I would never… in a million years — or five years, give or take — would have ever imagined that I would see the day of Kpop groups performing specifically for a Latin American audience. So the musical event known as Music Bank was held in Chile last month [1], featuring Super Junior, Afterschool, MBLAQ, Davichi, CNBLUE, and Rani and…

Sure, they did the mandatory Livin’ La Vida Loca performance and the mandatory Kpop Gangnam Style, but they also did Lambada — which is in itself quite impressive, even if~~~ a little clumsy with that stage — and then they went on singing El Hombre Que Yo Amo, and Gracias a la Vida, at which point they had already delivered. I mean, they didn’t need to, but they did.

Music acts in other places, other than Japan (and maybe China), are not required to perform in other languages. We’re all accustomed to sing in English when Aerosmith comes over, and we sure as hell don’t expect Justin Bieber to sing in Spanish, even if pop groups in America used to have one or two tracks in Spanish (or other languages). No, it seems now other language versions are left to the fans and their covers, which aren’t half bad – just check out the Spanish version of Call Me Maybe [YouTube] or G-Dragon’s Spanish version of Heartbreaker [YouTube] or Big Bang’s Love Song [YouTube] or GD&TOP’s Knock Out [YouTube] — or just check out Seba Dupont’s YouTube channel, they have LOADS of covers.

So for the groups to have learned these Spanish songs to perform for this show in specific, it takes dedication and a respect.

It feels good to dish your money when that happens.