The singer and guitarist pointed out that Skank, now closed, had to bypass the record company in order not to record an album with acoustic guitars
The nineties saw the explosion of acoustic records in Brazilian music, a phenomenon also observed abroad, thanks to the MTV in both cases. To give you an idea, the best-selling live album in history was made with acoustic guitars: Disconnected (1992), recorded by Eric Clapton for the aforementioned broadcaster, with over 25 million copies. In the national territory bands like Titans, Initial capital AND The boy Abelha They have also reached the level of millions with their work in this format.
Interestingly, the Wrong he never released an unplugged album, although he experienced his peak of popularity between the 90s and 2000s G1singer and guitarist Samuele Rosa have called albums of this type “saphenous bypass grafts” – referring to the procedure that aims to restore blood flow in the human body.
The topic was broached after Rosa pointed out that his group, which closed in 2023, never suffered any serious interference from the record companies it worked with. He acknowledged, on the other hand, that dealing with a major label “is always a negotiation”, but still managed to avoid albums recorded entirely with acoustic guitars.
According to the transcript of Rolling Stone Brazilhe said:
“Releasing an album every two years wasn’t a record company requirement, but from the ’90s through the mid-2000s we thought it would be cool, even if we didn’t always count on the band for inspiration. But I don’t. I don’t remember that it was a requirement. I remember when that wave of acoustics broke out, which we called “bypass”. throughout history we have great acoustic records.”
One of the interviewers, Braulio Lorentz, mentioned a curious theory on the subject Dinho Ouro Preto: According to the Capital Inicial singer, acoustics served as the “seed” of the college country music that would explode in the following decades. Rosa underlined that her colleague has the right to speak on the topic, given that, thanks to her unplugged album, “the band has returned to a dimension that it didn’t have in the ’80s”.
Then, the frontman revealed that the Chaosa record company subsidiary of Sony who Skank was linked to at the time, applied “great pressure” to subsequently release an acoustic album Maquinarama (2000). The group’s fifth studio effort brought songs like “Ballad of Unshakable Love”, “Three Sides” AND “He is”but he did not repeat the success of his predecessors.
“I remember the great pressure from the record company to do an acoustic song after the Maquinaramawhich was not a ratings champion so to speak. It was a revolutionary album: Skank abandoned the metal, the radio reggae, to go into something more song-like, with those sounds of keyboards and guitars. I started exploring guitars and music more Henry [Portugal]the keyboards. We started to refine the vocals a little more. It is one of the first Brazilian indie rock albums. With that change in sound, the record company was a little late, as we had broken away from the commercially successful format. They were a little scared: ‘since you released this more conceptual album, what would you say if we made an acoustic one now?’.”
Skank bypasses the record company
In the end Skank found an alternative to avoid having to resort to “bypass”. Samuel Rosa remembers:
“We made a ‘half concession’: we said that there was no way to directly make an acoustic album without making a live one. Then they, somewhat reluctantly, said to do the live one first. The practice all The band was supposed to launch with one studio album and the second live or acoustic, but it took Skank five albums to make their first ‘project album’. The record company really wanted it to be acoustic and we said let’s do it first live I live in Ouro Pretorecorded in Praça Tiradentes in July 2001.”
Rosa also joked that his group continues to cheat the record company. The reason? Even after the live album, he did not record the acoustic one. And he concluded:
“Maybe Skank is one of the few Brazilian pop rock bands that doesn’t have acoustic music on its resume.”
+++ READ MORE: The 3 bands that revived rock in Brazil in the 90s, according to Samuel Rosa
+++ READ MORE: “Barão Vermelho is part of the tradition of Brazilian rock,” says Samuel Rosa
Source: Terra
Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.
