Bad Bunny, left, and J Balvin teamed up for “Oasis,” an eight-song collaborative album that was released as a surprise. Credit Left, Christopher Gregory for The New York Times; Right, Julien Mignot for The New York Times.
Two of the biggest Spanish-speaking global pop superstars discuss joining forces for the first “Watch the Throne”-style pairing in Latin music.
(Joe Coscarelli, “How J Balvin and Bad Bunny Made Their Surprise Album, ‘Oasis’,” NYTimes, 6-28-18)
In the universe of Spanish-speaking musical artists there is a sub-group who are global pop superstars. Within that sub-group, there co-exist in diminishing numbers the little global pop superstars, the bigger global pop superstars, and the biggest global pop superstars.
Among the biggest global pop superstars are found J Balvin and Bad Bunny. What distinguishes them from the other global pop superstars is that they have achieved superstardom on a global scale in pop music — in Spanish.
And surprise! They have made an album. No disrespect intended for these two excellent artists — they’re both on my playlist. It’s the ripe rhetoric of the NYTimes that invites a friendly grin. But these are the puffy times we’re in, language-wise.
(c) 2019 JMN
EthicalDative 
Musico-Logic Circles
“Circular argument”: An argument whose conclusion is the same as one of its premises. (Quora)
I flail about in music theory, often ending where I started — insufficiently informed and grandly blogging my perplexity. To feed this cause I’ve been on the lookout for a stimulating case of circular reasoning. Cue Margaret Renkl, who writes today that “the
primacy of an informed conscience belongs as deeply to church tradition as the current brand of pastoral authoritarianism does.”
Here’s the helpful circle:
My grasp of music theory is at odds with music theory! Undeterred now, I find the primacy of an informed conscience to be a stirring phrase. It will goad me while I mount Rocinante and break lances with the diatonic scale.
(c) 2019 JMN