Recovering from surgery, the musician lamented the current state of entertainment and criticized the “new artistic order that favors partying.”
As previously reported, Guilherme Arantes He underwent cardiac surgery on December 26: a catheterization with angioplasty, unplanned, but successful. Therefore, the musician had to cancel his upcoming commitments, such as a New Year’s Eve show in Santos (SP) and another performance at Navio do New clothes –, as he would need absolute rest for 10 days.
Feeling well enough to post on social media, Arantes took advantage of the moment of recovery and the end of the year to announce, on his Facebook profile, that he will take a career break in 2025. Apparently, the treatment The health problem it wasn’t the cause, it’s just the last straw: the artist is dissatisfied with the current state of the music and entertainment industry.
In a long message, Guilherme said no “bring more” the context in which you have to work. He criticized what he calls “new artistic order that favors the party, the meeting, the mix, the ‘immersive experience’ that the concert market offers”. Vowing to return in 2026, he made it clear that he felt grateful for the fans he had gained and the opportunity to play live, but admitted to feeling a little uncomfortable. “fish out of water”.
Read the full statement below, available on his Facebook page.
“Happy New Year everyone.
See you in 2026!
No, you didn’t misread it, and I didn’t misread it either.
That’s right: 2025 is already partly designed ‘for’ me, and partly designed ‘by’ me.
I won’t say “goodbye” to anything, I’ll see you soon. Unlike most of my professional colleagues, I am a goalless agent.
Zero promises, zero commitments to continue this mandatory path called ‘career’. I kick the bucket, I rebel to survive.
I can’t stand it anymore, I’m a bizarre replicant, displaced in a game I’ve lost the thread of.
I have a problem with what I will loosely call ‘collective processes’.
What is the “collective”? Crowd. Crowd of people. I respect everything, but I may have developed a sense of embarrassment.
I love playing for people, I have love and intensity in my message, in my public role.
But I confess that, not today, I felt like a fish out of the aquarium.
And even more so now, that I have taken a hard blow and found myself forced to ‘not be’ at two events that would have made me feel ‘still at the service of something’… in this new artistic order that favors celebration, the meeting, the mix, the ‘immersive experience’ that the concert market offers.
I’m very troubled and thoughtful, I have questions, if you want to know.
It’s not an easy time.
It would be so much easier if I just relaxed, enjoyed life and savored success by ‘playing for money’… but I’m not like that.
I’m not exactly a ‘performer’ in a world dominated by entertainment.
A compulsive and obligatory composer by birth and choice, I sometimes have the feeling of not being worth much in this world, except for a select group – thank God, I thank and appreciate every day – of admirers of my artistic evolution. I also thank the Universe for giving me half a century of music with meaning and consistency of unconditional love.
Use for entertainment is another matter.
For a while I helped… to have this immediate enjoyment of the show… because when youth and the musical fashion of twenty years favored me… I managed to perform a little and help “give the party “that the world gave me.
I wasn’t dissatisfied with it, on the contrary. I really appreciate it, I am very proud that the quality of our generation has managed to leave an indelible mark and perpetuate itself with great durability for the good of the world.
I don’t try to do it, but I give myself the right to be an outsider, like Lennon and Harrison, to be among the two most delusional of Beatlemania…
I think I’m old and grumpy. I caught the goat.
Maybe all this will pass. He had taken it.
Show, show, audience, conference, coaching, convention, public party, ballad, turn, carnival, crowd, march, demonstration, congress, demonstration, mass, everything that is “collective” sometimes seems questionable, manipulated, addictive and perhaps evil.
Don’t get me wrong.
Our world is almost entirely balanced by collectivization.
It’s not even a question of ideologies.
It is Ortega y Gasset’s Revolution in its overwhelming splendor.
There are too many people, an anthill.
The “entertainment” that was so popular is replaced by the old concept of Art.
The show is driven by “functionality”, we always read reviews of “Festival” with the so-called feature: “What worked and what didn’t work” – this is the motto of the functionality of crowd events.
It’s all about the algebra of sales, engagements, number of followers, viewers, views, executions, streams,
I am incredibly envious of Bach, a Kapellmeister, who performs a cantata on the church organ by candlelight in Leipzig… for me this is Art.
Is it too much to wish for? Missing art?
When I was a child the world of recording existed.
And I grew up dreaming of being a composer, a Vanzolini, a Jobim, a Johnny Alf.
My father collected records, and records were made in studios, released by record labels, with pomp and circumstance, in specialty stores.
The album was the only way for music to reach the world…
It was a luxury: conductors, arrangers, musicians, studios, microphones and very expensive valve tables, all in suits and ties, it was a world of dreams.
Ahmet Ertegun sets up the microphone for Ray Charles… Sinatra smokes a cigarette in front of an RCA Dx77… photo of Elizete, Caymmi in front of a 44 BX…
Luiz Bonfá, Baden, Edu Lobo, Menescal, Carlos Lyra, Luiz Eça! My heroes. And Tom? Vinicius? That was cowardice…
Ah… the music, the music, so much passion!
As a teenager I dreamed of being Serge Gainsbourg, Gary Brooker, Ray Manzarek, Vangelis, Burt Bacharach, Ivan, Antonio Adolfo, Taiguara!
I frequented Record auditoriums at the end of the ’60s, at song festivals, where the main protagonists were the composers.
How can you not carry this concept with you for the rest of your life? I saw in action, still young guys, Edu, Chico, Sidney Miller, Maranhão, Capinam, Vandré, Gil, Caetano, Tom Zé, and later in the FIC, Guarabyra, Antonio Adolfo and Tibério Gaspar, Nelson Motta, Danilo Caymmi, Zé Rodrix, Milton, Fernando Brant, Walter Franco, Taiguara, Ivan Lins and his group MAU, Aldir, Gonzaguinha, if I don’t remember here later Correction… Check it out:
The shows were an embryonic complement.
Monumental artists held shows on a small, at best medium scale. There wasn’t even a complete industrial technology, a monumental structure that began to specifically foster industrial-scale entertainment everywhere, taking over the “live” over the core business at the same time as the phonographic business was being digitally demolished… Showbiz simply killed the music. Simple as water kills fire.
Since I mentioned the Beatles, it’s worth noting that after Rubber Soul they played no more shows and lived to create, in just a few years, the most important RockPop work of all time… because Lennon ‘proved the’ aversion ‘to play with money?
John scoffs at “playing for money.”
Today this aversion would be unthinkable, wouldn’t it?
It wouldn’t be. I’m on that threshold.
The world of entertainment kills.
Music doesn’t kill.
Over time, ‘artists’ proliferated, shows became an industry, a large ‘live’ circus, audience sizes continued to change… and we arrived at what we have.
Where have we ended up?
The entertainment world swallowed the song, at least as I dreamed it.
Some say music is dead!
Will it be?
I ask… because at this turning point… turning point of the year… personal turning point… I, the composer, am in full swing… and I know exactly where I should be going.
The path seems very clear to me, there is a clairvoyance in my solitude.
The choirmaster awaits me with open arms.
Everywhere I go.
I’m lost, but… could I be a visionary?
Happy new year to the world.
See you in 2026.”
+++ READ MORE: “There is no reason to complain, the campaign will not change,” says Guilherme Arantes
+++ READ MORE: Current Brazilian pop artists highlighted by Guilherme Arantes
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.
