While I was in Portugal recently, I went to the multimedia mall store FNAC to see whether I could find some interesting Portuguese music. I was in luck; they had a whole promotion going where they were honoring the 50 year anniversary of the Carnation Revolution with special vinyl reissues of what they considered the 9 most significant Portuguese pop/rock albums. I decided to buy two of these records. The first was a 1962 self-titled album by Amália Rodrigues, a famous fado musician I already knew I liked. For my second, I decided to blind buy something I’d never even heard of.
For me it was a close choice between two records:
Mudam-se Os Tempos, Mudam-se As Vontades by José Mário Branco
This record was released in 1971, three years before the Marxist revolution that took down the fascist Estado Novo regime. At that time, the regime’s grip over society was starting to falter. Branco perceived this and took a heavy risk by putting out this album of folk rock protest songs full of barely-veiled satire of the government.
This is the one I bought. The music is good, but because I don’t yet speak Portuguese, the lyrics are lost on me. And this record in particular really leans on its lyrics.
The other record I considered, which I should have bought, was:
Pop Dell’Arte - Free Pop
I was very tempted by this one, because FNAC’s write-up mentioned it contained references to Situationist slogans. But I ended up passing on it because the same write-up also talked about musical influences from vaudeville (and because the story of that Branco record was too good to pass up).
But today I looked the album up on youtube and holy mother of god, this record is the craziest shit I’ve heard in ages:
It’s weirdly abstracted industrial-ish post-punk fronted by a falling-down-drunk Scott Walker type doing dadaist tone poetry. Parts of this record get into sort of ambient-industrial territory. When I saw this record at the store, I assumed the title “Free Pop” meant free as in freedom, but now that I’ve heard it, I think they meant free as in free jazz.
This stuff is great! The maniacal vocalist takes it to another level.
