Caetano Veloso

About

Caetano Veloso’s 1968 self-titled debut wasn’t actually his first album: A year earlier, the Brazilian singer-songwriter had released the bossa nova-laced <i>Domingo</i> with vocalist Gal Costa (which included the deliriously beautiful “Coração Vagabundo”). What a difference a year make. Veloso’s solo debut is another beast entirely—a swaggering primal yawp that float, bare-chested, through Brazilian beaches and the <i>sertão</i>, past a brutal colonial history and a gum-cracking pop-culture present, pulling psychedelic rock, samba, and much more into its orbit. And Veloso fully flaunted his artistic license while managing to stay—for the moment—under the radar of the military dictatorship, which had taken over in a U.S.-backed coup in 1964. It’s a magnificent trick: Veloso’s oblique lyrics often poke military censors in the eye, whether with the effervescent bohemian ramble of “Alegria, Alegria” (“I go… why not?”) or the infectious fluff of “Soy Loco Por Ti America,” which in fact champions a leftist vision for the South American continent. The opening track, “Tropicália,” manages to out-weird The Beatle, with its squealing cacophony of jungle sounds and hip-swiveling bravado. (That track, incidentally, furnished the <i>tropicalismo</i> musical movement with its name.) .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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