Search - Various Artists :: Tropicalia (30 Years)

The Essential Works of a Generation

crales | Boston, MA USA | 07/25/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This set contains five of the best (and most difficult to find) Tropicalia albums from 1968 and 1969. Imagine Sgt. Pepper, Surrealistic Pillow, Beggar's Banquet, The Who Sell Out, and Freak Out!, and that only begins to explain the weight of these albums, both politically and musically. Easily the most important "rock" movement outside of the US and the UK, Tropicalia tapped a nerve; it seamlessly fused the rich and diverse Brazilian musical tradition with the 1967 sounds of psychedelia and rebellion to form some of the most beautiful, powerful, and intellectually sophisticated popular music the world has ever known. The stuff was political dynamite, and the Brazilian government knew it; the leaders of the movement (Gil and Veloso) were jailed and exiled in 1969. But these albums - from the beauty of Caetano Veloso's poetry to the radical experimentation of Os Mutantes - give a window into a world, thousands of miles from Northern California, where people (briefly) believed that "Everything is Possible""