"The group started as a fiction on the show and then it became real life," said Mr. In Mexico "Rebelde" lasted for three seasons, rather than the typical one-season run during most of that stretch 23 percent of all Mexican households tuned in for a nightly dose. The show made its debut in 2004, and swiftly emerged as one of the most popular youth-marketed soap operas in telenovela history. It became the blueprint for the transnational age of the telenovela: financed in one country, broadcast in another, and then franchised to more than 50 different international markets. Dori successfully marketed "Rebelde Way" to countries from India to Greece to Ukraine. Based on "Rebelde Way" - an Argentine soap opera from 2002 that was also set at an elite boarding school and also featured its own spin-off band (Erreway) - "Rebelde" was bankrolled by Dori Media, an Israeli production company.
That RBD would end up with international aspirations is only fitting for "Rebelde," a show with so global a back story. Characters often pepper their speech with English phrases like "What's up?" and "Hello?" The show's sexed-up look is preppy punk chic: the boys wear red neckties and fallen suspenders, the girls wear tight white blouses, plaid miniskirts and knee-high stockings. Set in a private boarding school in Mexico City, "Rebelde" follows the exploits of Miguel, Mia, Diego, Roberta, Lupita and Giovanni, a group of friends who decide to start a band when they're not blackmailing teachers and falling in love. Two of the group's biggest singles, "Rebelde" and "Nuestro Amor," have alternated as the show's theme music. RBD was originally formed as a marketing tie-in to "Rebelde," or "Rebel," a megahit Mexican telenovela, or soap opera, on which all of RBD's members were actors. "They needed a mass appeal song."īut even she had never heard of RBD until a member of her staff showed her an article about the group in Billboard. Warren in the offices of her Realsongs studios, where the group has been recording during a brief break from its United States tour. "For the American market I thought their music was really cool, but it had to be slightly different to work here," said Ms. More significant perhaps, the album features two songs - "I Wanna Be The Rain" and "Tu Amor" - from the golden pen of Diane Warren, a seven-time Oscar nominee who has written monster hits for the likes of Celine Dion ("Because You Loved Me"), Cher ("If I Could Turn Back Time") and Toni Braxton ("Unbreak My Heart"). Anokute has given the group a stack of songs from A-list writers and producers like RedOne, who produced the mash-up of "Hips Don't Lie" that Shakira and Wyclef Jean are scheduled to perform at Sunday's World Cup finale. They can't come off as novelty Spanish acts trying to break in America." There is only one catch, he said: "They have to come off as credible. It's just a matter of putting RBD in the market." "The only music that increased in sales last year was country and Latin. "Everybody wants to buy into Latin culture, whether it's Wal-Mart, Dr Pepper or Verizon," said Chris Anokute, the Virgin Records executive who signed up the English-language album. Its most recent single, "Mexico, Mexico," was commissioned as the nation's official World Cup anthem. RBD's four albums have together sold five million copies worldwide, a staggering figure for a Mexican pop act. (Among Spanish-language acts, only the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo came close). Mexico has had plenty of teen-pop crazes before - Timbiriche in the 1980's, and Magneto and OV 7 in the 1990's - but none ever touched RBD's international popularity. "They are the first Mexican artists to be exploded on a global scale." "For the Mexican industry this is all totally new," said Camilo Lara, president of EMI Mexico, who signed RBD to the label in 2004. This is the making of Mexico's first worldwide pop brand. In other words, this is not just another Latin crossover attempt. We want to keep reaching for more and share our music with as many people as possible."
"We don't want to stop with Spanish songs. "We're trying to start from scratch with a whole new audience," said Christian Chávez, a member of RBD who was raised along the Texas-Mexico border and lives, like the rest of the group, in Mexico City.