Rock for the masses… (meat)

I put on the taekwondo gear before saying this album is one of the most important cultural events that have ever happened in this country; a frank revolution, as groundbreaking as the Literacy Campaign or Víctor Manuel. The self-confidence arrived and the euphemism died.

Almost since the beginning one was already warned: “Asere, we are not going to say so many bad words on this album (…), if you say pinga, hell, they don't put you on the radio asere, besides, it's really hard that they don't put you on! "; and towards ´´Manuel´´ ending when Gorki repeats the refrain one last time, but more slowly: “Ay, Manuel! I know that you give the… pseñeserescarforestain… for a steak ”and immediately the group chorus:“ Ass! ”. There is mockery first, and declaration, proclamation, gesture later. I am going to make a stop in order to analyze this last segment due to I think it states well enough what ´´Porno para Ricardo´´ is.

Beyond bad words, which are a species, ´´Porno´´ are interested in cursed words, those which are forbidden, being a genre themselves. In their musical speech, ´´pinga and cojone´´ appears as often as perpetuar, verdugo o pastillas.´´

Before Gorki and Ciro, in Cuban music the cursed words were said obliquely (may this parenthesis be used to excuse my ignorance about the local rap scene), with periphrasis and double meanings. Only in an exceptional and sporadic way someone dared to. There is Santiago for instance, saying ´´culo´´ in ´´Rock & Rollito de Fulanito y Menganito´´, Varela with his marijuana cigar from ´´Como un angel´´, and Vanito giving us the unforgettable choral moment from ´´Divino guion´´, that of… ´´Havana Abierta te lo trae de pinga´´´. But unlike the cursed words of Porno, ´´Vanito's pinga´´ and Varela's marijuana have a heroic nuance, of “look how irreverent I am”. Not in Porno. In Porno, since cursed words are said plenty of times, they have become normalized, they appear integrated into the tone of the discourse.

The word ass is repeated all along in ´´Manuel´´. It is not necessary to mask it at the end. For this reason, as unnecessary, Gorki's unintelligible babbling in the epilogue of the song is a montage, it is pure mockery of artists who feel compelled to resort to dissimulation. The band parodies first, using the false euphemism, and, two seconds later, takes a position. The "Ass!" chorus finale is a manifesto, and it means: "Nothing happens, you idiot."

I heard them for the first time in Lucas; I think with the video ´´El cake´´. Of the few appearances they had on national television. I don't remember how old I was, but I did have a strange feeling: I didn't like that but I couldn't stop looking. They also appeared on Cuerda Viva, in a program dedicated to humor in music. Ana María Rabasa had to invent that theme to justify her presence. Of course, they took advantage and made a demonstration. In a similar gesture to that of Morrissey on the British television show Top of the Pops - when he substitutes his microphone for a bouquet of flowers that ridiculed the entire scene and questioned the act of performing with playbacks - these spoiled boys placed computer keyboards where guitars were supposed to be, and an accordion where the bass should be. Moreover, those who apply pigeonhole ´´Porno para Ricardo´´ are mistaken, at least in this first stage, like a social-political band like Rage Against the Machine, or a humorous one like ´´Los Mojinos Escozios´´.

The irreverence of Porno goes even further. It is pure brat; because if. That is why it was so difficult to interview them, and that is why it hurt me so much to see Gorki, long after that Cuerda Viva, in Miami, smiling and relaxed, surrounded by old men who said "bravo!" and they applauded him while he sang a shitty song about Raúl.

Sexist, homophobic, racist, poorly recorded, punk; I put this album on the shelf of masterpieces. Here is the best Gorky (Ciro still did not get everything he had); the dissatisfied pioneer, the one with the tantrum and the scream, the one who was imprisoned afterwards, the one who still makes me nod until I have a stiff neck when, in Boat, He says: "And, changing the subject, did you see the soap opera yesterday? How did you taste that delicious candy that your dad gives you so you don't eat and stay full? Believe it or not, man is given to lies. Now I prefer a whore to pretend to me that she is in love and give her life for me; because more whore than the whore is my dick"