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11/06/2010 AVENTURA hits Gaga out of the park 
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| AVENTURA hits Gaga out of the park |
| 11-06-2010 11:47 | 0 comment(s) |
 With four headlining Garden shows, this group is bigger than, well, Lady Gaga
Let's play a game of compare and contrast: Lady Gaga and the Latin-pop group Aventura both perform in New York this week. But while she is appearing at the 6,000-capacity Radio City Music Hall for four dates starting tonight, Aventura toplines the 19,000-strong Madison Square Garden for an equal number of shows, also beginning tonight. That puts Aventura on track to sell more than three times the number of tickets La Gaga can. By that measure, it may seem odd that, of the two, it's she who gets to sit on the couch on popular late-night talk shows, grab top Grammy nominations and eat up pages worth of mainstream media. Meanwhile, Aventura has the profile of quickly rejected contestants on "American Idol." "We don't mind that she's treated differently," says Anthony (Romeo) Santos, lead singer and writer for Aventura. "We're in a different world." Specifically, an almost entirely Latino one. If you're not of that ethnicity, you probably think Aventura is the name of a sporty new car from Dodge. If you are, someone in your family, or at least someone you know, likely has pictures of the guys plastered on the wall and several albums' worth of songs on an iPod. You're also in the know that Aventura is the biggest thing to bust out of the Bronx since the Yankees. (In fact, all four grew up mere blocks from the Stadium.) For 21 weeks, Aventura's most recent CD, "The Last," has sat atop Billboard's Latin Music Chart, spawning three No. 1 singles while supporting a tour that ranks among the three top-grossing road shows of '09, right behind Miley Cyrus' and Britney Spears'. Aventura's Garden shows — tonight, tomorrow and Feb. 1 and 2 — will make it the first Latino group ever to snag four dates at the arena in a single run, putting it in a league with the likes of Madonna and Billy Joel. Romeo sees a difference, however: "All those artists have a major label and lots of marketing behind them," he says. "But it's even more exciting for us to know that we're accomplishing these things without having that machine." Instead, Aventura came up on the indie label Premium Latin Music and built its audience from squat in the South Bronx. The four members began as adolescents, back when Romeo started writing songs with his cousin Henry Santos Jeter. Meanwhile, guitarist Lenny Santos (no relation to Romeo or Henry) and his brother Max had their own band. "The brothers said to us, 'We have a singer who pretty much sucks,'?" Romeo explains. "At the same time, me and Henry were writing and singing but didn't have a band. So we started it." Initially known as Los Teenagers back in the mid-'90s, they played Bronx clubs for free. The style they honed reinvented the music of their Dominican heritage: bachata, a brand of flowery love balladry that originated down in the D.R. in the '60s. The band members' parents regularly spun the records of well-known bachateros like Luis Vargas and Anthony Santos. Romeo found himself especially intrigued by the latter, since they share a name. "I wondered, 'Who is this guy?,'?" he says. (Romeo took his stage name both to distinguish himself from the older star and to stress his chick-magnet aspirations.) "I fell in love with his music and then became a huge bachata fan." Like many second-generation Latinos, however, the band members found themselves equally drawn to Anglo music. More, they were uncomfortable with the older sound's corny image. Once they took the name Aventura ("adventure") and signed with their label in 1999, they honed a fresher take on bachata, a point boldfaced by their first album's title, "Generation Next." The music centered on Romeo's supple, fluttering vocals, referencing classic bachata romanticism. Meanwhile, Max's clattering guitar lines gave the music a firmer spine. In addition, the group exchanged the classic style's earnest lyrical content for a more hip-hop-friendly take on relationships. "The typical bachatero sings, 'I love you, you left me, take me back,'?" Max says. "Romeo wrote, 'I don't care if you leave me,' or 'I'll do the same thing' — concepts others didn't write about." The result struck a huge chord, mainly with American Latinos. But it entranced others, too. Their breakthrough song, 2002's "Obsession," went No. 1 everywhere from Italy to Israel. Naturally, such great success also brought out the haters. Some called them the boy band of bachata. "We hate to be called that," says Romeo. "We write and play our own music. We ain't dancin' and s—-." Much like boy bands, however, Aventura has hit bigger with women than men. To this day, at least 60% of those who attend their concerts are female. "We shake it well for the girls," Romeo says, grinning widely. On "The Last," the group expanded its audience to males, and to some English-speakers, by adding guest appearances from the likes of Ludacris and Akon, as well as by singing more in English. But Aventura still lacks a signature crossover single — a "Livin' la Vida Loca"-style bid for pancultural domination. The group faces a considerable hurdle in that regard. Nearly all the Latin styles that have made it into the mainstream in the last 50 years — from mambo to Gloria Estefan's Miami sound to reggaeton — have been dance- or beat-oriented. Aventura's brand of bachata stresses softer ballads. The guys acknowledge the challenge. To ease it, they vow "The Last" will be their final album of 100% bachata. "Maybe the next CD will be 40% urban music," Romeo says. But he's adamant about not recording an entire Anglo disk. "Personally I would never separate Spanish and English," he says. "Ideally," adds Max, "it would be great to have a dance track that anyone could love — one that relates to South Americans, Central Americans and Europeans." Even if they never pull that off, Romeo says, the guys would hardly feel that they missed their goal. "I don't want to say we don't care about a crossover," he says. "But we're not saying 'Oh, we got to do it.' We're doing things that, honestly, a lot of Anglos can't" — like four Garden shows. "For us, that's enough." |
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