from attending block parties, even before he kind of has become one of the most streamed artists in the world. It's such a testament to why this music is still so successful and continues to evolve and change. You know what reggaeton sounds like now, completely different than when it sounded twenty three years.
Ago, totally. Rakata was the first reggaeton hit that was huge in New York that everybody knew just from coming out of cars. Even if people weren't hearing that song in clubs or bars, it was still a song that you knew just from hearing it in cars, block parties, as he said, literally just tearing it on the streets with people listening to Rakatau. It was like it was a hit song of his entire summer of Rakata in New York. Yeah, for Gasolina to take that to a national level was really surprising.
Yeah, with this song with day Yankee's career, I mean, this was it wasn't even the beginning of his career. It was, of course, like he had been sort of already blowing up, but it was sort of this like this kind of new beginning of world domination and just like really a new start for him, as like becoming one of the most iconic, best selling artists of all time.
You know, he famously last year, I guess two years ago, he technically announced his retirement, as all great artists do, all great artists prematurely announced retirement that may not actually be a retirement, but you know, even just like the response to that from the community of artists, especially younger artists who have become more popular in recent years, who idolize him and to have worked with him, you know,
that response, and also from his fans. I mean, he kind of closed out his big tour last year with a huge concert in San Juan that I know a few friends of mine ended up attending and said it was one of the best shows I've ever seen in their entire lives. But you know, it's I mean incredible that so many years later there's still so many hits, great albums, and you know, just like a really great kind of legacy that he's built and continued to build.
Amazing, especially, like you said, for an artist who retired definitely from the share school of retirement.
Yeah, I'm sure we'll have another tour Nottin, Like, I'm sure we will.
Yeah.
I mean, especially he's like still very young. You know, it's still he's like very very young when he started out. He's a teacher when he started recording, and like, you know, he's still is still a very very young man. And
so it's like kind of surreal. But I mean, the fact that he could do that after nearly thirty years of creatingmusic and tory music and continue to be kind of on the pulse of everything that's happening again, as reggaeton has changed and evolved over the years to sort of not only match but be.
Very much ahead of the times at all times.
It's pretty remarkable that he's been able to keep up with that and still kind of be ahead of that.
Yeah, he's never become a legacy act. Yeah, it's amazing that he's still had such massive hits in recent years. Yeah, and it's funny that he's had this self sustaining career long past. I mean, there was no role model for you know, a twenty five year career in reggaeton. Yeah, the genre is so new and he just really has been breaking molds, yeah, and is.
Now that role model for so many artists who are so you know, very vocally following in his footsteps and very much kind of looking to him as that lighthouse for how they kind of proceed in their own careers. You know, the way that the reggaeton being so infused with trap music now and kind of edm and house house music, kind of hearing all of that sort of collide at once in it, it's pretty remarkable to kind of see.
How he's inspired that.
But also, yeah, like seeing those younger artists who are kind of reinventing that wheel in his in his name. Yeah, as this last album was called Legend Daddy, you know, it's really an appropriate, appropriate title.
For Daddy Yankee.
Absolutely.
Next up, we are joined by Rolling Stone Senior music editor Julisa Lopez. We are joined now by Rolling Stone Senior music editor Julisa Lopez Jalsa.
Thank you for being right, Thanks for having me.
Thank you so much.
I'm excited to be here. I'm very excited to talk about guys.
Let me know, Yeah, do you remember the first time you heard this song or Daddy Yankee?
Yes, so different so one thing that I was always really excited about was my older brother and my older sister. My half siblings were raised in Puerto Rico, so kind of one brigaton was really starting to take off in the nineties, and like early two thousands, I felt like I was ahead of everybody because they were bringing back all of these tapes from Puerto Rico before it had
really touched down in the US. There's this guy DJ Prao who was one of the pioneers of of Regetong, who was playing a lot of the stuff at clubs, and then like would release these bootlegses and so a very young Daddy Yankee is featured on a lot of
those mixtapes. So I first heard Daddy Yankee on those and then I remember like in middle school and stuff like I would bring them into my middle school and felt cooler than everybody because this like entire genre of music was happening and nobody, you know, in the in the US really had it.
And then I would say it started picking up more and more and more.
I think the album came out in two thousand and four, so the song broke through in two thousand and five.
I was in high school by then. So by then I was like Daddy Yankees, like old News been around forever.
But that I mean, that song was just massive, and I think really the sort of the breakthrough point four Regatong, which I think really hadn't found its footing yet in sort of a global mainstream stage, but this was, you know, the point where where it didn't weren't really broke through.
Yeah, can you entuck realized a little bit, especially because he was so much blowing up prior to this song and getting such like a already kind of seen as this like king of Reggaeton, Like what was happening prior to Gasolina for him?
Like how yeah, how is his career developing?
So Danny ge Get started really young.
I think he was about sixteen when he started rapping in Puerto Rico and back then, if I mean, if you really think about the way that Raggetong came together, you know, in the early nineties, there wasn't even really a name for it. You know, if you think about how Regyaetung happened, it is sort of this incredible mix of geography and history and if you really really go back, I mean a lot of this starts with the Panama Canal.
Like all of these West Indian migrants came to Panama, they brought reggae albums with them and all of their culture. And then in the seventies you start seeing reggae espagnon, which you know is artists like in Heineral and sham Barinks and people who are like really sort of the pioneer and like the prototype for what you know reggae and spagnon eventually becomes you know, reggaetong.
And so what you had happening is that you had these.
Influence says from the Caribbean, from the West Indies, and then in Puerto Rico, it you know, mixes in with hip hop, which like hip hop was coming in from New York from the US from the mainland, and people at clubs start kind of mixing the two, and so you get this like mix of reggae with hip hop, and you get all of these kids kind of at the club messing around with us and just trying it out, and it's really just club music. Then it wasn't even
called regatong. And I think there's one urban legend that Daddy Yankee's actually the person who coined the term Regatong because he said it like while freestyling in a song.
But he was like sixteen years old and was like this guy who.
Was like out, you know, at the club with a microphone kind of messing around. And so the story goes that he originally wanted to be like a baseball player in Puerto Rico and that was really his dream, but he was sort of ducking in and out of studios and rapping on the side in Puerto Rico, you know that where this you know music is really taking off, you know, wasn't like the most like wealthiest parts of Puerto Rico. And so he's out late one night and he gets shot in the leg and that kind of
effectively ends his baseball career. So that's really when he's like, I'm going to focus only Andreazong, I'm going to be a rapper and really tries to make this career take off. So in Puerto Rico he was like among the biggest names just because he'd been doing it for so long.
He had like a sort of like a duo like super group.
With Nikiam for a while called Oskangi, And so by the time Gasolina comes along, this is on Barrauffino, which is his third album. So he's he's already had like not only like all of the music that he's featured on with like the Priato mixtapes and all the you know, the music that's kind of being recorded in the club, but he'd also had two albums before this, and he's talked about how, you know, when he made Barrifino, he
kind of needed to win. Like it was like he was popular Puerto Rico, but it still wasn't kind of, you know, big.
Enough to break through. And so this was really the album that like put him on the map.
And he talks about just like pouring everything in because he like really needed, you know, he really needed to win, and he really needed something to bring his career to the next level.
And ultimately that's what this song did.
Yeah, what was sort of the impetus I guess for Gosolena taking off the way it did? I mean, especially given the I mean it's already a great song, it's a wonderful album. Like what sort of helped kind of give that song that edge to become this like larger than life like global hit.
Yeah, well, I think part of it. One thing I really love about Gasolina. It's almost like the snippet of life in Puerto Rico, like even the name Gasolina. Daddy Yankees talked about how the song came to him because he was trying to write in his tiny apartment in Puerto Rico, and some guy walked by and was kind of joking to this girl and.
Said a which is sort of.
This slang term that means like, oh, like you like gasoline, like you love fast cars and guys who drive fast cars, and was kind of teasing this girl. And so I think it was that mix of kind of how snappy that you know, the actual choruses, and and it being sort of this like little snippet of of life in
Puerto Rico. That with the production by Looney Tunes where it actually sound, you know, they really did everything to bring the idea of Gasolina and this sort of like rubbed up, you know, hydraulic heavy sound.
To the song.
And then also it was like two thousand and five, and I think at the time in pop music.
Like there was sort of like this, there was starting.
To be an interest in what was happening and in Puerto Rico and more globally and in other.
Parts of the world.
You know, like just a couple of years before, you had had you know, artists like Shakira and Ricky Martin breaking through kind of earlier in the two thousands, and this thing was bubbling in Puerto Rico that I think people were interested in but hadn't really figured out how
to tap into. And you had songs that were starting to kind of identify the song like Oyami Ganto I think, is a really big one that kind of like hinted where this was going, But I think there was still some question at the time of you know, a song
fully in Spanish hadn't really been done yet. All of these artists before, like Ricky, like Shakira, had done the crossover thing where they had sang in English, and all of a sudden, there was a song that was sort of catchy and big and you didn't really need to understand the lyrics to kind of get it. It was more about sort of the them and the sound, and so I think all of that sort of paved the way for this song to become as big as it did.
Yeah, and like redefining that idea that a Spanish language artists needed to release an English language hit or song to cross over like it didn't didn't matter anymore.
Exactly, I think, And I think this is really the precursor to what you see with you know, artists later like Bad Bunny and kiol G and artists now who are kind of realizing like, oh, actually you didn't you know, you don't really need to sing in English to be
a massive global superstar. And I don't think enough people give that song credit because you know, it is such a song that is such sort of part of our cultural lexicon now, and like I think people kind of forget that it was a Spanish Like we act like Bad Bunny and and all these artists are doing is totally new, but actually this was a song in two thousand and five that was completely in Spanish, and most people kind of, you know, sing along and it's gibberish,
but you get the you get the main idea.
How do you think that Daddy Yanki saw himself as breaking that mold, as he said he wanted that win, but he didn't do any compromising. It doesn't sound like somebody who's eager for a win. It sounds like somebody who's super confident thinks he's won already.
Yeah, I think one thing is in Puerto Rico, by the time the song Blew Upong had really started to consolidate. I would even argue that, like as much of a pioneer as Daddy Yanki is, he wasn't sort of the first reggathong star. You know, you had Teoka Lerong before him, who had made e Laayarde, which to me is the greatest regatong record ever made. You had Dongo mad who
was his full rival. So you had had already like these full on rivalries and storylines and characters in Reytong, and so I do think there was an element of it where Daddy Yanki was coming it from a perspective of like he wanted to win and he knew that there was a new level he could reach. But in a certain way, he was already a star, you know, in Puerto Rico, in Latin America, there had already been this kind of history that had already unraveled.
With with Regyitong.
And I think it's one of the reasons that the song feels so uncompromising and so, I mean it is even strange, I think for a ragatung song. You know, just the production of it and him kind of like rapping super fast in it. It is a little bit of a different take, I think on what was happening in Ragatong at the time. I think one of the best parts of the song is the female vocalist in
the background. That's Glodi, who also was starting to become a reggaetong artist in her own way, and she wasn't credited on the song for the longest time, which I think also says a lot about, you know, the role of women in this genre, which it was not. You know, you had Evie Queen, but it was not the most receptive toward women, and there was I think a lot of like toxic masculinity and it was just like a
very very male heavy genre. But I do think that like that addition of her voice on it is also something that makes that song really unique. And I think later that became something that sort of became like a format for you know, adding more women and eventually like people realizing they shouldn't just be an uncredited background vocalist, they should kind of be at the center.
Did she have her own career was she now?
I feel like her career kind of came later.
She had a few songs, but she was she never really got her do and I wouldn't I wouldn't say that she was ever one of the biggest artists or female artists in Durgotong. And I mean, I mean truly, like, I think the only one that has had a lot of longevity is Evie Queen, you know who, who was also somebody that at the time was rapping in the clubs, you know, with with Daddy Yankee and rapping with the Noise, and they're really contemporaries.
But I mean it's really very few women, which sucks.
It feels like Evie's career even has gotten more of its due in recent years too, like in terms of you know, just like citing her as such like a massive kind of fore mother in the in the genre exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think I think it was an until like much more recently that people have kind of discovered her and and Gloria really didn't, you know, I don't. I don't think she had nearly as many songs or as many opportunities, but she's on this one, which is one of the one of the biggest ones.
So yeah, And can you speak a little bit to the evolution of Rakoton over the years, and especially becoming one of the most dominant genres of music and one of the most popular and kind of spawning some of the biggest names in pop music even just right the second.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think that anybody really could have predicted the commercial or global force that Regatoon would become.
We're talking now Latin music.
I think last year made a billion dollars, and so much of that is for you know, by regaetong, by how how massively popular it's gotten. And I think for a long time it felt like something that it was shunned in so many ways. You know, first it comes out of Puerto Rico, and I think it's really seen
as sort of this like something from the streets. I think even in Puerto Rico, there was a lot of pushback toward it, like it was overly sexual, it was violent, it was you know, all these things, a lot of the same sort of attitudes that you got in early hip hop.
It took into a gas solina.
For the Latin music industry to really accept it and to kind of see it as a as a legitimate art form. And then even then, I think it took a long time to keep kind of bashing that door down and get you know, people to really see it as like as an art.
Form that you could you could take seriously.
And I want to say that Gasnina is the first song that was ever nominated for a Latin Grammy, Andreetong because of that song eventually like forced more Ragaton categories in the Latin Grammys, which now there are several. I think a lot of that started to change obviously with like that. You know that that kind of golden era of Reyzong when you had Daddy Yankee and Donga ma
Antheo Calerong and those all became influences. If you look at the artist Andree Doong, now Bad Bunny, Carol G. J. Balman, I think all of them cite those kind of four bearers as you know, the reason that they started doing this and the reason that they got interested in Regatong to begin with. Bad Bunny has even said that Barruffino is his favorite album, like of all time and one
of the albums that influenced him the most. It's definitely had like a crazy evolution, and I think Daddy Yankee has also had a crazy evolution because he was kind of there for the whole thing. He's an artist that sort of didn't go away the entire time, and sort of in every stage of Regathong was there kind of.
Doing something different.
We're trying, you know, to to kind of move with the genre, which I think you could. You saw it kind of go from more of a hip hop street style to then more of a commercial pop sound that was really big and sort of like the mid like that, you know, post Gasomnina era, to even like now.
I mean he just released like a song a couple of years ago.
He's still I think pretty relevant, even though he has since said that he's retiring, but.
Because did he release just a couple of songs this year.
Yeah, he's still going. I think that's the that's the that's the funny thing.
It's interesting how that song in some ways, I think has sort of become a novelty in some ways just because you know, it's kind of everywhere, and I think some people have kind of, you know, grown a little tired of it. But in a lot of ways, I think it still stands up. When we did our list of Greatest song Songs, we took like a vote kind of industry wide and it was number one, I would say on like almost every person's list, And you know, I think Gasolina has just like a really important role
I think, and what tongue is. I think twenty twenty three was put on the on the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry and is the first Rayton song to ever get there. So I think it's one of those songs that kind of stands the test of time and really shows kind of how far this genre is come.
Yeah, thank you so much.
Thank you guys so much. I feel like I just like, thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia. Written and hosted by me, Rob Sheffield and Britney Spanos. Executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine, Alex Dale, and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon, with music supervision by Eric Zeiler. Thanks for listening, Thanks for watching.