Duo Xtreme helps fuel rise of urban bachata
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Every once in a while, urban bachata duo Xtreme will dial up the fans that leave their phone numbers on the group's MySpace page.
"They're always surprised," says Steve Styles (aka Steven Tejada), one half of Xtreme, adding that the fans know it's no prank call. "We get straight to the point, and they just start screaming."
Xtreme's cultivation of a grassroots base has made it one of the most successful acts of the genre. Urban bachata -- which mixes the guitar-based romantic style of traditional Dominican bachata with an R&B sensibility and vocalizing -- is claiming a bigger space on the airwaves than ever before, thanks to a slew of new acts. In addition to Xtreme and urban bachata pioneers Aventura, Billboard's airplay charts this week feature Toby Love, Marcy Place, Bachata Heightz and Optimo.
Xtreme's ability to build on its recent success and the efforts by other acts to achieve breakout sales will determine whether urban bachata is more than a passing fad.
Xtreme's third album, "Chapter Dos," will be released November 25 on Machete/Universal Music Latin Entertainment; the single "Through That Window (Enamorado Estoy)" is No. 29 on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart. Xtreme's breakthrough second album, "Haciendo Historia," has sold 133,000 copies in the United States and Puerto Rico, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It did so on the back of three hit singles (one a duet with Cheetah Girl Adrienne Bailon) and visits to New York-area schools.
"The key to Xtreme's appeal has been their core representation of the bilingual urban generation," says Walter Kolm, president of Machete and Universal Music Latino. "The inner-city youth recognize and associate with their style, languages and messages -- with their lifestyle in general. This is marketing through visual culture."
And though Styles and Danny D (aka Mejia, Xtreme's other singer/songwriter/producer) and their fans all speak English, Styles says just a sprinkling of English in their songs is enough.
"A lot of Spanish people don't like Spanglish even though they speak it," Styles says, adding that when it comes to music, "they only want to hear one language."
Other urban bachata acts, among them Optimo, Leny and Unique, have yet to take off in a big way, with Optimo selling 5,000 copies of "Optimo FDL," while Leny and Unique have each sold 1,000 copies of their albums, according to SoundScan. But the genre has shown promise in Europe and on mobile. Love is on tour in Spain, Switzerland, France and Italy and has sold 229,000 ringtones, according to Nielsen RingScan.
Kolm believes that the genre's appeal to second-generation U.S. Latinos and international audiences, as well as its growing digital sales, mean that "the genre is here to stay for a while."
Reuters/Billboard
