Bad Bunny Busts Out the VHS Camera for New Video Inspired by ‘Suavemente’
Bad Bunny just released a video for “Neverita,” from his latest album “Un Verano Sin Ti,” in the style of Elvis Crespo’s classic 1998 hit “Suavemente,” an iconic song with an even more iconic video. The track dominated Latino radio in the late 90s and early 2000s, and has been required listening at every wedding and quince for more than two decades.
With impressive attention to detail, Bad Bunny recreates almost the entire video perfectly, nailing some of the more iconic shots and even using the same backgrounds as the original video. The low-quality, VHS aesthetic is executed so well that, if you’d never seen the video or heard of the song, it would be almost impossible to know that it came out in 2022.
Released in 1998, “Suavemente” (the album and the song) brought merengue to the mainstream and made Crespo a superstar. While he has a number of other hits under his belt, “Suavemente” is iconic in a way that few songs are and is central to Crespo’s enduring legacy.
The video for “Suavemente” was directed by Simon Brand, who went on to direct a couple of movies, and currently has 184 million views on YouTube. Upon its original release, the song spent six weeks at the top of Billboard’s Hot Latin Chart and took home two Billboard Latin Music Awards in 1999. The song went platinum that same year after selling a million units.
As for Bad Bunny, it seems like everything he touches turns to gold. El Rey Midas, if you will. His latest album, “Un Verano Sin Ti,” debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s 200, selling nearly 275,000 copies in its first week alone. It is currently the most streamed album of 2022 and it’s looking like Bad Bunny will be the most streamed artist in the world for the third year in a row.
“Neverita” is the seventh single from “Un Verano Sin Ti,” following hits like “Callaíta” and “Moscow Mule.” However, all of the album’s 23 tracks have seen varying levels of success. After watching the videos for “Neverita” and “Suavemente,” it’s worth taking a look at “Un Summer Sin Ti,” a fan website dedicated to Bad Bunny that has an article outlining all of the video’s many references to Crespo’s original.
Bad Bunny ends the video by writing “In Honor of the Greatest Music Video of All Time.” Fans on Twitter can’t get enough of “Neverita” and have been pointing out all the similarities they’ve found between the two videos, with some posts even comparing one of Bad Bunny’s outfits to the infamous Russian club kid video that’s circulated on social media.
