A Song, A Step: `Macarena' Takes Off, A Hot Hit That's Way Cool

The bass has the shimmery electronic bounce of techno. The Spanish lyrics are cornball throwback to pop-Flamenco. The beat is tough to resist. And that chorus!

Hey, Macarena!

The surprise hit of the summer, "Macarena," a 3-year-old single from Los Del Rio, a middle-aged duo from Spain, is also a dance craze - the kind of thing that has every mark of being the kind of standard you're likely to hear at parties and sports events in years to come.

It's a Latin line dance in the tradition of the Hustle or the Electric Slide, one you can learn in a single wedding reception. And it's way cooler than the Chicken Dance.

An earlier Latin hit tied to a dance craze met a more skeptical public when "The Lambada" was introduced in song and two full-length feature films in 1990. The movies bombed; the single reached only No. 46. "Macarena," in a remix by the Bayside Boys, is a smash hit.

The charm of "Macarena" is that it gained its popularity Stateside at the grass-roots level, from disc jockeys at bar mitzvahs and cruise ships looking to do something besides the limbo as a novelty to get people involved.

"It's as popular if not more than the Electric Slide, which is a must for every party," says Rob Guilmette, a disc jockey who has been playing "Macarena" since last September.

So popular, in fact, that members of the U.S. women's gymnastics team incorporated it into a performance Tuesday night at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.

"In terms of line dances, it's more fun and exciting than, say, the Alley Cat, which is now passe," he says. "There's more body movement, so it's more fun." And it's easy to teach, Guilmette adds. "Thirty seconds, and you're done."

A crucial turning point for the song came last August, when its dance moves were introduced in the big annual East Coast disc jockey convention in Atlantic City. Then, like a lot of dance hits in the Top 40, the song became a hit on the dance floor before it did on the radio.

"Macarena" is a throwback to the pre-rock era, when a popular song would be on the charts in a number of different versions. "Macarena" is on this week's charts three times - in the hit Bayside Boys mix as well as the original version by Los Del Rio (at No. 53) and a cover version by the Canadian band Los Del Mar (at No. 80).

"Macarena" has been No. 1 in the Eurochart and tops the chart in Denmark, Belgium and France. It's in the Top 5 in France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland. A correspondent to Billboard notes that "Macarena" was the No. 1 hit of the year in Peru.

In Spain, where all this started, a Los Del Rio sequel called "Macarena Dance Party" is heading up to the top spot. It's the sixth remake of the song by the pop-Flamenco duo of Antonio Romeo Monge and Rafael Ruiz, who think their international success might have something to do with their playing for the pope in 1994.

The two had been recording since the '60s and had written 300 songs and recorded 30 albums before Monge was inspired by a flamenco dancer in Caracas, Venezuela, named Diana Patricia.

So vibrant was her performance that Monge called out: "Give your body joy, Macarena, that your body is to give joy and good things." He incorporated the encouragement into a song he wrote that night.

Macarena, a woman's name in Spain, is also the name of a revered virgin from Seville.

The song tells of a vain girl who doesn't care as her boyfriend, Vitorino (named after a major cattle company in Spain), is being sworn in as a soldier. She goes out and dances anyway.

When the song was released in April 1993 on a small label in Spain, it became a summer hit there. Only after the label was bought by the giant BMG in 1994 was it decided to market the song internationally.

A hit in several Spanish-speaking countries, the Big Mac didn't get the Big Mo stateside until the current English-language remix by the Bayside Boys, a Miami team, in which Macarena is decidedly sassier, saying, "What was I supposed to do? He was out of town, and his two friends were so fine."

The Bayside Boy mix has other familiar elements, particularly the laugh that begins the song, borrowed from Yazoo's 1982 dance hit "Situation." Then a second sample of Ann Bancroft's voice of Mrs. Robinson from "The Graduate," saying, "I am not trying to seduce you."

Finally comes the uncredited, flirty, English-speaking voice of Macarena herself, boasting, "They all want me, they can't have me, so they all come and dance beside me."

And bringing home the chorus are Los Del Rios themselves, who appear in the video, which packs more vibrancy and kitschy fun than anything MTV manages to whip up for its Beach House promotions.

It took seven months for "Macarena" to climb this far up the charts. "There hasn't been a party I've done in six months where someone hasn't asked for it," says Guilmette.

But how long will it last? Guilmette says he's sure it will become a staple of dances for at least another decade. "Look at the Electric Slide. It came out in the '80s and is still very popular."