Tropicália Pop
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The revolutionary psychedelic-pop movement that collided bossa nova and samba with electric rock, orchestral musique concrète, fuzz guitar and surreal collage. Arrangements (many by Rogério Duprat) juxtapose berimbau and cuíca with distorted guitars and strings; songs are ironic, allusive and formally adventurous, treating pop as cultural 'antropofagia' — devouring foreign and native sources alike. The mood is playful, subversive and avant-garde, wrapping sharp critique of Brazilian modernity in candy-colored psychedelia.
History
Tropicália erupted in 1967–68 around Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, who unveiled electric, boundary-breaking songs ('Alegria, Alegria,' 'Domingo no Parque') at the São Paulo song festivals, joined by Gal Costa, Tom Zé, the rock band Os Mutantes and the manifesto album 'Tropicália: ou Panis et Circenses' (1968). Confrontational toward both the military regime and cultural conservatism, the movement was cut short when Caetano and Gil were arrested and exiled in 1969, but its cannibalizing aesthetic permanently reshaped MPB and Brazilian rock. Rediscovered globally from the 1990s (championed by Beck, David Byrne and others), Tropicália is now regarded as one of the most influential movements in Latin American music.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Caetano Veloso, 'Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil'
- Christopher Dunn, 'Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture'
- Chris McGowan & Ricardo Pessanha, 'The Brazilian Sound'