An Essential ‘Buena Vista' Song Finds Its Emotional Place on Broadway
One night in 1984, Compay Segundo, the Cuban singer and guitarist, heard in his dreams what would become his signature song.
'I woke up hearing those four sensitive notes,' Segundo recalled later on. 'I gave them a lyric inspired by a children's tale from my childhood, 'Juanica y Chan Chan.''
A hypnotic account of peasant life in Cuba, 'Chan Chan' has a peculiar power, with four circular, mesmerizing opening chords that make it instantly recognizable. It gained a regional following when it was cut by the guitarist and singer Eliades Ochoa. But a recording of the song, in 1996, by a group of celebrated Cuban musicians who had been assembled for an album to be called 'Buena Vista Social Club,' would become a phenomenon.
Now more than 25 years after its release, the best-selling world music album of all time has made it to Broadway in a new musical also titled 'Buena Vista Social Club.' 'Chan Chan' is among eight of the album's 10 songs featured in the show and, perhaps not surprising for such a dramatic and mysterious track, it plays a crucial role in a pivotal moment in the story.
As the album of mostly older Cuban standards became a global sensation upon its release in 1997, Segundo's song — about sifting sand by the sea and clearing a straw path along a journey to Cuban towns — became a standout all its own. 'Chan Chan' was never released as a single, but the opening track has been streamed more than 250 million times on Spotify, almost three times more than anything else on the album. (That number is roughly the same as Toni Braxton's 'Un-Break My Heart' and Hanson's 'MMMBop,' both No. 1 hits in 1997.)
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
King Charles to Sit Out Major Royal Event in Stunning Break From Tradition
King Charles to Sit Out Major Royal Event in Stunning Break From Tradition originally appeared on Parade. will reportedly sit out a major royal event—the 2025 Trooping the Colour parade—in a stunning break from tradition amid his cancer battle. On Saturday, June 14, the annual event celebrating the birthday of the British sovereign will be held. Part of the day steeped in tradition includes a parade, for which the reigning monarch rides on horseback. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 However, King Charles, 76, will not ride on a horse for the 2025 Trooping the Colour, The Times reported. The eldest child of the late will instead ride in a horse-drawn carriage during the procession from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guards Parade and back. King Charles brought back the riding-on-horseback tradition for the 2023 Trooping the Colour parade, his first as monarch after Queen Elizabeth died at 96 in September 2022. Before then, Queen Elizabeth last rode on horseback for the procession in 1986. The royal also rode in a carriage with his wife, , 77, in 2024, four months after announcing his cancer diagnosis. According to The Times, King Charles is not expected to ride on horseback again at Trooping the Colour. Related: Meanwhile, , 40, and , 43, will sit out the 2025 Trooping the Colour completely amid an ongoing rift between them and the rest of the royal family after the Sussexes relocated to the U.S. in 2020. Luckily for royal fans, , 42, , 43, and their three children—Prince George, 11, , 10, and , 7—are expected to participate in the Trooping the Colour on June 14. We can't wait to see photos! Next: King Charles to Sit Out Major Royal Event in Stunning Break From Tradition first appeared on Parade on Jun 10, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 10, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
International Pop Superstars Thrill Fans with 'Spectacular' Moment During Performance of Debut Hit
International Pop Superstars Thrill Fans with 'Spectacular' Moment During Performance of Debut Hit originally appeared on Parade. Arguably the biggest band in the world right now is Coldplay. The English superstars burst onto the scene with their debut album "Parachutes," which became an instant success. The band has never looked back. Every single album they've made has spawned a massive hit, leaving them one of the most decorated music acts of all time. They have over 100 million albums sold, have appeared three separate times in the top 50 best selling British albums, and were the first band to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify and 1 billion dollars in tour sales. Needless to say, the band is a hit. At a recent show, many concert goers were delighted by a performance of Coldplay's first hit off of their debut album, the song "Yellow." Take a look. The song still holds up after all these years, leaving fans and concert goers alike delighted by the performance. They left their cheers and praises in the comments. "Best concert I've ever been to 100%." "One of the best nights of my life. 💕" "Worth every penny. Worth every second. Wish I could relive it all over again." It seems that Coldplay is doing what they do best -- giving a great show, and making memories. Here's to more great performances!🎬SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬 International Pop Superstars Thrill Fans with 'Spectacular' Moment During Performance of Debut Hit first appeared on Parade on Jun 3, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 3, 2025, where it first appeared.
Time Magazine
14 hours ago
- Time Magazine
Call Her Alex Isn't a Portrait of Alex Cooper—It's an Infomercial for Her Brand
In the breakout third episode of Call Her Daddy, the podcast's co-hosts, Alexandra Cooper and Sofia Franklyn, encouraged a male listener to track his crush's movements via Snapchat, advised a woman that there was no need to tell her boyfriend about her sugar daddy, and plotted to sell dirty Coachella shoes to foot fetishists. But the bit that really made 'Gluck Gluck 9000,' posted on Oct. 3, 2018, a classic was Cooper's lively and detailed description of the eponymous, supposedly game-changing oral sex technique. Six years and three days later, Cooper hosted an episode of the same podcast in which she posed to Kamala Harris, then the Vice President of the United States and Democratic candidate for President, questions about mental health, reproductive rights post- Roe, and the economic challenges facing young people. How did the Call Her Daddy that launched, not so long ago, as a chronicle of two 20-something Lower East Side roommates' X-rated exploits evolve into the ultra-mainstream Call Her Daddy of today? The short answer is that Cooper and Franklyn's cheerfully raunchy banter quickly attracted an audience of millions and just kept getting more popular, fueled by successive deals with the fratty platform Barstool Sports, then Spotify, and now a three-year Sirius XM contract reportedly worth $125 million. A more illuminating explanation for the show's expansion into a media empire would require an understanding of who Cooper—a solo act since Franklyn's departure in 2020—really is. The Hulu doc Call Her Alex presumably exists to offer such insight. But in just two scattered episodes (whose release as a series rather than a feature probably comes down to marketing), it's less a portrait of the podcaster than an infomercial for her brand. Directed by Ry Russo-Young (Nuclear Family, And Just Like That) and, crucially, produced by Cooper's company Unwell, Call Her Alex takes a form so typical of the authorized 21st century celebrity documentary, it's become a cliché. Behind-the-scenes footage of Cooper preparing for her first tour, which she's determined to make more exciting than the live tapings that comprise so many podcasters' events, is paired with a roughly chronological origin story. In the present, tension builds around troubled rehearsals of a program that includes musical numbers where Cooper is flanked by male dancers. The pressure to give her beloved listeners, known as the Daddy Gang, an unforgettable night seems insurmountable. An anxious Cooper seeks comfort from her unflappable husband and business partner, Matt Kaplan (a figure so adored by the Daddy Gang, some audience members carry giant cutouts of his face). Of course, as the trope dictates, last-minute disasters give way to an unequivocally triumphant opening night. The biographical portions can feel evasive—weirdly so, considering that messiness and candor are central to Cooper's brand—often swerving away from uncomfortable topics. She recalls escaping the pain of boys' bullying, as a skinny redhead, by bonding with other girls on the soccer field and making videos with friends. Then, suddenly, the awkward childhood photos are replaced by images of the perfectly proportioned and coiffed blonde she'd become by the time she matriculated at Boston University. There's no talk of how this glow-up might've affected her personal life or career, or the messages it might send to skinny redheads who worship Father Cooper, as she calls herself. The defining contradiction of Call Her Daddy, like Cosmo and the 'female chauvinist pigs' of Y2K pop culture, is its frequent implication that female empowerment requires catering to male desires. But Russo-Young never really interrogates Cooper's gluck-gluck feminism. Also conspicuously downplayed is the Cooper-Franklyn split, a perennial hot topic for the Daddy Gang. Talking heads who lived through it allude to a breakdown of the women's personal relationship as well as their professional partnership, as they renegotiated their initially meager Barstool contract—old news. Cooper doesn't have much to say about this. And while Barstool's controversial founder, Dave Portnoy, who also became a character in the contract drama, offers a few anodyne words of praise for Cooper in the doc, Franklyn is only glimpsed in archival footage. Anyone hoping to learn more about the end of the friendship, which isn't necessarily unreasonable for fans of a show premised on the intimacy of girl talk, will be disappointed. Still, Cooper is too savvy to put out a product entirely devoid of revelations. The morsel of news that started circulating in the days leading up to the series' release concerns the accusations of sexual harassment she levels in Call Her Alex against a since-retired BU soccer coach. Framed by Cooper's return to Boston for her tour, her story of a female coach who she says pried into her sex life and touched her inappropriately and used the students' scholarships to manipulate them—and of the university's alleged refusal to act on her scrupulously documented complaint—is infuriating. (Boston University has yet to comment on these allegations.) It also complicates Cooper's memories of soccer as a safe space and her choice to build a career around what is often euphemized as locker-room talk, though those aspects of the ordeal are barely explored. Instead, it's framed as yet another chance for Cooper to demonstrate her strength and tenacity. 'I was so determined,' she says in a voiceover that accompanies her stroll across an empty BU soccer field, 'to find a way where no one could ever silence me again.' Cooper is indeed a force—shrewd, ambitious, dynamic, hard-working. She knows her worth and fights for it. But that much has been obvious for years, to anyone with a casual awareness of her ascent to media-mogul status, as she's built an empire that now includes a media company (Trending), a podcast platform (Unwell Network), and an electrolyte drink (Unwell Hydration). The Daddy Gang certainly gets it. Which raises the question of who the audience for this documentary is supposed to be. Potential business partners, maybe? Watching Call Her Alex, at times, I felt as though I was being pitched a product: an empowered woman whose brand is female empowerment. All this marketing detracts from an element of Cooper's personality that is far more fascinating and rare and, I think, critical to her appeal than the stuff Russo-Young focuses on: she's great with people. The glimpses we do see of her interactions with fans are among the doc's highlights. When an audience member at one of her tour dates tearfully recounts how Call Her Daddy helped her cope with her father's death from cancer, Cooper calls her up to the stage, gets her a chair, sits at the young woman's feet, holds her hand, listens and reacts to every sentence of her story. Any performer could go through these same motions, but Cooper's care and curiosity—whether she's talking to a fan or a disgruntled employee or the most powerful woman in U.S. history—always come across as genuine. When she tells someone 'I f-cking love you,' which she often does, it sounds like she means it. This is probably why so many of her Gen Z listeners have likened her to a big sister. Yet she's something more complicated, too, a comforting but also aspirational figure, whose ugly-duckling-to-sex-goddess-swan transformation has left her with an unusual combination of empathy for the everygirl and the charisma to make that Daddy Gang diehard feel special. In a world that plays mean girls against mere mortals, she plays the part of the people's Regina George, her burn book replaced by an endless supply of sincere compliments.
