The 8 best Tropicália tracks of all time
Tropicália
A twelve-month Brazilian insurrection in 1967 and 1968: bossa harmony, samba, psychedelic guitars, concrete poetry and deliberate bad taste, aimed at a military dictatorship that responded by jailing and exiling its leaders.
Autoplay · All 8 play here · plays through and starts again
Swipe the list left or right to move through the queue
/
Caetano Veloso / Tropicália
The song that named the movement, a collage of Brasília, monuments and television, sung deadpan over an arrangement that keeps changing its mind.
Caetano Veloso / Alegria, Alegria
Performed at a televised festival with an electric rock band and booed by a crowd who wanted acoustic protest songs. He won anyway, and the argument started that night.
Gilberto Gil / Domingo no Parque
A murder ballad set at a funfair, arranged by Rogério Duprat with capoeira berimbau and an orchestra. The most formally ambitious three minutes in Brazilian pop.
Os Mutantes / Panis et Circenses
Teenagers with home-built fuzz pedals, singing about bread and circuses while the tape slows to a halt mid-song. Kurt Cobain later begged them to reform.
Caetano Veloso / É Proibido Proibir
"It is forbidden to forbid." He was shouted down at the festival, harangued the audience from the stage, and was arrested and exiled within months.
Gilberto Gil / Bat Macumba
A lyric that is a concrete poem — the words shed a letter per line until nothing is left. Playful, and a direct product of the São Paulo avant-garde.