There was a time when the single had a clear and almost unquestioned purpose within the music industry: to service radio. Three minutes, a tight structure, an immediate hook—everything engineered for rotation and repetition. Radio airplay promised visibility, legitimacy, and mass circulation, yet this system was never neutral. Mainstream radio has long functioned as a gatekeeping apparatus, filtering out independent music in favor of commercial priorities and market-friendly aesthetics. Within this landscape, the underground inherited the single not as a genuine point of entry, but as a relic of a system that consistently shut its doors.

“Radio Singles”, the new EP by Potenciómetro (René Roco, Polwor & Mika Martini), engages this legacy with a sense of irony. At its center lies “Qué es lo que quieres, baby” (“What Is It That You Want, Baby”), presented in two versions: one produced and performed by the trio, and another generated through artificial intelligence, as if the track itself were questioning its own function. The lyrics lean deliberately into irony, oscillating between commentary and parody, while the production pushes toward an electronic sound tinged with seventies nostalgia—an echo of a radio dial that few are still listening to.

The EP closes with “Gliptodontes en fuga” (“Glyptodonts on the Run”), a track built for the dance floor, where hypnotic rhythms, erratic textures, and spectral voices converge without seeking approval or validation. If the first gesture undermines the single as a format, the second reclaims it through motion: a reminder that irony, too, has a body -and can still make you move.

Potenciómetro (@potenciometro_cl)
(Santiago, Chile. March, 2026)