Today Bad Bunny is an idol, but one day he will be a legend, and he will be because of albums like I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN MORE PHOTOS. Does this mean it is the best album he has ever recorded? A masterpiece? It is probably neither, but it contains the talent, courage, ambition, and wit of the world's most popular Latin musician, a singer committed to artistic creativity and identity.
I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN MORE PHOTOS is the first great album of the year because like all of Bad Bunny's albums, it is an adventure from the very beginning. An adventure because every 20 seconds there is an unexpected turn, a surprise, and the listening experience progresses from start to finish in a series of jolts. Bad Bunny is not a rabbit but a magician who pulls an endless succession of tricks out of his hat that activate one after the other like a chain of dominoes.
Any element of the song serves Bad Bunny to take the listener out of routine: there is, of course, the freshness of his lyrics, capable of offering a twist in every verse; there is the variety of musical styles, which in this sixth album range from present to past, from reggaeton, dembow, electronic, and perreo to traditional Puerto Rican genres such as jíbaro music, plena, bomba, salsa, and bolero; there is the production, driven by surprising decisions and constant shifts, and the sound design, so broad, rich, and modern; and there is the diversity of song types, with playful antics, confessions of melancholy and heartbreak, and very emotional moments.
Everything piles up like layers that offer different levels of interpretation of the songs and the musical cycle they form. A Bad Bunny album, and I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN MORE PHOTOS may be the best example of his career, it is much more than the sum of its parts.
Puerto Rico is the theme that connects the songs with inflamed patriotism: the album should be listened to as Bad Bunny's tribute to his country, its traditions, its people, the diaspora, and his own identity, and also as a denunciation of the limitations and problems facing the island. "If I die tomorrow, I hope they never forget my face/ And play one of my songs the day they bring Hostos./ In the casket, the light blue flag./ And remember that it was always me, always Benito," he sings in the last song, THE MuDANZA. "I do it with balls and with ovaries/ Millionaire without ceasing to be from the neighborhood, so you know".
I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN MORE PHOTOS is in that sense a journey to the past as a search for identity and authenticity. Bad Bunny achieved global success in 2020 and solidified it in 2022 with the masterful A Summer Without You. As a reaction, since then he has released two albums in which he explores his origins (in the case of nobody knows what will happen tomorrow, his beginnings in trap music), which can be interpreted as a search for his integrity in the face of the disappointments and servitudes of fame.
Just as Puerto Rican music from different eras is blended (the time frame can even be limited to reggaeton songs, ranging from current sounds to the genre's origins, marquesina reggaeton), the collaborators are exclusively from the island: Chuwi, Dei V, Omar Courtz, Pleneros de la Cresta, and RaiNao. A great torrent of music combining Caribbean music from various generations.
With productions mainly by Tainy, MAG, and La Paciencia, I SHOULD HAVE TAKEN MORE PHOTOS is a versatile, hybrid, and consistent album, a great journey in constant motion with fabulous songs like UNFORGETTABLE DANCE, I WILL TAKE YOU TO PR, COFFEE WITH RUM or NEWYORK. It is better than nobody knows what will happen tomorrow (2023), but worse than A Summer Without You (2022), which is not only his masterpiece but also the best Latin album of this decade, and has fewer hits than YHLQMDLG (2020).