Pop and contemplative, Caetano Veloso took off again with ‘Cinema Transcendental’

“I wanted people to know that I was seeing beautiful things”, declared Caetano Veloso to afternoon newspaperon why it appears backwards on the LP cover Transcendental Cinema, in a photo taken on a beach in Bahia. Although the image suggests that he was turning his back on a Brazil that did not understand him in the decade that produced his most brilliant albums, offering experimentalist outbursts and popular songs, rasping guitars and traveling flutes, concrete poetry and poetic tenderness, the strength of contemplation turns out to be bigger.

In 1979, when feelings were more relaxed with the advance of political openness, Caetano’s career took off again. In Transcendental Cinemathe most pop sound he and The Other Band of Earth been developing since they started composing and recording together was solidified and poured into a collection of beachy and beautifully contemplative songs, with a strong radio appeal and a profusion of styles, from afoxé to reggae to xote.

Caetano opens the disc saluting the “Saint George’s Moon”, which is “wonder moon / Mother, sister and daughter of all splendor”. In the curve from the 1970s to the 1980s, when he would become forty, he makes his “Prayer to the Time”, who says he is “so inventive”, and proclaims that “you are one of the most beautiful gods”. In “Pure beauty”, evokes the purity of what is beautiful and invokes blackness, saying that it is not money that matters, but elegance, culture, dark skin.

“boy fromRiver”, written for the surfer smallbrings stronger waves of melancholy under the blazing sun, and enraptures when Caetano says that “I sing for God to protect you” – the song became one of the great hits of the 1980s, and aligns with a trend of sad songs among the most played in Brazil in that period, such as “Love, My Great Love” (Angela Ro Ro), “The Drunk and the Equilibrist” (John Bosco It is Aldir Blanc), “Superman” (Gilberto Gil), “Admirable New Cattle” (Zé Ramalho) It is “america song” (Milton Nascimento It is Fernando Brant). Always with lower tones, nostalgia comes strong in “Urban Rails”, from “Cinema transcendental / Trilhos Urbanos / Gal singing Balancê / How I know how to remember you”. In the existentialistcashew”, Caetano remember Torquato Neto and asks: “What is it intended for if we exist?”. If he were to answer, he would certainly say that it is to seek beauty.

HIGHLIGHTS: “Urban Trails”, “Oração ao Tempo”, “Menino do Rio”.

Transcendental Cinema (1979) is one of the albums reviewed in the Special 80 Years of Musican exclusive edition of Rolling Stone Brazil dedicated to 1942 generationwhich brings together essential names in MPB, such as himself Caetano Veloso,Milton Nascimento, Paulinho da Viola It is Gilberto Gil, as well as a global overview of those born this year. The printed special is already on newsstands and digital newsstands. Click here to learn more.

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