Word: az
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Around this hemisphere, it already is. Díaz trotted out the original group in 1977. Their music is the blandest kind of pop, without even a dash of Latin bounce. Yet by 1980 Menudo was performing its custom-concocted songs ("Give me a kiss/ Now we are alone/ Nobody can see us") and primitive choreography throughout Central and South America...
...az is devising an ambitious American campaign. As many as 20 million Hispanics live in the U.S., and perhaps 1 million are females between ten and 15. The audience is concentrated in New York, South Florida, Texas and Southern California, which makes marketing Menudo easier...
...group has already sold 750,000 LPs in the U.S., although Díaz has yet to strike a deal with a domestic record company. The sound-track album of their second film, Una Aventura Llamada Menudo (An Adventure Called Menudo), was a bestseller all spring (No. 1 in New York and California) on Latin record charts. In the fall comes their first serious "crossover" attempt: Menudo on ABC, a series of four-minute spots in English as well as Spanish, will be aired by the network Saturday mornings...
That is Díaz's message. He chaperones the boys everywhere. "From our example," he notes, "kids see that if you work hard you can get what you desire." Menudo's members, mostly sons of the middle class, do seem to work hard, and they get a lot. "I'll give you an idea of what they make," says Diaz. "One kid paid $60,000 in income taxes this year...
...boss's cousin and the only original member of the group remaining. He is also just five months short of 16, and so by contract his Menudo days are numbered. "When their voices change, that changes the sound of the music and that changes everything," explains Díaz. Six earlier members have been sloughed off, and two of the current personnel, Johnny Lozada (a member since 1980) and Miguel Cancel (1981), won't be around much longer. The others are Charlie Rivera, who turned 14 last Monday, and Ray Reyes, 13, who just this year was transformed...