🎵 | Bachata is popular guitar music from the Dominican Republic. Now overwhelmingly successful in the United States, bachata took shape over a period of about forty years in the bars and brothels of Santo Domingo, not gaining acceptance in its native land until relatively recently. Young groups like Aventura have a similar relationship to original bachata as rock and rollers do to the blues, which has languished in the shadow of its more commercially viable descendant.
Although bachata developed out of, and bachateros play, a variety of different rhythms (including merengue), bachata is a particular variant of the bolero. The bolero has traditionally been a romantic genre, dealing with themes like deception and lost love.
Dictator Rafael Trujillo despised bachata. He had bougie, Eurocentric aspirations for the image of the country. Bachateros— often poor, rural, and/or uneducated — posed a threat to his imposition of a “modern” regime. The guitar and guitar music like bolero and son were staples of el campo, the countryside. Upon Trujillo’s death in 1961, a number of Campesinos went to record in the capital. Trujillo’s family had virtually monopolized the music industry in the country; when he was killed, entrepreneurs began recording the first generation of bachateros. The music was not yet referred to as bachata but rather a bolero Campesino. The word bachata originally denoted an informal party where guitar music was generally played; only later did it come to signify the music itself.
This set consists primarily of old-school bachata, starting with the first known official bachata single— Borracho de Amor (Drunk on Love) by José Manuel Calderón, recorded in 1961— before moving into selections from the compilation album Bachata Roja: Amor y Amargue and ending with the first half of a tipico/perico ripiao mix courtesy of YouTuber DJAY AJAY.
DJ SIGUA, SET 2: BACHATA ROJA TRACKLIST
RUN TIME: 31 MINUTES
1. Borracho de Amor – José Manuel Calderón
2. Que Grande Es El Amor – Ramón Cordero y Edilio Paredes
3. Con El Amor No Se Juega – Augusto Santos
4. La Puerta Romperé – Daniel Morillo
5. El Pajarito – Ramón Cordero y Edilio Paredes
6. Tipico Mix (Perico Ripiao) – First Half – DJAY AJAY