Burbujas de Amor

For decades, bachata carried a stigma in the Dominican Republic. Under Trujillo and long after, middle- and upper-class Dominicans dismissed the guitar music of the rural poor as vulgar and backward, the soundtrack of bars and brothels, and bachata itself became a word used as an insult. Then Juan Luis Guerra put that word in the title of an album. Bachata Rosa, released in 1990 with his group 4.40, is credited with making the genre acceptable and giving it legitimacy and international recognition. Burbujas de amor, its third single, was the song that carried that change furthest. Like much of the album, it leans more towards the old romantic bolero than the rough bar sound, and critics praised its sophisticated lyric and its elegance, and it became a hit across Latin America and Europe, reaching number two on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs, number one on Mexican airplay and in Chile and Uruguay. It won Tropical/Salsa Song of the Year at the 1991 Lo Nuestro Awards and Billboard's Latin music critics named it song of the year for 1990. Its reputation has only grown. Rolling Stone placed it among the 50 greatest Latin pop songs, and in 2015 Billboard ranked it eighth among the greatest Latin songs of all time. The Brazilian singer Fagner recorded it in Portuguese as Borbulhas de Amor. A song from a stigmatised genre ended up as one of the most admired love songs in Spanish.