Sandro Reyes is a Dominican bachata singer and songwriter. Dominican listeners place him in Los Ríos, and he has released something close to twenty-five singles since 2012.

The singles economy

There is no album in his catalogue. There is a single, and then another one, and then another — La Cárcel, Mi Guitarra, Mala Esposa, Culpa de los Dos, Búscate Otra Pa’ Que La Olvides, Ya Te Olvidé, Te Quité la Mujer, Déjenme Beber, Me Abandonaste, Quiero Romo, Me Desperté. In some years there are four or five.

That is how bachata is now made and it is a real change. The genre used to run on LPs, and a singer had one good record every two or three years. A modern bachatero releases continuously because the platforms reward presence over event, and a song that does not catch costs almost nothing to have made.

What he writes about

The titles are the argument. Mala Esposa, Enamorados de la Misma Mujer, No Es Pa Competir con Nadie, Te Quité la Mujer, Se Me Complicó el Asunto. Bachata has been telling the same story for sixty years — somebody else has her, and the singer is going to say so out loud — and he tells it without dressing it up.

Two of them step outside that. Mi Hijo Debe Nacer and Tu Papel de Padre are about fathers, and they are the songs his own audience quotes back at him.

Inside the trade

Te Voy A Tener Que Bloquear was produced by Edilio Armando Paredes at Imperio Nano Music — a title only possible in this decade, since blocking somebody is a modern way of ending it and bachata has always taken its images from whatever ending is available.

He works inside the guitar-bachata world rather than beside it. He has been photographed with Teodoro Reyes, and he and Frank Reyes made a public point of settling a quarrel. That world runs on exactly this: who is playing on your record, who will stand next to you, and who is not speaking to you this year.

The line he belongs to runs back through Luis Segura — the amargue sung straight, with a requinto over it and no apology for what it is about.