| Com Defeito de Fabricação | |
|---|---|
| Studio album by Tom Zé | |
| Genre | MPB |
| Length | 36:35 |
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | link |
| CMJ | (not rated) link |
| Rolling Stone | link |
Fabrication Defect (Com Defeito de Fabricação 1998 Luaka Bop-Warner Bros. 946953-2) is a concept album by Tom Zé.
It tells a story in which the people of the third world are turned into androids by the economic exploitation of the first world. However, as "androids", individuals contain "defects": "they think, dance, and dream—things that are very dangerous to the first world bosses...to think will always be considered an effrontery."
This consideration leads to an "Esthetics of Plagiarism" in which the "sonorous civilized trash" and "alphabet of emotions" of the first world, which also invades the everyday life of those in the third, are recycled and "put to use in small 'cells' of 'plagiarized' material," with "all of this put into a rhythmic or dance music format, with choruses, and within the parameters of popular music." Zé compares this aesthetic to arrastão, or dragnet, an urban robbery technique where "A small group fan out and then run furiously through a crowd, taking people's money, jewelry, bags, sometimes even clothes. Translator's note: a type of "wilding" with a purpose, i.e., robbery."