The Singles Jukebox

And last (but not least?) (no, least was Morat), another Colombian singer-songwriter…

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[5.50]

Iain Mew: Drama! Windswept galloping! Some kind of duel! The opening seconds promise so much that it doesn’t manage to deliver on. It’s noticable that Lafourcade solo and acoustic gets closer to the promised force than anything.
[5]

Juana Giaimo: Esteman knows how to choose the correct song-guests and he also knows how to give them a space. His smooth slightly deep voice contrasts with Natalia Lafourcade’s sweeter one, and together they enhance each other’s voices to honor nature and tradition. This is not the first time he has explored folklore and he nails it once again, building a grandiose sound by adding multitudinous backing vocals with a restless beat and acoustics. 
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: To lift the curtain behind the scenes just slightly, we were originally going to cover Esteman’s previous single, the awkward disco “Baila”, but then he dropped a video and this became his most recent single. I still haven’t really forgiven “Caótica Belleza” for not being “Baila,” and not just because I like disco, awkward or not, much better than anything with tympani and a thudding woah-oh-oh refrain. The points mostly go to Lafourcade’s crystalline voice, which brings the song down to a human scale every time she gets it to herself: and then the production blows back in, and it’s a mess.
[4]

Ryo Miyauchi: The all-together-now chorus frankly feels hokey during these times of duress. Natalia Lafourcade’s voice, I can trust; it wears her past scars every time I hear it. And sure, Esteman is noble, valuing disorder over peace in an anthem this earnest. But his groomed poise makes me question if he really knows how it feels to struggle through chaos.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: It’s pretty bad to be comprehensively owned on your own record, but as a mitigating factor, it’s less of a shame when one of the things outshining you is Natalia Lafourcade, and the whistle and strings on this are pretty great. The urgency suggested my the music isn’t matched by the song, with the chorus being a big dramatic nothing. Esteman’s voice is fine, but the second verse of this in particularly makes me think he could make a fine living writing songs for Lafourcade to sing instead.
[6]

Rebecca A. Gowns: For a song about chaos, this is pretty business-as-usual. It hits all the requisite points of your typical indie rock anthem; it’s nice, but purely color-by-numbers, complete with “ohh ohh ohh” chorus, folky instruments, violin outro, yadda yadda. Belleza, sure! Caótica, not quite.
[6]