La excepción

The opening riff of La excepción doesn’t sound like the rest of the album. It’s short, almost sharp, and repeats with a twist that makes it addictive: it’s not a perfect loop, but one that stretches and contracts without warning. That detail is what sets it apart from the other songs on Ahí vamos, where Cerati usually works with more predictable structures. The vocals come in right after, almost like a whisper forcing its way through the guitars, and that’s the trick: it’s not a melody to be sung, but one to be felt. The bass and drums don’t just accompany—they push, giving it that sense of urgency that makes the track hard to forget.They recorded it in less than a week, using borrowed equipment and with no time to perfect takes.

The result is raw, as if each instrument is fighting to break through. Cerati wrote the lyrics at the last moment, or so the story goes, and it shows: no embellishments, just lines that feel like they’ve been torn straight from a private diary. The song was released as the second single in September 2006, after the massive success of Crimen, but without the same promotion. Yet it still made its way onto radio stations in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Spain, and ended up winning the Latin Grammy for Best Rock Song that year. It wasn’t the longest track on the album—4:12—but it’s one of those cuts that, once heard, sticks in your head forever.