Ab major · Camelot 4B · 123 BPM
Suavemente
by Elvis Crespo
- 123
- BPM
- Ab major
- Key
- 4B
- Camelot
- 81
- Danceability
- 23
- Acousticness
Elvis Crespo composed "Suavemente" himself for his first solo album, which he recorded after leaving Grupo Manía. He had joined the Puerto Rican merengue band as lead vocalist in 1995, and in 1997 he departed to pursue a solo career, signing with Sony Discos. Crespo credited his son for the song's success, saying the boy spent an entire afternoon singing it and told his father it would be a hit.
The track came out as the lead single from the album Suavemente. It debuted at number 15 on the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks in April 1998, climbed to number six a week later, and reached number one on May 16, 1998, where it stayed for six consecutive weeks. It became only the second merengue song to top that chart, after Juan Luis Guerra's "El Costo de la Vida", and finished as the tenth best-performing Latin single of 1998.
Crespo also re-recorded "Suavemente" with Spanglish lyrics, and that version appeared in the 1998 film Dance with Me. The song crossed over onto the Billboard Hot 100 and picked up a Premios Lo Nuestro award along with two Latin Billboard Music Awards the following year. Two music videos were made, one for the original version with background montages and another for the Spanglish remix.
Suavemente runs at 123 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.95 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 488 ms. It is in Ab major, Camelot 4B, which shares its notes with F minor and mixes cleanly with Db major and Eb major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.