12 October 2002
Hands up: who heard this and as a result assumed ‘aserejé’ was Spanish for a tomato? And up goes my hand. It’s actually just a made-up word that runs together a few well-known anglophone pop vocalisms: “I said a-hey” and the like. To be precise, it’s the character in the song, a disco-goer called Diego, trying to sing along to the start of ‘Rapper’s Delight’ by the Sugarhill Gang. So, that’s good to know. Less edifying is the information, again new to me, that this trio of sisters are called Las Ketchup because their father was a musician known by the stage name of El Tomate, which is indeed Spanish for the tomato. Best not overthink that one.
Despite this first being a number one in autumnal October, then re-topping our charts in wintry November, even by name alone ‘The Ketchup Song’ by Las Ketchup certainly sails under the flag of summer holiday souvenir trinket. In ‘Macarena’ style it even had its own mass-participation novelty dance. I’d also add factors like the kids’ hit for the school-run breakfast-radio demographic, plus our new-to-’00s friend the viral Internet hit. Unappealing as all that sounds, and given how I took the precaution of giving it a wide and wary berth in 2002 anyway, ‘Aserejé’ is not unpleasant. Its rolling flamenco verses are breezy and sunny. The chord changes for the repeat parts of the chorus make it a less invasive earworm than the more nagging early ’00s Euro-dance chart-toppers also brought back from foreign nightspots. And while the vocal trio don’t bring the sly, sultry grind of ‘Macarena’, at least they’re not the two doddery old fellas of ‘Macarena’. My Spanish has improved too.
