Los Lonely Boys: Rockpango
The hierarchy of Latin rock music in the United States basically goes: Ritchie Valens then Santana then Los Lonely Boys. Do not think Los Lonely Boys are on that level? In 2005, their single “Heaven” joined Santana’s “Maria Maria” as the only Latin rock songs to win a Grammy for Best Pop Performance. The track also reached number one on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks. Rockpango is their seventh studio album and their first since 2009’s 1969.
Where Los Lonely Boys have always exceeded is in their technical and vocal abilities. The brothers Garza put together some intricate tunes. Like “16 Monkeys” brings the funk rock feel of Primus with the country-meets-funk feel of Cake and they even sprinkle some Stevie Wonder-style clavinet in there. But where “16 Monkeys” fails is where Los Lonely Boys most often fail and that is in the lyric department. In the song, Los Lonely Boys sing the line “16 monkeys on a chuck wagon rolling down the road” no less than six times. The song literally sounds like some sort of children’s song except it also contains the line “they’re going round town telling everybody let’s get stoned.”
Other songs like “Porn Star” seems to miss on all fronts. The track is a mid-tempo country rocker that unneededly features record scratching from DJ Beans. The track features such lyrical gems as “I’m in love with a porn star/she drives a big ol car/and she’s the apple of my eye/I don’t care what the people say/I’m gonna love her anyway/cause she’s the sunlight that brightens up my day/hey hey hey.” If that was not cringe-worthy enough, the group also has rapper Kush on the track. Kush’s flow itself is not bad but its the combination of the lazy country music with the rapping that makes it seem worse.
In the end, Rockpango is not a terrible album musically but lyrically it leaves a lot to be desired. The album
Rating: 4.2/10
MP3: Los Lonely Boys featuring DJ Beans and Kush “Porn Star”
Buy: iTunes or Amazon
Los Lonely Boys: Rockpango
