For me, the glory of tropicália has always lay in it’s contradictions. It’s music that is experimental yet pop, playful yet serious; it’s anything-goes attitude was completely at odds with the military regime of the time. It baffled critics, the public and officialdom but has now become a marker upon which new Brazilian music is tested. Countless people have mimicked the style over the years, but it has always been impossible to recreate. That’s because tropicália died in 1969.
As with rock stars who die young and so preserve their legacy, tropicália has a distinct lifeline. It began at São Paulo’s TV Record Festival in 1967 when Caetano Veloso premièred “Alegria, Alegria” and Os Mutantes joined Gilberto Gil for a performance of “Domingo No Parque.” It ended in the summer of 1969 when Veloso and Gil played their final gig in Bahia before deportation to the UK. [You could also argue that it ended in December 1968 when the two were initially arrested, for supposed anti-nationalistic statements.]
Some will argue that tropicália continued after 1969, though by this time all the artists had started to create their own identities, and the communal counter-culture spirit was on the wane. True tropicália, i.e. that made between 1967 and 1969, can be defined by a number of things; the charisma of Veloso and Gil, who represented the public persona of the movement, the musical creativity of Os Mutantes (which also includes their use of home-made instruments to create a unique sound), the arrangements of Rogério Duprat, and perhaps most importantly, a timeless set of songs.
The late-60s was still a time when the song was king; guitarists were yet to become stars in their own right and drummers weren’t judged on the quality of their drum fills. Records by The Beatles and Beach Boys highlighted a new freedom in a song’s form and concept, above any kind of need for self-gratification on one’s instrument.
Tropicália continued this liberty of song-craft. Veloso went from producing simple, yet beautiful, acoustic songs like “Coracão Vagabundo” and “O Leãozinho” to the pop culture-referencing, fuzz guitars of “Alegria, Alegria” and the mind-boggling “Tropicália”, a song that uses horns and percussion as main instruments, changes time signature constantly and uses a mantra-like vocal to create a swirling, intoxicating paean to the newly-forming movement. Equally as audacious was “Panis Et Circenses” by Os Mutantes, arranged by Rogério Duprat (as with “Tropicália”). It’s end, in which a strange cuckoo clock-like flute and violin die out, before the voices of Os Mutantes and a manic horn section turn the song into a joyous frenzy, is one of the highlights of the whole movement.
Os Mutantes were involved in many of the great early tropicália songs, such as “A Minha Menina”, which was recorded with Jorge Ben. It’s infectious lyrics, guitar strums and beat are classic Ben, however this was tropicália, and so the song was christened with one of the fiercest fuzz guitars you’ll ever hear. In fact, the guitar is sometimes so incendiary it seems like sabotage; a samba song being attacked by a manic guitarist. A similar trick is pulled on “Bat Macumba”, though this is a very different song. It’s lyrics, written by Veloso and Gil, are essentially just one repeated line, “Bat Macumba ê ê, Bat Macumba obá ”, that de-constructs and reconstructs itself over the course of the song.
Veloso and Gil were the most active songwriters during tropicália, with Veloso more affected by the avant-garde and of finding ways in which to embrace both high and low art, while Gil used his increasing musicianship and affinity with the African traditions in Brazilian music. Yet, this never meant that Gil’s song-writing was any less revelatory. In fact, lyrically his songs were perhaps more diverse. He wrote confrontational statements such as “Questão de Ordem” but could also write sentiments like “Aquele Abraço” that spoke to the masses in a way that Veloso’s sometimes failed to. He also had Os Mutantes as a backing band and together they produced great psychedelic pop tunes such as “Dois Mil e Um” and “Procissão”.
It’s these recordings from 1967 until 1969 that form tropicália’s legacy. Even when the remaining members of Os Mutantes released an album in 2009, with the help of fellow tropicalista Tom Zé and former aide Jorge Ben, it was described as psychedelic pop and not tropicália. Just take a look at Caetano Veloso’s discography on Allmusic.com and you will see that all his albums up to 1969 are categorised as tropicália; afterwards they are simply Brazilian pop.
The circumstances that gave life to tropicália were so unique and the group of creative energies, centralised on a single project and in the same place, were so potent that nothing could ever recreate that style, but that wouldn’t be the point anyway. Tropicália was a way of using a repressive government to create something meaningful and to connect Brazil with an increasingly globalised world. The release of Red Hot + Rio 2 will prove just how successful the movement has been, as it’s global impact continues to widen.
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All of us at Red Hot thank Russ for his contribution to our blog!
[...] On June 28th the Red Hot Organization, a charity devoted to the prevention of HIV/AIDS, will release Red Hot + Rio 2, a compilation of Brazilian songs from the 60s and 70s, particularly those from the tropicália period, that will be covered by artists including Beck, Caetano Veloso, Dirty Projectors, Seu Jorge, Beirut and Aloe Blacc.In the lead-up to the release I will be writing a number of articles for their blog, with a different article on tropicália going up on the site each week. You can read my first entry, which is called “Tropicália – Pushing the Boundary of Song” here. [...]