![]() When the Spanish chorus kicks in, Romero and Ruiz pop up in three-piece suits and the widest grins you've ever seen. It's nothing more than a parade of women lip-syncing the song in front of a white backdrop. In an era with elaborate, expensive, high-concept music videos from superstar artists like Michael Jackson, the video for "Macarena (Bayside Boys Remix)" was self-consciously low-tech. 1 on the Billboard charts, a spot it would not give up until the fall of that year. One month later, the song had shot up to No. The music video for "Macarena (Bayside Boys Remix)" dropped in July 1996, launching the song into the American popular consciousness. This new version slowly started catching on with listeners in heavily Latinx areas like South Florida, but there was still one piece missing from the puzzle that would change the course of Los del Rio's career forever. The song's new verses would be in English, but retain the Spanish chorus as sung by Romero and Ruiz. Caride was fielding numerous requests from listeners for "Macarena," but was forbidden from playing anything on his radio station that was exclusively in a language other than English. ![]() Today, "Macarena" has been remixed countless times and in multiple languages, but the remix that caught on was produced by Mike Triay and Carlos de Yarza, who were known as the "Bayside Boys."Īs legend has it, Triay and de Yarza were asked by radio DJ Jammin’ John Caride of Miami's Power 96 FM to create a version of the song with English lyrics that could appeal to American audiences. The conflict went as far as court proceedings in Spain, but a Fangoria version of "Macarena" didn't end up becoming the crossover smash we all remember. This is where the history of "Macarena" gets hazy.Ī Spanish dance duo named Fangoria claimed for years that they were owed money for work done to arrange and remix the song back in the '90s, but Los del Rio deny those claims. That led the record company to request a more mainstream dance remix with English-language lyrics. The original flamenco version of "Macarena" was a huge domestic hit in Spain in the early 1990s. But thanks to a series of fortuitous events and near-misses, "Macarena" would become one of the biggest songs in history. It all could have ended here, with a catchy, if unmemorable Spanish flamenco record. It may come as a shock to those who danced to the song at weddings and cruises to discover the lyrics tell the tale of a promiscuous woman named Macarena who is unfaithful to her husband while he's away in the army. For the purposes of the song, they named the protagonist "Macarena," after Romero's daughter, Esperanza Macarena. In classic one-hit wonder fashion, they say the writing took a grand total of about five minutes. Her moves so impressed Romero and Ruiz that, on the spot, they set about writing the lyrics to the song that would become their biggest hit. According to an interview with Spanish Vanity Fair in 2015, the two men saw a flamenco dancer by the name of Diana Patricia Cubillán. ![]() At the time, they were mostly known for flamenco and lounge music, and bummed around Madrid playing club gigs.īut everything changed for Romero and Ruiz during a chance meeting with the Venezuelan businessman Gustavo Cisneros. There was no reason to assume the group would ever extend their cultural reach beyond the popular music of their native country. Antonia Romero and Rafael Ruiz started performing together in Spain as Los del Rio in 1966. ![]()
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