"Lindo Pero Bruto" is a song by Mexican singer Thalía and Argentine singer Lali, from Thalía's fourteenth studio album, Valiente. Written and produced by Andrés Castro, Edgar Barrera, DalePlay, Oscarcito and Patrick Romantik, it was released by Sony Music Latin as the album's fourth single on January 25, 2019. In 2020, the song was named by Billboard magazine as one of the best all-female collaborations in Latin music.
Background
Rumors of a collaboration between the two singers started in March 2018, while Lali was promoting her single "100 Grados" in Mexico. There, she posted a video to her Instagram Stories in which she acknowledged Thalía, saying: "This story is particularly for Thalía, who followed me some time ago and got me so excited. So, while I am in Mexico, I want to send you a huge kiss and to tell you that you are the best." In October, 2018, previous to the release of Valiente, the song got leaked, which made Lali confirm the rumors, saying: "After what happened, I can confirm that I'm singing a song with Thalía!", adding that " is the greatest honor in the world and I'm just telling you one thing: #LPB, Lindo Pero Bruto. A worldwide hit with queen Thalía is coming!" Thalía admitted that while gossiping on Instagram, she came across a photo of Lali in Mexico and sent her a direct message, saying: "Let's do a worldwide hit!" "Lindo Pero Bruto" is a song dedicated to those men who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, don’t offer much, or are only good for one thing. The song has been described as "reggaeton meets pop music, very dance-ready and surely something that Latin radios and Latin clubs will love equally to play." Jeff Benjamin of Forbes magazine described the song as "a playful-yet-powerful reggaeton throbber."
Music video
Directed by Daniel Duran, the music video made its official premiere on American television show ¡Despierta América! on the morning ofJanuary 29, 2019. In the "candy-colored" music video for "Lindo Pero Bruto", both singers give life to a Barbie-inspired world filled with many neon colors, sweet treats, and dolls. Thalía and Lali play two female thinkers who are in a laboratory creating a futuristic machine to build a male prototype — in other words, the perfect man. However, they are the ones who become dolls. Described as "colorful, light-hearted and fun," the music video was inspired by the 1985 film Weird Science. Thalía and Lali celebrated the success of the music video on YouTube through a Facebooklive stream, which debuted at no. 2 on the January issue of the Billboard Top Facebook Live Videos Chart with 368 thousand views. It was also the most commented live stream of the month, with 14 thousand comments. The music video received a nomination for Best Video at the 2020 Heat Latin Music Awards.
Background
The shooting took around 15 hours and it took place in New York City. According to the singers, it was freezing in the city and Lali had to film in shorts and a tee. In an interview with Forbes magazine, Thalía said: "I had for a long time and I always wanted to do a video inspired by the '80s movie Weird Science and I always wanted to create my own doll and bring it to a plastic-fantastic, neon-pink-blue-world candyland. When I heard this song, I thought "boom!" the idea for so many years has landed! And I asked Lali, she said yes, and that completed the circle. As of January 2020, the video has been viewed around 75 million times on YouTube, and streamed more than 25 million times on Spotify.
As the title suggests, the song's feminist lyrics defy the machismo culture that still thrives in many countries, causing a bit of controversy in those places. Some people have interpreted the single as containing an anti-male message. However, Thalía admitted it's really a song about empowering anyone who listens to it – especially women. In an interview with ¡Despierta America!, when asked what would happen if a man told a woman she was "cute but dumb", the Mexican singer responded: "How many centuries, how many years have gone by for a song like this to exist. We've truly, as women, lived so many decades in which the roles have been the complete opposite, and it's now a time in which things are said as they are, there's no filter. I think women today, we're more united, more solid than ever in all aspects: political, artistic, religious, social. And I think it's time to have fun – to speak our minds."
