This comprehensive portrait of Tropicália, exploring everything from influences and results to context and main players, demonstrates how the genre helped reinvent Brazil's cultural identity in a post-colonial world.
While bossa nova nurtured a snobbish audience rooted in jazz and Música popular brasileira (MPB) spoke to a multicultural yet oppressed nation, Tropicália invested in a crossover instigated by the progressive youth who refused to glorify a past it didnt identify with and whose outdated codes it didnt intend to perpetuate. This portrait of Tropicália, exploring everything from influences and results to context and main players, shows how the genre helped reinvent Brazils cultural identity in a postcolonial world.
The genres core comes from a unique mix of native and foreign influences: Tropicália doesnt reject the international pop panorama but is an undeniable product of it. The book sets the strangling military dictatorship and its resulting censorship serving as the sociopolitical backdrop of the genre. Tropicália propelled culture (and counterculture) forward, moving away from senseless niche intellectualisms in favour of a broader reach of Brazilian music.
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Explores how Tropicália helped reinvent Brazil's cultural identity in a post-colonial world.
Prologue: It's Forbidden to Forbid
Tropicália: The True Outsider
The Album as Manifesto
Immediate Aftermath: Fall and Exile
Post-Tropicália: Darkness as Commentary
End of the Century and Everything After
Final Thoughts
10 Essential Tracks
Post-Tropicália and Neo-Tropicália
Suggested Viewing
Bibliography
Ana Leorne is a writer, artist, musician and researcher based in Paris, France. She holds a BA in Fine Arts, an MA in Film Studies and a PhD in Visual Cultures. Formerly an associate editor at The 405 and digital media executive at MTV Portugal, her work has appeared in Bandcamp, Grammys, SFGate, SPIN, The Guardian and many others. Shes also the author of This is the Strangest Life Ive Ever Known: A Psychological Portrait of Jim Morrison (2023).
