1st Edition
Brazilian Popular Music Caetano Veloso and the Regeneration of Tradition
Brazilian Popular Music, or Música Popular Brasileira (MPB), developed in the mid 1960s as a response to the re-thinking of Brazilian national identity following the establishment of the post-1964 military regime. A leading figure in MPB at this time was Caetano Veloso, and it is his music and its reception that form the focus of this book. A leader of the Tropicalist movement, Veloso sought to initiate a critical debate on Brazilian Popular Music and the political and ideological foundations which underpinned its aesthetic. Lorraine Leu examines Veloso's musical and vocal styles, revealing the ways in which they play with traditional expectations between the performer and listener, and argues that they represent an important response to the severe censorship and repression of the military regime.
Biography
Dr Lorraine Leu, formerly Lecturer in Portuguese & Brazilian Studies at the University of Bristol, UK.
'In addition to a very well researched and carefully footnoted volume, the reader gets forty-two marvelous pages of love song analysis, a subject to which not engouh musicological schoarship has been dedicated... [Leu's] interpretation and translations of, and sensitivity to, some of Brazil's best poetry, its popular music lyrics, are highly commendable and beautiful in their own right. Leu has set a new, higher standard for English language interpretations of this magnificent cultural treasure trove.' Notes ’...I was greatly engaged by Leu's analyses of Veloso's work itself... Anyone interested in Caetano Veloso's music will be inspired by Leu's interpretations of his work.’ Ethnomusicology ’There are excellent discussions of some of Veloso's key songs... a useful exploration of a musical figure who grows in stature both in his homeland and abroad.’ British Bulletin of Publications
