BDMC: Bachata Dance Musicality Chart: "Bachata 37"
With the year 0, it is time to talk about musical yield in Bachata songs.
I would like to introduce the BDMC, meaning Bachata Dance Musicality Chart.
The BDMC is a list of roughly 800 songs which I consider the "best" Bachata songs per year regarding dancing.
The song list is focused on a Central European view and does not comprise all Bachata songs across the world, also excluding many Dominican Bachata songs and Remixes. I mainly concentrate on "real" Bachata songs because of the vast amount of Remixes which are produced. Therefore, the list does not claim to be all-encompassing; there may be plenty of additional songs which would also belong into the list which are unknown to me or slipped my attention.
In these charts, there are three main criteria which are rated in a system from 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest):
CR: Composition Rating
This rating describes the overall (intuitive) quality of the production of the song which includes:
Harmony & Rhythm, Chord Combinations, Versatility of Composition, Generation of Emotions, Mixing&Mastering etc. So to say, this rating solely deals with the quality of the song itself (lyrics excluded).
It does not put emphasis on musical danceability yet.
MR: Musicality Rating
This rating describes the overall (intuitive) quality of the danceability of the song which includes:
Rough percentage of the song (1=10%-10=100%) with unique details for musical interpretation and versatility of instruments for musical interpretation. Unfortunately, this musicality rating lacks my judgement of most of the lyrics because my Spanish level is not strong enough to be able to incorporate the lyrical aspect for every song. However, the danceability of lyrics should ideally also be part of this rating so it might have the largest error bar.
The musicality rating is maxing at an 8 if a song only provides the voice to be interpreted and no other instrument of the song provides any diverse musical interpretation.
If the voice of the song only uses standard rhythms, there is also a deduction of the musicality rating.
PR: Play Rating
This rating describes the tendency of myself to play this song on a Bachata dance party as a DJ.
This rating is purely subjective and simulates an average Central-European Bachata dance crowd of age 20-40; therefore, in tendency, e.g. "culture-focused" Dominican Bachata songs or songs which are musically very complicated - either by composition or dancewise (but which can still be very good or artistic in the CR) - will get a worse rating here.
This rating tries to add a smoothening / a "normalization"
regarding the probability of identification of an "average Bachata dancer" with the song.
Therefore, the rating tries to take into account a cross section of song quality, emotional expression and musicality.
TR: Total Rating
This rating simply averages the above three ratings without special weighting.
The total rating should give an indication about the total performance of a song
for a Central European Bachata dance party.
Ratings of songs can be interpreted as follows:
0-4 would fail in some aspects / would not be played and are not being dealt with / not listed
5 respect the basic rules of Bachata but are too generic without ideas worth of being mentioned
= "Bachata by definition".
6 are beginning to be entertaining and fun and can be played in special situations.
7 are solid compositions for dancing with a bit too little inspiration, worthy of being played more often
8 are evergreens that fit in many party situations
9 are exceptional songs with lots of variability and emotion
10 is the pinnacle of Bachata for dancers and listeners alike
Most of "good" modern Remixes would probably fall in a total rating between 6 and 8 and might excel only in musical dancing regarding the voice of the song (where the Remix mostly is built around).
There is also a comment to each song which entails unique features of a song or explanations why a rating was given or why the rating deviates from what people might rate. In tendency, the "ideal" rating (a rating most songs would be able to reach with enough effort in composition) is 8 where deductions are explained (lower = mostly negative comments, higher = mostly positive comments)
I hope this list will also help people to understand what "musical dancing" means by using songs which are suited to be used by the very strength of Bachata dancing: musicality.
For new Bachata DJs it can also help to save lots of time to find some of the most influential Bachata songs for dancing.
Therefore the BDMC can be ordered with regard to the three ratings CR, MR, PR arbitrarily,
e.g. if someone would be interested in musicality ratings only, order by MR.
Please also be aware that the ratings might have an error of roughly 1 counter
which is related to my own mood during listening and dance capability in my head.
The Open Document Table can be downloaded below.
Yours, DJ Vamp Bachata