4 Of The Most 'WTF' Latin Music Videos Of All Time

Being married to a Salvadoran, I get to experience a lot of what Latin American culture has, such as spicy food, superstitious beliefs, beautiful family values and fantastic music. The music has always been admired greatly by myself, both the classical and folk music of Central America as well as the contemporary and modern day sound. However one thing has always baffled me about the more contemporary songs - for such beautiful music, why are their videos so damn confusing?

After watching so many of them, I still can't tell whether the director is just deeply artistic, or autistic. I know that with a foreign language often comes elements of a song that just won't be understood by other cultures, however some of these elements go beyond simple culture shock and enter into the completely deranged.

Here's a short list of the craziest that I've seen:

4: Pintame - Elvis Crespo

This one was hard to write about, only because I'm a big fan of this particular singer. Now, that being said, I'm not exactly a fan of his videos. Here's one of them.

I also can't tell if it's him or a middle-aged woman

Elvis Crespo has a great voice, but unfortunately all his talent is undone by one single music video. If you haven't bothered to watch (don't worry, it is safe for work as all the women somehow stay clothed) then you would have noticed that Elvis likes to change his clothes quite often, but he only enjoys two colours; black and white.

At the very beginning of the video, he, and all the dancers who are inexplicably there with him in a white room, are wearing the same white clothing that is usually reserved for cult members waiting for the spacecraft to appear. Cut a mere 5 seconds later - all wearing black. Cut another 5 seconds - wearing white again, and so on and so on until...

Still can't tell if it's a man or a middle-aged woman

Elvis finds himself in a yellow room usually reserved for the fantasy sequence of a schizophrenic. 

Now I know that the word 'Pintame' means 'Paint Me' in English, so the use of colours or monochromatic themes seems kind of appropriate. But really, isn't there a more subtle and less psychotic way of conveying this to your audience, Señor Crespo?

The next shots incorporate the following: Elvis playfully sitting on a large chair, smiling at us. Elvis pinning himself up against a green backdrop. Elvis momentarily cloning himself and dancing in a green jacket. Having his backup dancers paint penises on the wall...

Nothing phallic to see here, folks...

Even the women get in on the action, hopefully by not showing us what the middle of their bed sheets may look like once a month...

Pictured: NOT a 'stayfree' advertisement

And then finally there's Elvis, who seems confused by something that a 4 year old made at kindergarten

No caption required

Then there are the scenes that make us believe Crespo really does want to get sued by Apple.

3: La Musica Sonando Para Ti Polis - Pescozada

A hip hop group hailing from the mean streets of San Salvador is always going to have street cred, no matter what anyone says. But no matter how many times Ross Kemp likes to show us how hard he is by roaming them for journalistic purposes, we cannot fathom how bad the street gang situation is over there.

Luckily for us, Pescozada can show us themselves! One of El Salvador's premier hip hop groups, Pescozada enjoys sharing their home videos with us, particularly in the music clip for this song which seems like someone decided to put all of their amateur footage of their debaucherous nights out and compile it all for their fans.

This video is mainly 90% handy cam footage - we're talking parking lots, on stage, in their car, on the sidewalk. It's as if they either stumbled upon the best way to show their street cred or they've realised that this is going to cost them nothing to put together.

And you know what they can do with all those savings!

Towards the end of the video there's even footage of them going up the escalator at a local mall, throwing gang signs up as if to say, "yeah homes, what you gonna do about it, we're riding the escalator at the mall".

Roughly translated, the song title means "Music Playing For You Cops", so straight out of the blocks you know exactly where they stand with local law enforcement (just look at their 'double dare' expressions on their faces when riding that escalator). I'm not sure though, but I do know that in most countries, riding the escalator isn't a felony - hell even going up one the wrong way isn't, just ask any 5-15 year old in the entire world. I'm also fairly sure that travelling on sidewalks is OK, as is playing music to a live audience (as long as you're fully clothed) is fine. 

Pescozada have basically given us a home movie on how to have a good law-abiding night out with your friends.

That is unless he's taking a shit on stage

Even some of the more risqué stuff that they try to pull off doesn't even seem that bad. At the beginning of the video, one of the group members gets out of his car with a bottle of some sort of undisclosed alcohol in his hands. "Woah! Back off now, man! Don't be bringing that kind of trouble to our nice quiet night out." 

Unless a passing cop walks by and he decides to smash the bottle and cut him with it, the video goes nowhere... which is exactly what happens for the next 4 minutes.

2: Salome - Chayanne

When I first heard the song Salome I must admit, it was pretty catchy, and as much as I'd also hate to admit it, I still enjoy listening to it sometimes today. That being said, the video is shit. Not only that, but it's one of the most confusing and disjointed music videos I've ever seen. I understand that not all music videos need a narrative, sometimes we like to take a break from having to be told a story and just enjoy watching our favourite artists awkwardly sell-out to their record label in order to sell more albums. However when it comes to Salome there is no room for interpretation, and you sure as hell can't relax with all the crazy shit that seems to be going on at the same time.

The absolute worst thing about this video is the lousy animation. Here's a sneak peek:

I kid you not - this is the very first thing we are presented with

I'm not sure what that is but I'm fairly certain I've seen the same thing animated in a 9th grade multimedia class. Or this video was shot in 1980... which it wasn't.

Anyway, here's the full clip:

Even Chayanne seems perplexed as to what's going on. We can't help but emphasise enough: This video was produced by professionals.

I'm not entirely sure what the overall theme is here. Is it a space theme? Is it set in the future? Are they all tripping on acid? Are they trying to burn that blue skivvy he's wearing?

'Ha ha ha. I bowl them all over with my fashion sense!'

Then there are the silver spherical balls that seem to be all over the place. Was this some computer animators afterthought or a genuine attempt to make the video seem more futuristic or... science? Either way, they suck.

It's as if the video producers just gave in on their own original ideas and decided that they were going to borrow from as many sci-fi films and television shows as they possibly could.

They even steal from Hannah Barbara cartoons when, in some out-of-place ode to The Flinstones some little Gazoo character comes flying in, capturing the curiosity of Chayanne.

Hello Dum Dum - let me shit all over your career

Chayanne has probably made much much worse than this, but to allow a director to simply shoot such a Frankenstein's monster of a video has put him firmly in this list. There are moments when you just feel sorry for him and everyone else associated with the video, even the dancers wearing those glossy coloured vests.

I swear though, if you pause at just the right moment, you can almost see the despair in his eyes, as if looking for some sort of escape.

Get me the fuck out of here!

I don't know a lot about Chayanne's career other than this song, a few others and oh, the fact that he once auditioned and then was rejected by this group:

Oh... and speaking of that group...

1 - Hold Me - Menudo

I don't need to add any further comment to this video. 

It's not that I'm lazy or anything, it's just that I'm fairly sure that it would be the exact same thing as kicking a dog just as it's about to be put down.

The VERY same thing

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