Review Summary: One of the most popular and influential albums of Brazilian music
Brazilian popular music, better known as MPB, has, like any style that was born in a melting pot of various influences, performers from all sides who approach it and who, almost unintentionally, revolutionize the genre from a very personal and unique mixture of styles. Like Chico Buarque, in the early 70s, he made a mix of samba with psychedelic music and interventional lyrics that put him at the forefront of the most interesting musicians in Brazil. But, if it is about great musical revolutions, without forgetting the Black Rio Movement and the Tropicalist Movement, the band that illustrates this must be mandatory: Novos Baianos were called and resumed the Brazilian tradition of the great and unhappy Assis Valente, the most basic samba , adding an electric guitar worthy of the best to the mix. The result: an absolutely unique kind of samba-rock.
“Acabou Chorare”, the band's second studio album, is the point where all this experimentation culminates. Chosen as the most important album of Brazilian music by Rolling Stone experts in 2007, all the critical acclaim can be understood very well: the mixture of rock and traditional Brazilian music could easily cement everything that appeared from then on, teaching the musicians of that country, at the time more focused on black music, that the sound can also be electrified, "rocking", and without losing the characteristic identity of all the music there. Like candles, magical images and tangible scenes rise, a surrealism slightly perceptible as an oasis permeates the lyrics and the melody, enchanting them in a strange limbo of euphoric melancholy.
The whole culminating idea is summed up in an instrumental piece, Um Bilhete Pra Didi, in which the group demonstrates how the two worlds can coexist. The opening track Brasil Pandeiro, composed by the Bahian compatriot Assis Valente, shows a noticeable discontinuity in relation to the work of the previous year, É Ferro na Boneca, entering more western beat rock movements, united with the tropicalist senses. The beautiful acoustic songs like the one entitled the album (Acabou Chorare), A Menina Dança and Preta Pretinha (both versions) are fantastic samba songs with an absolutely irresistible rhythm. Then there's Tinindo Trincando, with its unique rhythm and funky electric guitar. Here, the performance of Bernadete “Baby” Consuelo, 20 years old, attacks the intimate 'feminine', being instinctive and authentic, diverging deductively from what she declares to be a bitter fragility in which she perceives all the emotions of life. In the remaining themes of the album, tracks such as Mistério do Planeta or Besta É Tu breathe the Brazilian sound, reminding the works of Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.
All in all, “Acabou Chorare” is the best album recorded by the collective of Moraes Moreira, Paulinho Boca de Cantor, “Baby” Consuelo, Luiz Galvão, among others. However, the tenacious force emanates from the lively inventions of electric and acoustic strings (Moreira and Galvão) from folklore, from soft vocal harmonies, and from collective Carnival tours and works. The disc opens and revisits all indigenous brands: samba, bossa nova, tropicalism, culture and counter-culture, in a joyfully anarchic key during the Brazilian dictatorship. Everything here is colorful and revives, in shifting fantasies, journeys in private nooks or among shared and fervent fevers.
