“I’m only interested in a label if they come through with whatever terms I send them,” Cuco told Rolling Stone last year. Interscope must have come through. According to Billboard, the 21-year-old bedroom-pop songwriter signed a seven-figure deal with the label, which promised him freedom and flexibility. That’s as much a testament to Omar Banos’ devoted fanbase as it is an admission by the suits that they no longer care to dictate the conversation. Why risk a flop when they can just follow the streams?
Para Mí, Cuco’s major-label debut, arrives with no other hands on the joystick. It’s just Banos, who’s still writing songs about love and other drugs and whose eclecticism is still confined to the more pleasant parts of the color wheel. The album pulses with the influence of Kevin Parker, as well as multi-instrumentalist tinkerers like Toro y Moi, Sen Morimoto, and Mac DeMarco. Its backward-seeming track sequence improves significantly as it goes along; its instrumental interludes are better than most of the songs. Para Mí may have been the result of a near-fatal car crash, but the album is a happy meanderer. Cuco knows it. His introduction concludes with the question, “Where is this fool going?”
Nowhere, really. Cuco’s unadorned songwriting isn’t for everyone. If you’re not in a place to appreciate a line like, “Don’t play with me/You broke my heart/But I’m also so obsessed with you,” the early portions of the album will be frustrating. (That’s from the third track, “Bossa No Sé.”) Stretch similarly simple lyrics over five minutes of gentle psychedelia and you have “Love Tripper,” the insipid song that’s smack in the middle.
Still, Banos’ appeal is undeniable. Every so often he hits upon a great dumb couplet, as irresistable as Best Coast’s early love for the ultimate Californian rhyme, “crazy/lazy.” (Cuco’s biggest hit, 2018’s “Lo Que Siento,” shared the same simple, sincere energy.) One of the highlights here is “Best Friend,” a ballad of devotion with a wry turn: “I know I’ve been quite dumb/But baby we’re quite young.” Awww.
It’s this shaggy charm that’s won over Cuco’s fans. A manager, Doris Muñoz, described the audience at an early backyard show: “Latinx teens singing every single lyric in English and Spanish to his music, which is inspired by our culture; it gave me chills.” Banos, whose parents are Mexican immigrants, has talked about how important it is to him to represent the Chicano community. But though his politics contextualize his music, Para Mí is not overtly political. When Cuco does get serious, it’s usually because he’s had a bad love affair. Once over the hump of “Love Tripper,” the album reaches a higher plane, starting with “Ego Death in Thailand,” where an insistent hook shoots skyward from the same gorgeous synths that make the interludes “Perihelion” and “Room Tone” so compelling. These tracks put muscle behind Cuco’s goofy obsession with psychedelics: They’re about expansion and exploration. Imagine Roger Troutman producing an all-instrumental album for Tame Impala featuring Mac DeMarco.
There are other standouts. “Hydrocodone” achieves a composure and balance that too much of the album’s first half lacks. The charming lyrics of “Best Friend” are all the more powerful because of the bossa nova rhythm and guitar they ride with. “Brokey the Pear” is like a lost Beach Boys interlude, with shades of “Let’s Go Away for Awhile.”
But “where is this fool going?” is a question Para Mí leaves unanswered. The repetitive, literal writing and head-scratching sequencing makes it seem like a bad thing that Cuco’s main sentiments are “I love you,” “I hate you,” and “I’m sad.” (Good pop songs are made of those sentiments too, of course, but they’re usually strengthened by more layered writing, more tightly constructed songs, or both.) Across an album, the weaknesses are magnified. There are not enough songs like “Lo Que Siento” here, heartfelt ballads that could close out a concert. Maybe in the old days, someone would have insisted that Para Mí shed some of its dead weight and be released as an EP. But, reportedly, it’s in Cuco’s contract; no one’s going to do that. It just means he’ll have to find his own way.
