Brazilian rock

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rock entered the Brazilian scene in 1956, with the release of a Portuguese version of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock".

Rock (earlier called rock and roll--also spelled rock 'n' roll) is a form of popular music, featuring vocals (often with harmony), electric guitars, and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. Rock, born in the United States, has become popular across the globe, and has evolved into a multitude of highly-varying styles. The genre of rock is broad, and its boundaries loosely-defined. It is sometimes used to describe a number of genres only distantly related, including soul and heavy metal.

In Brazil many bands continued to perform translations of English lyrics, though many avoided this problem by playing instrumental rock. Inspired by such instrumental bands Duane Eddy and The Champs, 1958 saw the release of the first Brazilian instrumental rock song, "Here's the Blue Jean Rockers" by The Blue Jean Rockers. Later that year, Bolão & His Rockettes recorded the first purely instrumental LP. This helped make rock the most popular style of Brazilian youth music. More bands, like The Avalons, The Clevers, The Rebels, The Jordans, The Jet Blacks, The Pops, Os Populares, The Bells, The Lions (band) and The Youngs, arose.

Even though the 1960s have presenced the phenomenon of Jovem Guarda - highly promoted by the then-military government in direct opposition to politically engaged MPB artists - and the 1970s saw the appearing of many prolific artists, like Raul Seixas, and bands like Os Mutantes, it was in the 1980s that the Brazilian rock scene made its great breakthrough, with the spawning of many bands from diverse centres of the country (Ultraje a Rigor, Titãs and Ira! from São Paulo, Blitz, Barão Vermelho and Paralamas do Sucesso from Rio de Janeiro, Engenheiros do Hawaii from Rio Grande do Sul, Legião Urbana, Plebe Rude and Capital Inicial from Brasília, Camisa de Vênus from Bahia and so on), in addition to the happening of Rock in Rio, which took over a million people to "Cidade do Rock" (where the event was sited) in the ten days it lasted, and also fixed Brazil as an obligatory route for international band venues - some artists, like Santana and Alice Cooper have come before the event, but the number of international attractions rose abruptly after Rock In Rio. At the undergrounds of rock, came a rich punk rock and heavy metal scene, which the most importants band to mention are Sepultura, Viper and Ratos de Porão at the mid to final 80's.

In modern times, the 1990s saw a resurgence in instrumental rock's popularity, and some of the classic bands from previous decades reformed. Surf music also became popular, especially The Argonauts and Os Ostras. But none of these styles could keep up to the new bands who made a large success, like Raimundos (which was formed in the late 1980s, but only released its first album in 1994), Skank and Charlie Brown Jr. in the late years. Also, Brazilian MTV's Unplugged format brought back bands whose career was considered a thing of the past, like Titãs in 1996, Capital Inicial in 2000 and, more recently, Ira! in 2004.