Customer Reviews

Banda Tropicalista Do Duprat

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The music on this album is fantastic. All of Tropicalia had a touch of kitsch, but it's running over the edge here. Lots of fun. This is a Tropicalia dinner party album, with orch versions and medleys of the best hits. The covers by Mutantes are the weakest moments, unfortunately.

This CD sounds like someone dubbed a dirty record onto cassette and printed off some CDs for friends. It doesn't even sound mastered. Staff at El, you should be ashamed to do such a crummy job with the sound and a disservice to great music.

There are 2 VERY different CD versions of this album. You MUST purchase the Brazilian import of this album (which is this one). The UK version was mastered from vinyl and sounds terrible. REALLY terrible.

So what is this album like? Tropicalia loungecore. It's probably the lightest of all of the Tropicalia albums, but it is lots of fun. If you dig Duprat's crazy production on the Mutantes and Gilberto Gil albums, you will probably like this album. The Mutantes supply vocals for a few of the tunes. Unfortunately, these aren't the strongest tunes on the CD. My favorite tracks are the instrumentals. It's Tropicalia for dinner parties.

If you listen to this Rogerio Duprat reissue and enjoy it, either you're even more of a fan of harsh noise music than I am (and I'm a bit more than casually into it myself), or you otherwise have managed to get past what I consider to be a fine display of a label's untenable lack of integrity. Appears to have been played off of a beat up record with a dirty needle. The most charitable read suggests that this was the best or only possible source material available; if it MUST be released in this condition, put a warning sticker on the front. Nearly every mid-range sound is unpleasantly distorted at any reasonable listening volume, and there are not many other types of sounds to speak of. If I'd heard this before buying it, I wouldn't have.

For those who never heard of him: Rogério Duprat was a Brazilian composer
who delivered lavishly colorful arrangements in the Tropicalia movement
of late 60's, and continued to support recordings by other Brazilian
icons such as Chico Buarque, Nara Leao, Paulinho Nogueira, besides
the Tropicalia gang (Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Os Mutantes,
Tom Zé).

This record, however, is a somewhat pale display of what Rogério was capable of,
shown in the records of the ones above. The best tracks are the jocose
arrangements in the Mutantes spirit, like in "The Rain, The Park ...",
"Quem Será", "Canção para Inglês Ver", "Cinderela Rockfella".
The best one in this line is "Chega de Saudade", a Brazilian standard
turned into a hilarious small town brass band piece.

The "Lady Madonna" cover adds nothing special to the original.
The arrangements for rest of the tracks sound dreadfully like Paul Mauriat's.
Compare, for instance, this version of "Baby" with the one by Gal Costa
with arrangements by the same Duprat.

Rogério seems to have always needed a stronger creative talent who
his own talent could serve and support, and this record shows it.

I picked this up without even looking at the back of the CD case after reading rave reviews in the English music press. Had I looked at the song list, I would have left it on the shelf. It's unbelievable that any self-respecting band would want to cover such sonic schlock as Judy In Disguise, Honey, and that Cowsills song that only a real teeny-bopper could love. All those songs stunk as originals, why pay more royalties to their authors?

You might ask, what did I expect? Well, I expected the music to have an authentic Brazilian touch. Instead, I got an unpleasant surprise from the first note. Most of the songs sound like Muzak infused with stock "tropical sounds". As for Os Mutantes, well they are just horrible. Just listen to Lady Madonna!

The album still gets two stars because there are a couple of very listenable songs, the best of which is DuPrat's take on the bossa nova standard Chega de Saudade.

Unlike for the last two reviewers, the sound quality was OK on my auto's stereo. But now that I know what the genre tropicalia is about, it is unlikely I will explore it further. A Banda Tropicalista Do Duprat is one recording that should have remained in the vaults.