Bachata: Potential 50 Million Ground Swell in U.S.

The New York Times was impressed enough with Romeo Santos selling out 50,000-seat Yankee Stadium on two consecutive nights last weekend to put the story on the front page.

I, on the other hand, took special note of what bachata is ("a genre born in the sugarcane fields of the Dominican Republic, refined in New York City and characterized by rippling guitars, a gently pulsating beat and, in contrast to salsa, an absence of horns") and this demographic item:

Mr. Santos’s success is a testament ... to the growing influence the nation’s Hispanic population of more than 50 million ... one video from [Santos'] most recent CD has been viewed 345 million times on YouTube, compared with 185 million for Beyoncé’s Drunk in Love — [although] he is all but unknown to Americans who speak only English.

By infusing a traditional Latino sound and its subject matter — romance — with R&B and inflections of hip-hop, Mr. Santos, 32, has created a genre that bridges traditional differences of taste between the Caribbean and Mexican-American worlds while appealing to young Latinos growing up listening to American music.

Here's a bachata primer, an excerpt from Bachata Dance Festival Bachatu 2014, and bachata songs, but be careful looking for "bachata Romeo Santos" — some of those websites use viruses, perhaps to encourage buying Santos' recordings, rather than sampling them for free.