Bachata
Bachata is also from the Dominican Republic. Still love en romance are the subjects of most of the songs and the music is very basic; a guitar, some drums and sometimes a bass guitar. Noticeable in the bachata is the strum of the guitar. Wind instruments, which are very typical to hear in the Dominican Merengue, are absent. Most of the bachata groups at that time, didn’t have the money to bye these instruments.
Most characteristic in the bachata is the singing: in a direct, sentimental way the problems of daily life are sung. One uses the language of the street, slums and the countryside .
You dance the bachata with a partner. Mostly you hold each other’s hands, but it can also be closer to each other.
Decades of years the bachata has been ignored, been boycotted and not taken seriously. This was because of the dominating class in the Dominican Republic who associated the music with the population of the slums in Santa Domingo and Santiago. The inhabitants of the slums were poor countryside people who, in the sixties, tried to find work in the big towns. They took along their musical preferences such as son and the bolero. In the slums, these musical genres developed into a complete own style, the Bachata.
Bachata is about poverty, bitterness, sadness, loneliness and disappointments, but also about joy and love. In that way the Bachata could be called the Latin-American tear jerker. The original term for this genre was ‘amargue’, which means bitterness. Later on the name bachata became more popular. A bachata means, in Dominican-Spanish, an (unorganized) party.
Whatever is sung, it is always sung with passion. That’s why the music touches you. Bachata is lovely music to listen to and nice to glide on while you are dancing.
Well known bachata musicians are: Aventura, Yoskar Sarante, Alex Bueno, Joe Veras & Raulin Rodriquez.
Aventura is, by far, the most well-known bachata group, but among Dominicans the most popular artists are Antony Santos and Luis Vargas. Other popular artists are Raulin Rodriguez, Zacarias Ferreira, Frank Reyes, Monchy y Alexandra, Domenic Marte, Xtreme, Andy Andy, Elvis Martinez, Carlos y Alejandra, Leonardo Paniagua, Yoskar Sarante, Alex Bueno, Los Toros Band and Joe Veras.
These days bachata is combined more often with influences from the Merengue, pop music and R&B, but also with reggaetón.