Historia General del Pueblo Dominicano Tomo VI

Historia general del pueblo dominicano 747 a tight, nasal vocal quality, one or two guitars, marimba or electric bass, maracas or güira, bongó (for Cuban genres), and tambora (for merengue). Pacini Hernández demonstrates that bachata’s association with rural and barrio culture precluded its endorsement by the dominant society; while it was arguably the single most popular music among the Dominican majority, bachata was long considered a « marginal» music. 111 Until mainstream musicians began performing this music in the 1990s, even bachatas that out- sold merengue hits were not played on major radio stations, did not appear on hit parade lists, and were usually unavailable in middle-class record stores. The notion that bachata was marginal thus reflected not the size of its audience, but its lack of acceptance by the dominant society. As bachata gained ground on coveted ground that had once belonged to merengue, bandleaders such as Musiquito, Wilfrido Vargas, and Juan Luis Guerra began to record orquesta versions of bachatas. Guerra showed special interest in the genre, producing several son-bachata hits whose texts couched bachata’s sexual references in his own characteristically literary style. This author once passed a bar where a videotape of an orquesta merengue-bachata was being shown, stopping to join a man who was watching from the street. He expressed frustration about the fact that while middle-class Dominicans had once disparaged bachata, they now embraced it: « Well, well, bachata is in the salons now. In times past, high-class people criticized bachata, but now they’re dancing to it themselves». Bachatero Blas Durán himself pointed to this double standard in a newspaper interview, noting that while music critics censured his music as lewd, they praised Guerra’s bachatas, many of which also «qualif[ied] as vulgar». 112 When middle-class musicians adapt campesino and barrio genres, the results are called « elevaciones »; Luis Alberti and Juan Luis Guerra’s contributions to the history of merengue are considered artistic milestones. But when rural and barrio musicians adapt salon styles, the results are derided as « deformaciones» ; bachata was often subject to such criticism, and even popular merengue was criticized for its association with barrio life and because its performance rarely exhibited the level of professionalism of the 1950s big bands. While acknowledging the artistic merit of 4:40’s bachatas. The success of Guerra’s bachata had a legitimizing effect on the genre as a whole, opening the door for street-level bachata to enter mainstream society. By the mid-1990s, guitar-based bachata was available in middle-class record stores andwas played at bourgeois discos, even if most singers had abandoned bawdy lyrics. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, bachata had become far more popular than merengue.