Bilingual Pop Stars Aventura Play the American Airlines Arena on Saturday

A A A Comments By Christopher Lopez Thursday, Dec 17 2009

Aventura is one of the most successful Latin music acts in the world at the moment. Not "arguably" and not "possibly" — it's simple fact. How else do you categorize a group whose most recent album is the biggest Latin seller of 2009, breaking sales records for most consecutive weeks at number one? That's exactly what double-platinum-selling The Last did. It even made its way from the Latin Billboard charts on over to the Billboard Top 200, where it sat alongside mainstream blockbusters like Lady Gaga's The Fame and the Black Eyed Peas' The E.N.D. And even though the album was released some 26 weeks ago, it's still going strong.

Details

Aventura, 8 p.m. Saturday, December 19, at American Airlines Arena, 601 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Tickets cost $42 to $253. Click here.

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The Last has also spawned four successful singles over the course of the year, "Por un Segundo," which reached number one on Billboard's Top Latin Songs. Then there was "All Up to You," featuring reggaeton powerhouses Wisin y Yandel as well as Akon, and, most recently, "Dile al Amor."

Still not impressed? Well, you could just check out Aventura's current U.S. tour schedule, which kicked off in late November. Thus far, the group has sold out nine major venues, including Chicago's Allstate Arena, Boston's Aganis Arena, L.A.'s Staples Center, and MSG in New York City — twice.

That's not too bad for four kids out of the boogie-down Bronx who decided to play music something like their Dominican parents' bachata. Blending the D.R.'s most traditional genre with urban and cosmopolitan influences, Aventura came up with something new. Their form of bachata still features those distinct high-pitched, syncopated, staccato guitar lines, but they're modernized and made marketable to their peers by the inclusion of R&B and hip-hop influences as well as bilingual lyrics.

That isn't to say that those who'd argue that lead singer Romeo's singing sounds like a cat food commercial don't have a point. But the millions upon millions of fans in the U.S. — never mind across the world — would tend to disagree. And they would probably insult your mother if you said so. Which is why we won't.

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