The Song
Title: Besitos
Artist: Pierce the Veil
Album: Selfish Machines
Year: 2010
The Story
I once told a friend that, when it came to music, I didn’t have any guilty pleasures because I never feel guilty about listening to something that I enjoy.1 And that’s still true! But when my fortitude on that front is tested, it’s not by my deep and abiding love of all things Sara Bareilles or even by my love of the occasional Meghan Trainor single. No, it’s by my affinity for “Besitos,” a song best described as the four-minute sonic distillation of everything about Hot Topic during Obama’s first term.
“Besitos” is empty calories. It’s two parts Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, one part Pete Wentz, one part generic mall emo, shaken and finished with a splash of Diet Mountain Dew. It’s too sugary, almost certainly glows in the dark, and will leave a gross film on your teeth. All of which would be an insult if it weren’t coming from someone capable of guzzling a 20 oz. Dr. Pepper in one swig or polishing off a whole bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in a single sitting.2 I love empty calories. But they’re hard to praise.
“Besitos” is all whiny vocals, needless screaming, and guitar work that vacillates between frantic riffing and chunky power chords, sprinkled with drum fills and irritating lyrics.3 Back in 2005, Kevin Dye—friend, reader, and lead singer of Gates—once joked that Chiodos’ All’s Well That Ends Well was a great screamo record because it codified all the cliches of the genre in one tidy package.4 And then, five years later, “Besitos” took the same approach, incorporating every new wrinkle that Equal Vision had been able to churn out in the ensuing half-decade. There’s not a single thing that happens in this song that’s not done better elsewhere. And yet it’s a great song!
Mocking any song for three paragraphs is a tough way to start a recommendation and it only gets harder when you open the fourth paragraph by shitting on the production but that has to be done here too because “Besitos” sounds like it was recorded by placing a laptop mic six inches off a Crate combo.5 But all my teasing only emphasizes the weird alchemy at work here because this song absolutely rips. For all the faults of its individual parts, “Besitos” totally works. It’s hard and fast, heavy and catchy, big and passionate. It’s a great song, even if I feel (almost) guilty about saying it.
I give “Besitos” four out of five stars.
Thanks for reading, Dan!
If you ever run into these bad boys in the real world, buy them. Then carefully package them and send them to me. I’ll get you back later.
I used to write a column called the Lyricist, so we need to take a minute to talk about how well this song nails the old emo standby of seeming profound while being totally nonsensical. Devoted fans on Genius will tell you that the lines “a violin with no hands / plays symphonies with no words / a drowning boy with no voice prays / someone up there’s telling me / you’d better not get back up” are about the impact of silence and romantic power dynamics. I will tell you that they don’t mean anything because their metaphors are both mixed and incomplete. What a combo! And, of course, there’s the inescapable casual misogyny of the era. A real treat, that.
I really hope this line spurs a Gates-Chiodos rivalry that ends with Craig Owens admitting begrudging respect as he plays the flash game about him that was designed by Kevin’s brother Matt in, like, 2006. (Hey, Matt!)
It sounds bad, is the translation here for those of you who weren’t recording basement demos in 2006.