Aventura's 'Last' album may be their swan song but meanwhile they have the year's top seller

‘Crossover” has long been a loaded term for Latin music acts that struggle to balance remaining true to their core audiences and broadening their appeal.
For the urban bachata sensation Aventura, though, the term is just about irrelevant.
“Once we started doing music, we were already a crossover,” said lead singer Anthony (Romeo) Santos. “We brought our own style to bachata, all that we heard and liked growing up in the Bronx.”
Aventura’s inflection of bachata with R&B smoothness, hip-hop edge and lyrics beyond the sad-sack love stories at the heart of the more traditional form of the genre is an unlikely formula that has been gaining traction far beyond the group’s peer group of second-generation Dominican youth.
The quartet’s latest release, “The Last,” debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Latin Album chart and has remained in that spot for seven weeks running.
The record has already reached double-platinum sales, more than any other Latin release this year. It also got to the No. 5 spot on the Billboard 200 chart, which ranks album sales across all genres.
After a few postrelease concerts in selected U.S. venues, the group has already performed in several cities in Mexico, Peru and Colombia. A more extensive tour of the U.S. and Latin America is scheduled for November and December.
The four Bronx boys, all still under 30, feel vindicated that a style they were told was too specific to the tastes of urban Dominicans in New York has found wider appeal. But they have no desire to simply bask in their success.
“I can tell you from my perspective, I’m never satisfied,” said the 28-year-old Santos, who prefers to go by his nickname ­Romeo to avoid being confused with a bachata star of an earlier generation, also named Anthony Santos.
“Seeing all the support from the fans makes me want to work more and more and harder.”
The group, which started out 14 years ago as Los Teenagers de la Bachata, built its reputation through an unrelenting performance schedule and close contact with its fan base, heavily composed of young women.
Some of the first promotional events after the release of “The Last” were in-store appearances. Many fans camped overnight to see the band up close and personal.
“We went right to the communities,” said Romeo, speaking from Bogotá, Colombia, where Aventura had a concert last Friday. “We did in-stores in places where artists don’t normally go. We went to barrios in Boston. One of our two in-stores in New York was in the Bronx.”

But fans eager for more Aventura would do well to pay close attention to the record’s title and to the song “Gracias,” which seems to be a goodbye. This record, the band’s fifth studio release, marks the end of Aventura’s contract with Premium Latin/Sony International.
“The guys want to do some solo projects. I want to do that as well,” said Romeo. But he added it does not mean it’s the end of the group, just a time to regroup.
Manager Johnny Marines said that although the band members have always had faith in the potential appeal of their style, some events in recent years convinced them they were on the right path.
Marines said that Aventura’s sold-out concert as headliners in Madison Square Garden in 2007, as well as the DVD from the show, helped the music industry and people beyond New York take notice.
“The DVD allowed the people who weren’t big fans and hadn’t been to a show to see what it was like,” said Marines.
Proof of the group’s broadening appeal came within months of the DVD release.
Even without much radio play in Puerto Rico, Aventura sold out five concerts at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in San Juan last year. The tickets for the 18,500-capacity venue were sold within hours.
Romeo said the exponential growth of Aventura’s audiences have made him think more about the group’s stage productions.
“What I want to do is definitely have a unique production that stands out. I want people to be blown away,” said Romeo. “But I don’t like to add too many things in the production. I still like to interact with the crowd.”
He said that the group picked up concert staging ideas from music acts as diverse as Jennifer Lopez, Madonna and Lady Gaga.
“I was looking forward to what Michael Jackson would have done” in the London concerts planned before his death, said Romeo.
No matter what the level of success, he said, there is always more to do. “We haven’t reached the level of our maximum potential,” he said, “but we’re on the right track.”

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