Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture

CHAPTER 2 Participation, Pop Music, and the Universal Sound

66666666666666 2 PARTICIPATION, POP MUSIC, AND THE UNIVERSAL SOUND T he tropicalist movement coalesced toward the end of a tumultuous decade marked by the intensification of left-wing activism and a reactionary military coup in 1964 aimed at preempting any movement for radical social transformation . Debates over the proper role of the artist in relation to progressive social and political movements oriented much of the cultural production during this period. The 1960s also witnessed the consolidation of a national culture industry that sought to tap into consumer markets primarily in the urban areas. With the advent of military rule, the state invested heavily in mass media technologies in an attempt to exert ideological influence throughout the national territory. These transformations led to conflicting perceptions and definitions of the ‘‘masses’’ in Brazilian society. Political and cultural activists of the Left often identified this exploited and oppressed majority as o povo (the people or masses), a designation with both populist and revolutionary resonances based on the conviction that the masses were potential agents in social transformation . On the other hand, media technocrats of the culture industry tended to regard the masses as o público (the public), a designation that focused on their potential as cultural consumers.These conflicting definitions underscored a tension within the artistic community between artists who positioned themselves as professionals working in increasingly competitive cultural industries and those who defined themselves foremost as political activists. Renato Ortiz has summarized this tension as ‘‘a dichotomy between cultural work and political expression.’’1 This dichotomy was not unique to Brazil during the 1960s. Néstor García Canclinihasdescribedasortofdoubleconsciousnessamongartiststhroughout Latin American whowereworking within the culture industryduring this time: A confrontation occurs between the socioeconomic logic of the growth of the market and the voluntaristic logic of political culturalism, which was particularly dramatic when it was produced inside a particular movement or even within the same persons.Those who were carrying out the expansive and renovating rationality of the sociocultural system were the same ones who wanted to democratize artistic production. At the same time that they were taking to the extremes the practices of symbolic differentiation —formal experimentation, the rupture with common knowledges— they were seeking to fuse with the masses.2 Two basic and frequently intersecting tensions oriented the work of Latin American cultural producers engaged with mass communication: between market rationality and political commitment, and between formal experimentation and mass appeal. Of course, professional and political motivations were not always mutually exclusive. Many of the artists discussed in this chapter thought simultaneously in terms of career advancement, political activism, and formal innovation . The tropicalist musicians were unique, however, in making explicit the competing imperatives of civic-minded participation, professional success , and aesthetic experimentalism in an emerging market for pop music. This tension was central to their aesthetic approach to Brazilian popular music as well.The musician-critic Luiz Tatit has shown that in 1967–68 CaetanoVeloso had a dual project committed simultaneously to radical aesthetic innovation and to the legacy of the great pre–bossa nova radio singers, such as Orlando Silva and Nelson Gonçalves, who were among the first modern media celebrities in Brazil. According to Tatit, Veloso had, on the one hand, an ‘‘explicit and noisy project dedicated to rupturing and desacralizing the dogmatic norms of mpb during that time’’ and, on the other, an ‘‘implicit and patient project that sought to recover the ethos of radio song for the new era.’’3 This dual project would necessarily have to confront another productive tension between nationalism and cosmopolitanism in Brazilian culture. In an attempt to synthesize these competing and often contradictory impera38 participation, pop music, and the universal sound tives, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil proposed what they called the ‘‘universal sound,’’ which was the prelude to Tropicália. 666 CULTURE AND SOCIAL ACTION IN THE EARLY 1960S In one of several memoirs written by Brazilian intellectuals who reached adulthood in the early 1960s, Luiz Carlos Maciel stated that the principal belief of the youth of his generation was that ‘‘art had a transforming function in society.’’4 It is important to remember that what Maciel understands as his generation is circumscribed by social class, educational experience, and to someextentgeographicallocation.ThegenerationtowhichMacielrefersprimarily encompasses urban middle-class students and young professionals, especially those involved with cultural production or political activism, such as musicians, filmmakers, playwrights, actors,visual...