Un Verano Sin Ti

Every summer, music slides back into our lives like a long-forgotten friend. The year's warmer months tend to give our brightest memories their own musical accompaniments, and with the industry's titans all pushing for song of the summer, producing a seasonal masterpiece requires not just an understanding of hit-making, but of the magic of the season itself. This is the type of music that defines years -- and since the 2010s, Bad Bunny has built an empire.
It's only fitting, then, that the Puerto Rican superstar should define the summer in his own terms. His fourth studio album, Un Verano Sin Ti ("A Summer Without You"), is a page-to-stage adaptation of the season itself, a representation of the ephemeral feeling that makes the year's middle months so revered. Across reggaeton anthems and lone-man ballads, he flits between the season's traditional ensemble -- from earnest party-starter on "Me Fui de Vacaciones" to smooth amarante on "Agosto" -- channeling his own memories to give each song some emotional depth. Nights on the San Juan seafront and trips to La Parguera make for snapshots of a life well-lived, while Benito paints a spectrum of loves won and lost; there's the exhilarating optimism of "Enséñame a Bailar," the bittersweet temporality of “Un Ratito,” and the suffocating lonerism of "Un Coco." Everything here moves with a fundamental easiness, the transient nature of the season written in fleeting romances and night-time drifts along the coast.
At the core of the project is the reggaeton that has defined the musician's early-2020s output: Tony Dize makes for a bold new sparring partner on the impassioned "La Corriente," JhayCo and Rauw Alejandro help lift the party off on the inventive "Tarot" and "Party," and solo tracks pay tribute to small-room sensuality ("Efecto," "Ojitos Lindos"). Lead single "Moscow Mule" proves a soulful successor to the year-defining "Dákiti," dressed in untarnished joy and sexed-up adrenaline, while "Después de la Playa" ups the tempo with an impassioned mid-track leap into Dominican-inspired merengue. With the project's expansive 23-track set list, Benito can flesh out a wider range of ritmos -- there's a taste of Afrobeats on the Lakizo-sampling "Enséñame a Bailar" and some flecks of bossa on the paranoid "Yo No Soy Celoso." The genre-flipping collages of El Último Tour make a triumphant return, but this time they're given space to bloom: the dembow-trap hybrid "Titi Me Preguntó" dives from hedonistic machismo to downcast introspection, "El Apagón" weaves a sparse PR tribute into a frenzied floor-filler, and rare four-plus-minute runtimes are afforded to the dreamboat pop of "Otro Atardecer" and the poignant "Andrea." "Dos Mil 16," a small-scale model of the rapper's Latin trap roots, revives Bad's oldest producer tag for a portal into a simpler era.
Un Verano is not only a seasonal statement piece but a testament to Benito's singular songwriting -- across genres, generations, and even languages he works to produce enduring landmarks that trace universal joys, sorrows, and passions. As the final amber tones of "Callaita" fade beyond the horizon and the wash of the waves begins to cease, you're reminded of just how far this cantante has come. ~ David Crone