Juan Luis Guerra did what no Dominican ever did before: make an international success of the upbeat party music (the merengue) from the Caribbean. This wasn’t a ride in the park. Where other merengue artists recorded their songs in one try, Guerra spent months in the studio to find the perfect balance in his music.
The great international success came when he made his fifth album, ‘Bachata Rosa’. It was the first time that Caribbean street music was played in a modern way. Exotic, yet Western. Dreamy, but still swinging. Entertainment, but with intellectual pretensions. This success resulted in many stadium concerts around the world and a lot of great albums.