I have to go with my gut reaction to this album, even though that reaction is going to sound silly and denigrating of Gal Costa's self-titled 1969 album, which is really quite pleasant overall, but still, here was my gut reaction: this sounds like music that one might hear in an Austin Powers movie. Am I wrong? I think it has to do with the "groovy" rhythms and the excessive piccolo and the foreign-language female vocals.
Which isn't to say it's bad, but more to say that I had trouble viewing this music as unironic. Placing sincere psychedelic music over dance sequences featuring a hirsute Mike Myers thus strips away the sincerity. I don't even mean to place the blame solely on the shoulders of a horny fictional spy; we are conditioned in this new millennium to hear the classic as corny, and thus funny. Think about the opening credits to It's Always Sunny. The music is funny because of the juxtaposition of a light but serious but also outdated tune and the modern zaniness that follows.
I'm not even complaining (I don't think?). The irony was applicable in real life, and appreciated. See: "Que Pena" playing a very pleasant, string-laden bossa nova dinner-music-style sound over breakfast in the K*** home, very relaxing, very calming music that juxtaposed excellently with the chaos of Martha (the younger sister, mind you) trying to get Willow to tap out on the kitchen floor with a choking maneuver, and the scuffle of chairs that followed and shrill shrieks into the Fox Chase morning air. Not the right scene for some light Gal Costa, and yet, because of the established irony attached to it, Gal Costa became the perfect music for a rather unpleasant scene that has played out in this kitchen every morning since Martha turned two.
So I had trouble taking Gal Costa at face value this week (in other words: it did NOT make me randy, baby, yeah). While I certainly can't claim that I am personally familiar with this type of music (called "Tropicália," by the way), it also feels generic enough that I feel like I am intimately familiar with it already. Like, I've ridden an elevator before, ya know?
Sure, there were a few tunes that stood out. My favorite was "Divino, Maravilhoso," which featured a fun little whoop before the choruses that actually reminded me that we are in the late-'60s as opposed to the early-'40s. I also liked "Namorinho de Portão," which features an intro that does more to trick me that I'm listening to a Led Zeppelin song than I ever thought Gal Costa capable of (c'mon, who else thinks that the scream at the beginning sounds exactly like Robert Plant's scream from the beginning of "I Can't Quit You Babe"?); the fact that it immediately switches into light and fluffy conga/flute romp literally makes me laugh every time.
I also like the fact that the mostly-Portuguese lyrics add a bit of mystery to the whole affair. I prefer non-English lyrics I can hear crystal-clear than English lyrics that are inscrutable, because I can still make up lyrics to sing along to. I kept singing along to Donovan-esque "Vou Recomeçar" as if the lyrics were "Boys who have a forehead call me 'sir.'" Which is definitely not it, obviously. But still catchy! (Actually, shit, I guess I should actually look up the translation for this song while we're here. I should be looking up the translations to all the songs, really, but ain't no one got time for that. Okay, the chorus for "Vou Recomeçar" is: "Now I'm going to start over.")
There's also a disconnect too, sure. Being woefully undereducated about the history of Brazilian politics, I am left wondering whether Gal Costa's music was all-caps IMPORTANT in a way that maybe Wells Fargo or Mahalia Jackson were in their respective countries' histories. For example, two songwriters on this album, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil (the latter featured on vocals on two tracks) were exiled from Brazil around the time of this album's release by a "military regime" that had taken power in Brazil a few years prior. What's the story there? Why were these two musicians considered a "threat"? What was threatening about Gal Costa? I'm left in the dark.
No marks against the album, of course—I'm in the dark because I'm lazy and lack the time and diligence to explore the necessary stories behind the album this week. I'm really just saying that there is more intrigue than satisfaction when it comes to Gal Costa for me. There is a beauty in not knowing, but that same unknowing also makes love difficult to reach.
I'm just rambling now (mumbling to myself: "Oh, behave"), but I'm trying to convince myself that the ramblings are connected. Yes, I found this a difficult album to crack—while pleasant, I felt no connection to it. Yes, that's my fault. And yes, maybe I am leaning on the idea of "irony" vis-à-vis a phony connection to Austin Powers as a defense mechanism. I'm embarrassed that I didn't have the ability to fully understand this album, and so let's pile on the '90s movie references instead: YEAH BABY, YEAH!!!!!
GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5
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