Always Smiling, Always Lying: I Played “Extravaganza” on Repeat and Found a Song Built Entirely on -ing

Madrid, October 25, 2026. The first thing I saw was the building. Before a single note of “Extravaganza” played, the cover art had already told me half the story: a black-and-white photograph taken at night, a huge nineteenth-century building on a street corner, columns, stone balconies, lit windows, a dome crowning the tower. The street is wet. The lamps shine. And there is nobody there. Not a person, not a car, not a dog. Just the facade, lit up like a stage, and underneath it, in tall, thin pink letters, the title.

I let it loop for longer than I planned. By the third time through I understood why Mike Sain't Louis, the Madrid-based indie alternative artist who bills himself as “the first AI singer-songwriter,” had written an entire blog post about this one track. He writes every lyric himself; the music and the vocal performance are produced with artificial intelligence under his direction. What he brings is the word, the idea and the artistic eye. And in “Extravaganza,” the word is doing something sneaky.

A front built to be admired

Mike starts his own reading with the word facade, and so will I. In Spanish, as in English, it means two things: the front of a building, and the appearance someone puts on to hide what they are. The cover plays on both at once. It is a real building, all stone and balconies, and it is also a portrait of the woman at the center of the song: someone with an impeccable front, always lit, always smiling, inviting you to admire her. Until you get close.

What caught my attention, and his, is that empty street. A facade like that exists to be looked at. Without an audience, it loses its purpose. “Nobody smiles falsely when they are alone,” he writes. “It’s a smile for other people.”

The song lives on “Descubierto un nuevo planeta llamado GAYFOLK” (roughly, “A New Planet Called GAYFOLK Has Been Discovered”), the first album of his GAYFOLK trilogy. It came out on July 3, 2026, and in his full list of 273 singles it sits at number eight, right after “La insignia de artista.”

The grammar of a smile that never stops

Here is the part a non-Spanish speaker might miss, and the part that made me go back and read the lyrics line by line. Almost every rhyme in “Extravaganza” is a gerund, the Spanish -ing form. Ofendiendo, offending. Sonriendo, smiling. Mintiendo, lying. Sorprendiendo, surprising. Conociendo, getting to know. Destruyendo, destroying. That “-endo” ending keeps coming back like a heel tapping the floor.

Mike does not think that is an accident, and after a few listens neither do I. The gerund is the tense of what is happening now and has not finished. It does not say she offended, or she will offend. It says offending, right now, without pause. “It’s the grammar of the permanent,” he writes, “of what repeats every single day.” The woman in this song did not have one bad moment. She lives in a gerund.

Two families of verbs, one slow-motion duel

Then he goes a step further, and this is where the song opened up for me. Sort the gerunds by who is doing the action, and two very different groups appear.

Hers are outward: offending, lying, smiling. They land on other people. Hurting, deceiving, and keeping a pleasant face the whole time.

His, the narrator’s, are inward: surprising himself, getting to know her, and one in the negative, not destroying her. They are verbs of discovery.

That structure turns the track into what Mike calls a kind of duel in slow motion. She keeps doing what she always does. He, meanwhile, keeps understanding. Both are in the gerund, both in process. Hers never changes. His does: every verse knows a little more than the last.

Why a fake smile is so hard to catch

The question Mike keeps circling in his post is a simple one: if a false smile can be spotted, why does it take us so long? His answer is that a smile, even a fake one, is powerful. It is a signal of peace. It tells us there is no danger, that the other person comes as a friend. And we return it almost without thinking. “That’s why it works so well as a disguise,” he writes. “It switches off your defenses before your head has had time to catch up.”

I think most of us know someone who lives behind a facade like that, and most of us found out later than we would have liked. That is the quiet sting of the song. It is not a revenge fantasy. The narrator is not destroying anyone. He is just finally seeing the building for what it is.

Why American listeners should press play

You do not need to speak Spanish to feel the shape of this song, but knowing about the gerunds makes it click. For American listeners who came to Mike Sain't Louis through “Tan Cateto,” the track that went viral on TikTok in 2024, “Extravaganza” shows another side: still queer, still camp in its title, but cooler, more patient, almost forensic. It is also a good case study in AI-assisted music with an author’s hand on the wheel.

The photo that accompanies this piece shows him backstage in a dressing room, sequinned lapels catching the light from a mirror ringed with bulbs. Which is to say: behind the facade.

Where to listen and download

Mike Sain't Louis’ project PLANETA GAYFOLK includes 273 singles and more than 280 music videos released over about two years of work. Every song can be streamed and downloaded free of charge at https://mikesaintlouis.com, with full lyrics for each track. His music is also on Spotify, Deezer and other major platforms. His full essay on “Extravaganza” is on his blog: https://mikesaintlouis.com/blog/fachadas-y-sonrisas-extravaganza-los-gerundios-y-lo-que-delata-una-sonrisa-falsa

About Mike Sain't Louis

Mike Sain't Louis is a lyricist, composer, music producer and artistic director based in Madrid, Spain, and the CEO of his own independent label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS, with no record company behind him. An indie alternative artist who calls himself “the first AI singer-songwriter,” he writes bold, uncensored, camp queer pop that ranges from electropop to Spanish copla, with songs in Spanish as well as English, French and Portuguese. His GAYFOLK trilogy imagines a journey to a planet where everyone can live exactly as they are.

Press contact

Email: info@mikesaintlouis.com Website: https://mikesaintlouis.com Instagram: @planetagayfolk