Folks & cowboys: aesthetics of Brazilian country music

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Folks & cowboys: aesthetics of Brazilian country music. © Copyright by Victor Aquino, 2001, 2006 WEA Books & Publishing Inc. Monroe, LA USA

All rights reserved. Inquires should be addressed directly to World Editions of America, Books & Publishing Inc, 94 Elm St, Monroe, Louisiana 71201 USA

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Contents

Why country music? (by Ana Maria Barreira)

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Foreword

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Part One

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The roots of new Brazilian country music

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Part Two

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Brazilian pop-music in the 70s of the XX Century

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Bibliography

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About the author

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Why country music?

It’s amazing how every day we may find curiosities about life and circumstances around us. This book is part of these discoveries. It argues the problem of the social contacts whose nature transforms them into social change. Starting from a real case the author shows some mutations in Brazilian folk music. This music, knew as “musica caipira”, is a typical kind of folk music of the State of Sao Paulo, as well as in other some regions of the country side of Brazil. It has largely changed in the last twenty years because of contacts in the orange market with the United States. This study by Victor Aquino shows a case whose means of change must be understood as possible anywhere. The original as well as native kind of regional music, so common in a part of Brazil, has changed under external influences. Folks & Cowboys is the better way for understanding what it happened. The book also approaches the question of popular music from radio programs. The data of one search carried through for the author in years 80 of the XX Century prove as the urban musical preferences already had been also guided for foreign productions.

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The music is ever a context where art, culture and human nature interact. Popular music is also an excellent tool for looking about. Country music the most appropriate. Why country music? I think because it’s a kind of music whose expression refuses limits, aesthetical consequences, concepts and forms without links with the nature. Country music is a natural music, or a natural way for knowing better culture and life of our Civilization.

Ana Maria Barreira GEMODE / CEAQ / Université Paris V

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Foreword

The year 1985 saw the completion of a research project dealing with the universe of popular music in Brazil. This project was initiated in 1979 and was part of a discipline entitled “Record Production” in the publishing course of the University of Sao Paulo. Two years after the termination of the project, one highly explosive conclusion stood out clearly. The research had found that (a) access to recording technology was restricted (b) the corresponding industrial record production sector was limited and (c) the record distributors operated in a market tightly controlled by the international labels. And so the conclusion was that these factors, in practice, hindered the release of any product outside of the control of the recording companies. Before discussing the matter in relation to the term “manipulation” one should point out the significance of the field of study since it was defined above as “the universe of popular music”. Firstly this description gives the impression that it is something more important and complex than it really is. Secondly, if one confines the area of such field of study to its precise dimensions existing at the time, there is only a 8

partial comprehension of the problem. This is because during the time when it was being carried out, the research was studying a market where the disc jockey was the principal means of record diffusion. Up to the Eighties, when it was unusual to consider the effects of the technological changes on the horizon and which shortly began to occur, the phonographic market was rigorously focused on the production of new titles. This meant that it was the domain of the record companies and only they had the power of decision when it was a question of selecting which music, which artists, which records to be released. After release, the whole commercial process followed involving distribution, promotion, publicity and playing of a new phonographic product. To discuss the last three stages of this process, however, is to speak of one unique essential activity for success. Until the Eighties these last three stages comprised widespread and repeated playing of each record on radio programs and these constituted the main marketing tool. This system, based especially on the repetition of the same titles at different times programs became the most effective tool, not phonographic product commercialization but consolidating the record market.

constant on radio only for also for

The radio was transformed in Brazil and in the whole world into the mainspring of popular music commercialization. 9

It was for this reason that the radio came to offer an opportunity for developing a special sort of programs that, starting in the United States, took hold of record diffusion in the whole world. These programs were known as “hit parades” and everywhere they broadcast the list of the “mostplayed music” or the “most-sold records”. These were programs where the voice of a charismatic presenter carried convincing arguments in respect of all these lists of “preferences”, of the “most-listened-to” music. Since the beginning of the forties the presenter would acquire the same notoriety as the artists and music that he divulged in his program. And so it was that this kind of program, under the conducting of the disc jockeys, emerged and came to structure the record market. In Brazil it was no different. In Sao Paulo, where historically the principal Brazilian record market is located, this situation contributed towards consolidating a market, which in 1985 was rich in examples and aspects for study. That year, when the research in question was being finished, may be considered the threshold of a change, which would affect things in the future. The technological transformation, which yielded, a new phonographic product, the compact disc, would also modify the market, would alter the consumer pattern, would create new production conditions, and would generate a recording autonomy for artists, producers, groups and composers. All these factors contributed towards renovating completely the

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system of record promotion and deeply alter radio programs in the whole world. Brazilian culture, principally in the last ten years, has had a close relationship with the social communication media. Among these the radio stands out indisputably both as a generator of expectations as regards cultural production and, at the same time, as a disseminator of what is produced. It has not only been programs based on musical insertions but also those made up of other content that has always made the radio an indispensable vehicle of communication in Brazilian life. Independently of the rise or fall of audiences, public opinion has been interested in the quality of radio programs. This book is not an essay on the radio; nevertheless it brings together two texts that arose from studies focused on radio diffusion. The first, incidentally, features very well the question of the diffusion and the transformation of a music genre, which is mostly dependent on the use of the radio. The second, as it says, deals with research work on the record market which was carried out from 1979 through 1987. These two texts might appear to be unconnected but only apparently so. In fact, when the record market was being studied, on analyzing the way in which power and control were used in the record release process, the presence of the foreign element in this market had already been perceived. As time passed, people came increasingly to realize that the American presence in Brazilian popular music has 11

much less to do with the structure of the record market than with other influences. By the way, the first text attempts to relate the circumstances that unleashed these influences. Basically it deals with the transformations which have taken place in Brazilian country music since the start of the orange trade with the United States. In a sense, the present essay is intended to be a record of a study which traces record production before the technological transformation of this market. Simultaneously, the essay will analyze the change in an important music genre, Brazilian sertaneja music, due to the influence of a very similar foreign genre. The essay is divided into three parts. The first part entitled “Some roots of Brazilian country music” is dedicated to the study of the influence of American country music on Brazilian country music (sertaneja music). The second part deals with the formation of the phonographic market as perceived from a study of the hit parades and the legislation which governed radio programs in Brazil at the time. The third part consists of tables that set out the data from the research. While this work was being compiled for publication, the person who suggested it, Julio Martinez, passed away. He was a man concerned with culture and its importance on the formation and development of the New World and his was the incentive for this publication. Cuban by birth he had lived in the United States since the Forties and he exercised intense cultural activity in the States of New York and New Jersey. 12

Treading confidently along the paths of HispanoAmerican popular culture, he distinguished himself especially as a writer and newspaper editor within the respective communities. To some extent, Julio Martinez anticipated the idea of cultural influence and the modification of cultures, based on presuppositions about human curiosity and expectations. As he himself wrote, at various times in La Razón, that vigorous Latin-spirited newspaper published in New Jersey, “Cultural contacts between people from different worlds are sometimes much more important than their own cultures”. He decided to publish this Folks & Cowboys on a night in the beginning of January 2000. On that occasion, he was taking part in a noisy dinner with young Jamaican musicians in the Mi Bandera restaurant. He had just read the text that comprises the first part of this book. Then he asked if it might be possible to join it with another text that he was already acquainted with and turn it into an essay on the influences received by the Brazilian music. On the following day, settled already in “The Book on Trailer” in Moonachie, he began to work frenetically (quite in his style) on the editorial format of the work. He still had time to make numerous telephone calls and also, as was his way, push invitations for two lectures by the author on the subject. Carrying his oxygen equipment and breathing with difficulty but even so walking lightly and driving his heavy Buick himself, he had ideas regarding everything connected 13

with music, musical production and the immense Latin artist continent within the United States. He lamented deeply his little knowledge of the Brazilian reality that he considered the “sweetest side of the New World”. A month after he had begun to organize the publication of the book, Julio Martinez did not come, unlike his usual custom, to one of the Saturday afternoon meetings at 354 West 45th Street in Manhattan. On this very day he would have had his first opportunity to hear a Brazilian country music band. The first consequence of his passing has been the modification of this foreword.

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Part One

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The roots of new Brazilian country music

As had never happened before, the years 1983 and 1985 had extremely severe winters that destroyed a large part of the orange plantations in the United States. Perhaps it is normal for the ordinary person not to realize how important and serious an occurrence of this kind is. Distant from calamities like this and living far from the regions directly affected, many people even imagine that such happenings do not directly affect their own lives. The media with its resources of systematic particularization of the facts contributes towards having a strong sensation of distance from the facts. The distance is induced by the localization and this causes very erroneous thinking. Most of the time we think that tragedies, accidents, conflagrations, earthquakes, hurricanes, which happen in faraway places will not affect our lives. Almost always the things we watch on television each new morning, for us, do not go beyond the news program. Practically nobody realizes that profound changes could not result from an item on the news, nor does it matter whatever item it may be. Incidentally, the majority of these changes are often not perceived, even when they are gradually incorporated into our

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daily lives. Afterwards when some time has gone by and they have been incorporated into our culture, our habits, our customs, the changes and things, which resulted from them, do not even remind us of what brought them about. The above-mentioned winters of intense cold and heavy snowstorms that devastated unexpectedly the principal orange growing region of the United States of America did more than raze the orange plantations. As a result of these misfortunes, actions had to be taken that went much beyond just the measures for recuperation of the orange plantations affected. Even before the first half of the Eighties decade, the imminence of extensive losses, because of shortage of oranges on the American market, were anticipated. The orange is a fruit used to produce, among other things, the juice customarily drunk at breakfast time each morning by millions of consumers in the United States. Has anyone ever asked what willed happen if, during a long period, rice was missing for Japanese cooking? If there was a shortage of the ingredients used for making Mexican tortillas? Or indeed, if there was a shortage of coffee in Brazil? Not only in Brazil but also in a large part of the world. Also of much greater consequence than the commercial loss, another problem would descend on the cultures of the places concerned, affecting customs and thus forcing a change in attitudes and behavior. 19

The shortage of any food item in any culture where it is customarily consumed brings with it a change in attitudes and behavior. Consequently every change is something that causes discomfort, insecurity and non-conformity. However, the same force that promotes and sustains changes that are negative equally consolidates deep-rooted habits by which human beings are identified and characterized. Naturally these habits support millionaire markets involving the hourly replacement on shelves in all the world of items that maintain unaltered the traditional levels of food consumption. And so this must have been the first preoccupation of the United States orange growers in the Eighties. Not only the growers but also all the other traders, distributors and processors of the fruit, in the face of the modifications that very soon began to occur in the market. Concomitantly to the shortage of oranges, prices began to rise indicating a lack of the fruit and its by-products. And the situation was becoming worse. Just as worried about the shortage as the others, businessmen saw that, besides the disappearance of the merchandise, the extinction of large part of the market was imminent. Should the market go away, a rich source of business would disappear and eliminate future profits? Perhaps as the result of this last preoccupation there would be developments as follows. Probably having in mind replacing the product by oranges from new plantations in more appropriate regions the businessmen in this sector considered looking for other geographical regions as an option for large 20

scale replanting. A search resulted in the discovery of the interior of the State of Sao Paulo in Brazil as appropriate for orange growing. Negotiations began immediately for the use of the land, the corresponding cultivation, and the preparation of young orange seedlings, diverse supplies, in short, all the necessary technology to, from then on, put the market back on its former level. There are two things right at the beginning of the process that evidenced contact between different cultures. The first one refers to the high mobility of the financial sector in support of the initial agricultural work and the ensuing industrial activity. The second was the intense movement of American professionals and technicians with relevant experience. Clearly, as well as the movement of the personnel engaged in the activities of the sector, we need to take into account their physical contact with all the others who by reason of business or otherwise were in the region. But one contact at least is incontestable. It is the personal relationship established by reason of professional activities. The technical skills transmitted then are absorbed, generating operating procedures that are incorporated as they had been planned and desired. At the same time personal friendships can be initiated. Whenever persons of diverse origins come together and whatever may be the nature of the contact, exchanges are made and the result always depends on the intensity of the interest involved. These exchanges are not exclusively 21

determined by business reasons. The affections, the interests, the expectations, and the desires of each one involved always reveal values which are added to the cultures of both. The complex commercial interchange in the orange business between the two countries brought diverse persons near to each other. These persons, in strange surroundings ended up by interacting in situations where they had common tastes, affections and expectations. It was precisely a region in the interior of Brazil, transformed into an orange cultivation area, which became the scenario of new intercultural relations. In the region of the State of Sao Paulo that had been chosen for orange cultivation there had always existed habits and tastes very like those in some interior regions in the United States. Although their cultures are specific, the tastes of the two regions came close in that context, causing a convergence of values related to land, life in the open air, animals, nature, and music of a style, shall we say, “regional”. Moreover it is in music where we find more frequently, references to those native or nature elements. The ways of expressing sentiments, the extremely personal tone of the lyrics, the atmosphere of simplicity, and above all the bucolic side of human relations are frequent in a type of music so characteristic of some American regions. Equally they are also common in the music of some regions of Brazil such as the interior of the State of Sao Paulo. It must be acknowledged that this peculiarity, coincidentally brought nearer persons who, because of orange production, came into frequent contact. 22

As well as the direct contact between professionals of the area, we should also take into account the contacts that took place spontaneously outside work and which contributed fundamentally to the increase of knowledge of each about the culture of the others. This getting together is owed especially to ordinary people, on the farms, in the small towns, in beershops, in clubs, in hotels, at festivals. Indeed at festivals and what were the festivals like in the interior of the State of Sao Paulo, for example, until this “contact” came about? Well, they were typical country festivals with crowds of girls and boys and couples who went to hear music, dance and court. Or, indeed, up to that time, still in the Eighties, what were the cowhands’ festivals like, the so-called “festas do peao de boiadeiro”? Are they still the same today? Or, indeed, have the modifications they suffered transformed them into something very different? Why? The replies to these questions stem from sole evidence. This evidence states that the modification of the Brazilian “sertaneja” music, as well as the aesthetic elements, is a clear referential of contact with American country music. But it was not only this contact that occurred from the Eighties onwards that bring cultural contributions to Brazilian popular music. In the preceding decade, for example, due to specific legislation governing Brazilian broadcasting, there was a similar phenomenon. Because of an attempt by the government to impose a national flavor on radio music programs or simply to keep jobs for Brazilian artists, it was obligatory to 23

include a minimum percentage of Brazilian music composed by Brazilian authors and recorded in Brazil. A case which happened in the Seventies was narrated in the book “Mercado da Musica: Disco e Alienacao” (Correa, 1987). The work, published on the initiative of the editor, Kardec Pinto Vallada, then proprietor of Expert Editora in Sao Paulo, made it possible to divulge part of the research carried out by the University of Sao Paulo on the subject of the phonographic market and the hit parades. The present book could well be a new edition of the same. However, the incorporation of new material has substantially altered the proposition and the conclusions of the first book. This new material deals with the modifications undergone by Brazilian regional music and is based on research by the same University a number of years later. Several authors – Waldenyr Caldas in an example – have faithfully portrayed the mosaic formed by composers and interpreters of the regional music of Brazil. Waldenyr Caldas author of “Acorde na Aurora” is the foremost author. The rescue of the origin – the primitive and fundamental origin of the “sertaneja” genre – taking the pair of singers Tonico and Tinoco as starting point, which Caldas developed, is perhaps the most exponential work by a Brazilian author, available on this subject. It would have been wholly productive if similar works about this music genre in Brazil had also concentrated on the cultural aspects instead of, as the great majority did, occupying 24

themselves with characteristics, music titles, authors of lyrics, singers’ names, bands, producers’ labels, and so on. Caldas’s work, on the contrary, not only gave a definitive description of the genre and the reasons why it exists, but also establishes consistently the relations between its roots and the environments in which it evolved. The caboclo culture, the caipira culture, or the native culture (or any other name it is wished to ascribe to the rural cultural context in Brazil or whatever country) represents the spontaneity of a more basic social organization. However the description “caipira” in the interior of Sao Paulo State is uncomfortably constraining and embarrassing. The expression is not always well understood. A succession of authors has studied the matter. Works on the subject of Brazilian roots in general become “classics” in Brazilian academia. The roots are studied in order to understand the failures of history, the origins are studied to understand the nature of culture, the roots are studied to define behavior patterns, the roots are studied to try to propose alternative political paths etc. Classical works like those by Gilberto Freyre, Darci Ribeiro, Egon Schaden, Vianna Moog, Buarque de Hollanda, Milton Santos, and more recent ones have been of assistance to many secondary writers who come, one after another, trying to explain Brazilian culture. It is worth remembering that, as much in the field of the social sciences as in that of fiction, there has been more or less a single concern:

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- to understand the social and cultural formation of a country whose physiognomy is not very well defined. Nowadays to understand the significance of the term “caipira” is no more so important. Today it is equally or more important to understand the significance in the light of the reasons that made the caipira himself not to like to be so considered. One of the reason lies in the process of urbanization that Brazil has been going through in a disorientated and completely uncontrolled way for the last fifty years. This same process, arising from a mistaken development option as well as drawing entire populations to the cities, created a highly negative concept of the rural environment. Perhaps the chief explanation of the problem of the cultural rejection of the auto-denomination “caipira” lies in the following supposition. If the rural environment is disqualified, the human being who lives in it is also disqualified. Therefore it is easy to understand why nobody wants to be classified according to the characteristics of the environment where he lives, or lived. It may be perceived, in such circumstances, that he prefers to be classified or identified by something that calls to mind the big city, the urban life or any other thing that represents – even though in stereotype – “development”. The countryside, the small holidays, or the interior become synonyms of “backwardness”.

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Lamentable though they may be, these are the ideas that became rooted in the Brazilian interior regions, and which transformed the term “caipira” into something extremely negative. Significantly the songs of that time, listened to mainly by the humblest people of these regions, were synonyms of extreme bad taste. Up to the Seventies, principally, double acts of singers like Tonico and Tonico, Millionario and Ze Rico, Leo Canhoto and Robertinho, performed in front of audiences who earned low wages and had little education. These audiences were nearly always made up of the humblest people. They lived in the interior of the State of Sao Paulo or inhabited the poor suburbs on the outskirts of Sao Paulo city. A change that occurred in the profile of these audiences suggests three things that can explain it. The first of these refers to a change in the style of the music itself. The second, to a new crop of composers or the emergence of new musicians. The third, to the incorporation of aesthetic values from another culture. Of course it is evident that the change in style is partly because the music had incorporated a new aesthetic. But the change in style must be understood as a separated phenomenon considering that it resulted from external contact and occurred in co-related ground. This ground, not necessarily musical, was created by the professional close contacts during the development of the orange plantations.

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Going back in time a little and journeying on the map, we find a number of Brazilian artists who also made contributions to the change in the direction of regional music. Sometimes, for diverse reasons other than those being discussed here, the majority of these musicians contributed in a very special way. One remembers the personal style of some who, often distant from the interior of the State of Sao Paulo, stamped a new tendency on the taste of the music audiences of that region. Luis Gonzaga is a case in point. Gonzaga was a musician born in the northeast of Brazil. He put himself forward as a singer and since the Forties was acclaimed by audiences all over the country. For decades he was one of the most charismatic figures in Brazilian popular music. In the beginning, as a regional musician he interpreted the characteristic sentiment of the northeast. With the passing of time, however, he broke away from the kind of music he had always sung and went beyond the region of his birth to transform regional music genres into the public preference of all Brazil. Of course, inasmuch as in the great capital city of Sao Paulo, an enormous contingent of people from the northeast is concentrated, his initial audience was owed to this factor. However, the growth in the numbers of his audiences and fans resulted, above all, from the bucolic content of the lyrics, so close to the taste of humble people.

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From the Sixties onwards, mainly because of the increase in television auditorium programs, the opportunities for new artists to come on the scene were greater. Subsequently, with the “explosion” of FM radio broadcasting and with the continuous expansion of the phonographic market, good opportunities for launching new artists became greater still. And so, fed by many and lasting innovations, strengthened by a change in style more appropriate to contemporary times, and giving a visible indication of the incorporation of new features, not only musical but also stage effects and costume, the Eighties saw the emergence of a new Brazilian music. This music, rooted in the former sertaneja music, adapted to the style of Middle West American music, and recalling somewhat the primitive side of both, finally in practice became consolidated as a music genre. Without exaggeration, this genre could be called “Brazilian country music”. That is what it is. But it is still difficult to give a true account of the mixing of the ingredients from Brazil and the United States. In any event it represents a great incorporation of values, of both countries, originating in the simple way of interpreting life, the world, nature, things. Using the term in its most pejorative sense, it may be said that “the most caipira side of Brazilian culture is this mania of copying genres and styles from other countries just 29

because it is thought that everything in the country of others is always better or nicer, so that, little by little, that which is produced culturally in Brazil is not accepted any more…” Who does not remember (if old enough) what Brazilian radio programs were like thirty years ago and how they changed since the so-called “explosion” of frequency modulation and the distribution to exploit it? Practically every song with Portuguese lyrics went off the air. It was a time of English songs. But these songs should not be criticized because of the idiom. After all, five or ten years before, in the middle of the Sixties, practically only Italian music was heard. And nobody thought it was bad. Certainly long-range radio broadcasting, with not so large audiences and a refined urban music panorama aimed at a higher class of listeners, was losing ground to a music genre which, again, was imported. The “bossa-nova” genre (which to some extent was internationalized) left the stage in the middle of the so-called “jovem-guarda” music movement. It gave way, first, to the “novos bahianos” movement and then to “tropicalismo” so gradually the radio was invaded by the sounds of the countryside. Of course these sounds shared the audiences with the “imported” sounds. However, sometimes not so imported. Quite a number of composers and singers adopted Anglo-American names like Johnny Black & Kid Holydays, George & Jefferson, Tony & Jerry, Christian & Ralph and so on. Morris Albert, for example, author of 30

“Feelings” also belongs to this time. Even today no one in the United States knows that he is a Brazilian artist, although many people know this music. What might appear to be the establishment of a division of universes, in the Seventies, definitively separating urban music and rural music, was nothing more than the first illusion of the phonographic market. Following that, an apparent urgency on the part of the recording companies to take advantage of provisions in the legislation, ended up by opening space for a second illusion. The legislation required radio programs to include a certain percentage of music recorded in Brazil by Brazilian artists. The apparently urban taste for songs of American genre and style together with the obligation to include music recorded in Brazil resulted in many Brazilians going over to record in English. This was the first time there was an urban pop space out of reach of the native musical aesthetic. These two market illusions gave rise to a fatal mistake on the part of those who were then thinking that the separation of urban music and rural music was at last consolidated. As a result of this many people took the stance of rejecting all music production from the interior of the country. In Rio Grande do Sul, for example, right in the Sixties, people were very clear about the distinction in style of the different types of music. This reference to the southernmost Brazilian State is certainly indispensable to this work. It is felt that this State was the first scenario where one could clearly verify the co-existence of diverse types of music, and 31

where production was not -- until that time – affected by aesthetic likes and prejudices. The standardization of taste arising from an aesthetic preference almost always unleashes an explicit manifestation about that which does not meet its specifications. Yet whenever the preferences of the several parties are maintained, co-existence of different things in the same category of listeners leads to a cultural enrichment of the society where this coexistence continues. Monteiro Lobato, a Brazilian journalist and writer, who devoted all his life to the exaltation of “caipira” values in the regional culture of the State of Sao Paulo, was the inspirer of numerous characters in the cinema, theatre, literature, and even marketing. But one of these characters became transformed into a stereotype. And because of this, the writer, who was immortalized for revealing, promoting and improving the native values of this regional culture, would end up producing unconsciously, contrary to the very objectives of the project, the pejorative meaning of the term “caipira”. By the creation of the character Jeca-Tatu, precisely in order to propagate the idea of change, Monteiro Lobato would end up subverting the idealization of a human being who, living in a state of misery, discovers one day, that in order to change, he must enroll in the ranks of progress and wellbeing. The character became known all over the country because Jeca-Tatu was used in a famous publicity campaign for a tonic wine, “Biotônico Fontoura”, recommended for

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combating mental weakness, psychological low spirits and physical anemia. “Jeca-Tatu” was a character created to disseminate the idea of contrast between backwardness and progress. Or, again, to call attention to the necessity of apprenticeship and re-education if a person wants to change culturally and socially. But “Jeca-Tatu” became consolidated as a stereotyped character. This happened because he stood for a pattern of backwardness that needed to be changed. Of course, it was a pattern that was linked intrinsically to the Brazilian rural environment at that time. Soon, a conclusion, also stereotyped, was drawn from the idea that “if the rural environment was backward and needed changing, then it was good not to be in the rural environment…” Not always is the objective of the solution of a problem well understood if the “image” which represents it is itself not well defined. Just as a description of a reality, however faithful it may be, does not always result in a positive “image”. Even though the effort of cultural valorization is transformed into a gigantesque work of consolidation of the image itself. In the case of Brazilian culture it has been like that. The constant comparison with other realities, perhaps because of their more advanced development, always brings on a natural sensation of “inferiority”. This results in a desire to be much nearer the other than with the reality it is being compared with.

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The caipira element, arising from basic influences in the interior of the State of Sao Paulo becoming culture, was always the principal ingredient of the cultural enrichment of the region. Meanwhile the capital of the State was becoming a cosmopolitan city, due to a convergence of people of diverse origins, customs and European-influenced artistic production. As a result people came to look upon the interior as secondary. Though the term “caipira” had been a sign of authenticity it now came to be also a reference of backwardness. It should be remembered that the campaign elaborated by Monteiro Lobato clearly showed that for anyone to change and flee from misery and backwardness it was necessary to leave behind every habit that made him a backward person. He must change his attitudes. He must learn to live according to standards of hygiene, organization, and culture, appropriate for progress. This is what the Monteiro Lobato character managed to do when he abandoned his primitive way of life. However, when he adopted a posture centered on progress and by progress changed completely his life and the life of his family, Jeca-Tatu” disqualified his own origin. This disqualification, evidenced by the confrontation of attitudes (before and after) made it clear that the change occurred under the influence of progress. Now, progress was in the capital of the State, in its cosmopolitan character, in its cultural pluralism and not in the monolithic culture of the interior, 34

which as the diffusion process showed was the cause of backwardness. Actually, the absence of a later project, pointing out that the change had happened due to a courageous, typically caipira attitude, helped the stereotype to overcome the character and give the term “caipira” pejorative connotations. In order to understand this representation better, we must go to Rio Grande do Sul and see in that ambience what is the significance of their term “grosso”. “Grosso” in spite of being associated with some other cultural values, means the same thing as “caipira”. Therefore they are synonyms. Without taking into account the geographical distance that separates the States of Sao Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul, the term “grosso” and “caipira” mean exactly the same thing. Cultural origins, ethnic formation, all these differences have not got the least importance. What matters is the sense of nativism and cultural authenticity. The difference between the two terms, nevertheless, is in the way people in Rio Grande do Sul understand the “grosso” attribution as something associated with spontaneity, authenticity, and the trademark of a human being who possesses the traits of his place of birth. A “grosso” person, especially in the case of a man, is an authentic, brave, determined, sincere, objective person who is, above all, faithful to his own roots. So whoever is truly “grosso” likes to be and to be noted as such.

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But you cannot say a person born in the State of Sao Paulo and likewise endowed with the same qualities of authenticity, sincerity, objectivity, courage and committed to his roots that he likes to be called “caipira”. Nevertheless, in the last few years there have been very great efforts, principally by the major television networks, to change this concept. After all, this region of Brazil has become the second biggest market in the country for goods and services. The first is this same interior added to that of its capital. There is yet another character to be mentioned who comes from another region of this country. He inhabits the interior of the State of Minas Gerais. The “mineiro” as he is called, has much of “caipira” and something of “grosso”. As regards the first aspect of the comparison, he is much like the inhabitant of the State of Sao Paulo, in being of an apparent physical fragility, by his personal characteristic of docility when dealing with other persons, and by his wary and sagacious air so common to both. In the second aspect of the comparison, he is somewhat like the inhabitant of Rio Grande does Sul, principally by his frankness and by the authenticity of his verbal expressions. The three characters have one common trait: a predilection for regional music, which they especially prize and perform as a way of holding on to the roots of their culture. All of the three regions have always been rich in the generation of values connected with popular music. Rio Grande do Sul, however, during many years stood firm as the

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most differentiated region of the country in respect of the production of these values. In the Forties and Fifties there was the so-called “explosion” of medium waves on Brazilian radio. Generally, from the time of the second term of office of President Getulio Vargas, when the concession of medium wave radio frequencies took in practically the whole country, a dual phenomenon occurred in music promotion. Firstly, over a large part of the national territory people in many places had contact only with foreign music. Secondly, because regional music gained in the radio its main means of becoming still more popular and consolidating itself in people’s taste. Rio Grande do Sul, the native State of the abovementioned president, was eminently privileged by the concession of broadcasting stations. Already densely populated, that State benefited greatly from its level geography without many physical obstacles and, above all, by having an audience made up of inhabitants many of whom was descendants of European immigrants. Divided into a large number of municipalities, it was the region best rewarded in this sector. Of course other States also got their radio stations. But Rio Grande do Sul, more than any other could, due to its audience and music production characteristics, use this fundamental means of reinforcing its standard of regional music. And with the radio, during thirty years, more or less, Rio Grande do Sul lived the best moments, the degradation, and the redemption of its musical values. 37

Previous to the radio, it was the custom of the inhabitants of that State to listen to music, sing and play some instrument at parties and family reunions. Or, even, just participate in events where live music was the most appropriate means of preserving the social custom and the contact with their musical roots. The coming of radio offered a new way to preserve these customs and made possible a more permanent contact with such music. However, the use of radio program time requires a lot of recordings. For this reason and because regional music titles were scarce, the broadcasting stations became targets for products of doubtful quality. Much material, dressed up as regional music, was really nothing more than casual composition just to fill space. Anyone who was suitably and well publicized became an easy success. The big dilemma of Rio Grande do Sul, of its music, of its artists, in the Fifties and Sixties was principally the abundance of recordings that had not the least justification in regional culture. This was why one of the most representative composers and singers of the region, Pedro Raimundo, came to be outshone by another more or less contemporary artist: Teixeirinha. The latter, thanks to the careful administration of his career, always presented a list of very up-to-date records, unlike others who only recorded sporadically. It happens that Teixeirinha was not what could be called a composer and singer of the legitimate music of Rio 38

Grande do Sul. Very popular, initially among the ordinary workers of the capital and medium-sized towns of that State, he began making a kind of music that was characterized by a sentimental appeal of widespread repercussion, principally in bars and houses of prostitution. After that, and being a success before audiences in the entire region, he began to promote shows in cinemas and clubs in the interior. Very soon he would reign absolutely as the principal artist in the south of Brazil. He would be so until his death, when he enjoyed popularity even in other countries of Latin America and Africa and in Portugal. But Teixeirinha would always be accused of misrepresenting the regional music of Rio Grande do Sul. Because of him or because of his success a large number of rtists like him would fill and fill space in local radio programs, and disfigure more and more the old regional music of Rio Grande do Sul. In the Sixties and Seventies, the youth of Rio Grande do Sul were, for the first time, interested in international music movements. Regardless of where they were born, whether in the interior or in the capital, these young people attached great importance to what was happening abroad. The Hippie Movement and everything that was produced from then on, stimulated interest. Likewise, groups of international repercussion like the Beatles or the tardy presence of Elvis Presley motivated the involvement of the region’s young people. In practice, this interest and involvement almost completely separated the young people of 39

the interior and the capital of Rio Grande do Sul from the regional music produced in that very State. Due to the increasing interest in the music pouring forth out of the media, and also immersed in the “bossa nova” and “jovem guarda” national movements, these young people expended themselves listening to stuff far distance from their cultural roots. We must also take into account that the expansion of television since the middle Sixties contributed enormously towards the mixture and confusion that was produced throughout the world and in Brazil. This would begin to baffle audiences as regards the aesthetic authenticity and good taste of what they were hearing and watching. Thanks principally to television, to the Brazilian popular music festivals, and to material in the press dealing with the ways this cultural production might take, these matters were discussed even in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul. It was probably the release of the film, Tropicalia, in the territory of the Novos Bahianos music group, that also brought the reality of Rio Grande do Sul towards a redemption of its own origin. By the way, it would be practically impossible to speak of such music trends without speaking of the Novos Bahianos, without speaking of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Maria Betania, and all the others who contributed to the formation of Tropicalism. The purists will not like us to allude to this matter. “How so” they will say, “What has the Novos Bahianos and Tropicalism to do with the regional music of Rio Grande do 40

Sul?” Well, it is very simple. The diffusion and the taste for Tropicalism right at the time of debate and contestation and the Hippie Movement would light a flame and rescue the authentic origins of the different regional cultures. Tropicalism itself is a kind of cultural redemption. This spirit of the times, therefore, is the background to the launching of the foundations of Nativism or the movement for the native music of Rio Grande do Sul. This regression vogue, which reached its highpoint in the Seventies and Eighties, was very important for the rebirth of native music, just as it was equally important for a reawakening of the regional dream. However, totally bereft of interest on the part of the big media, it became circumscribed more as a specific something of a distant region than as a movement of national ambit. All along, a regional music of, shall we say, national dimension, continued be produced in the region as it was in other regions of the country including the interior of the State of Sao Paulo. It must not be forgotten, of course, that other States were also producing. These States, such as Goias, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais, Parana, and Santa Catarina have to be included in the music production scenario. It was, principally, thanks to a specific type of audience, that the production spread and became widely known in all the national territory. This contribution is owed especially to the truckers, to the truck drivers who, since the Seventies came up from the southern States to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. They 41

brought the mode of country style music called” without frontiers”. This style was so-called due to the cassette tapes that included music of other composers and not only composers from those regions the truckers came from. The listeners, especially those who were constantly driving throughout the interior and State capitals of Brazil were not only acclaiming a personal taste for such recordings, they were also emissaries of the generalization of the style. Everything that up to then was known as sertaneja began to show other reflexes. Some of them, incidentally, had no historical or cultural reference whatever. The Seventies and Eighties, mainly the latter, had an abundance of incorporations of kinds that were very different to any that had been heard and classified until then. We also owe to the truckers – those freight carriers from the south – the re-interpretation of the music genre marked, according to some, by an accentuated “kitsch” bad taste. Leaving aside any exaggeration, it has to be admitted that the diffusion of this music by this specific contingent contributed greatly to the dissemination of a certain standard of taste. From the angle of the predominant taste, of course, there was a preference, of some influence, for music recorded by Teixeirinha and Pedro Raimundo. After all, they were all from the same region. And so, truck traffic beyond Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro increasingly going northward and northeastward, would bring the same music taste to other regions also. More so, it would bring it into contact with other genres which 42

belong historically to the so-called “culture center” of the country. These also were culture genres, in every way connected to the cultural origins of the Brazilian north and northeast. We are not speaking, of course, of the aesthetic-type links between them. In this connection, it should be mentioned that the fact they were classified as “kitsch music” always kept these genres far from the cultural programs on television and radio, at least until the Seventies. If, on the one hand, truck traffic, by means of its central character, the truck driver himself, brought all these genres together, on another it made a mixing. During all the Eighties, while the first physical contacts were being made between the American Middle West and the interior of Sao Paulo, other events were happening which involved sertaneja, or regional, music in the Brazilian center-south. The first of these events is the rise of Nativism in Rio Grande do Sul. It appeared in the middle of a wave of non-conformism with the distortions of the local music genre. But there was a problem due to it being a movement of a more political complexion than one resulting from spontaneous cultural currents. It was political because the initiative was tied to the decision of individuals acting alone or in groups. Being like this, in less than a decade it had lost all its effect. Under pressure by happenings of such magnitude, by the necessity of innovating, and by the rise of artists until then unknown, the television programs, much more than radio programs, started to give space to this genre of music. Naturally it is not difficult to conclude that the new sertaneja 43

music that originated in the State of Sao Paulo would begin to gain ground. Numerous names have become known from the Eighties on and it can be seen that the greater part of them were influenced by American country music. The commercial and agricultural exchange due to the orange trade, the cowhands’ festivals, the sertaneja music meetings, and everything that was happening transnational was a motive for increasing this cultural contact. It is very true that this influence was far from that which prevailed in the Seventies and Eighties when Brazilian artists were singing their songs in English. Now the influence has become one of the styles. And although singing in Portuguese, they have all begun to seem more like singers of American Middle West music than of Brazilian caipira music. About this time, shops selling American country articles began to appear. The former wide-brimmed, dark and battered felt hats worn by cowhands began to be substituted by the well-known cowboy hats. There are boots with high heels and pointed toes, big leather belts, showy buckles, fringed jackets, and countless items which have transformed the clothing of cattle ranch workers into something never before worn in any region of Brazil. While the contacts, the parties, the festivals, the fairs, and all the commercial similarity were happening, without anyone realizing it, the former cowhand festivals were also changing into authentic American rodeos. 44

It has been through these events in which, since the beginning, American horse riders and breakers have participated, that the acculturated music has spread and draws elect audiences in town and country. This happened first in the State of Sao Paulo. Subsequently the music spread throughout the entire country, crossed the borders and nowadays is heard from the Argentine pampas to the Peruvian mountains, from the dry brushwood of Brazil’s northeast to the Paraguayan marshes. When this music genre is heard, there is cultural contact and the effects become ingredients of the contact so that people are enriched still more, without losing their identity. The commercial pretext that gave rise to the enlargement of a fruit market and opened the doors of a different country to the American country style, contrary to what could be foreseen, ensured the emergence of a new music genre in Brazil. This genre may look like the other but it can be said that it is as Brazilian as the rest of the country’s genres.

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Part Two

46

47

Brazilian pop-music in the 70s of XX Century

All the outward signs are that music (as much as TV, literature and the cinema) occupies a prominent position in the importation of canned entertainment which, at least in recent times, has ravaged Brazilian culture. This “canned work”, under no obligation except equating low cost with mass sales to make rapid, high and increasing profits, generally becomes identified with significant segments of the population. Such business, without suffering the least legal restraint, besides being incompatible with the financial capacity of its consumers, makes still more difficult the situation of the national composer and artist whose opportunities of work are thus diminished. When it is stated that the public identified with “canned music” does not have a compatible financial capacity, one is putting forward, by reason of the excessive number of releases and considering the characteristics of the record consumer (according to data supplied by the record companies), the hypothesis of a consumption which is not matched to the acquisitive power of the consumers. As will be seen in the following, the record market possesses particular characteristics which, by their nature, 48

establish a controversial consumption scenario, in which the consumer is what least interests the record companies. This is because for them, the consumer is no more than sort of finishing a process whose touchstone has been the incorporation of foreign values. The root of a good part of these distortions is not difficult to find since it lies in the system of “packages” adopted by the record companies. This is a peculiar kind of mercantile transaction, which mirrors other types of cultural importation and for a long time the record companies have found in it a way of reinforcing the contents of a product on sale, in the name of fashion or the tastes of the times. The record market has changed within this panorama, which is foreign to Brazilian culture, and one thing is certain: the recording industry develops pertinent marketing which, thanks to the evolution of its sales, has made it a continuous means for the diffusion of imported values. This incorporation, in its turn, begins with the diffusion and propaganda of the recorded music, using a communication complex where the broadcasting station is the link with the entire chain. Examples shoot out from various branches, demonstrating the surprising strength of canned music. In 1976, for example, the music most played on the so-called hit parades, by the broadcasting stations in Sao Paulo, was “She’s my girl”. The singer, the author himself, was Mauricio Alberto from Rio de Janeiro, and made known to the public under the pseudonym, Morris Albert.

49

When the possibility of full time activity in the University of Sao Paulo occurred, nothing seemed more opportune than the development of a research project in the pop music field. However an insufficiency of primary data to make a survey of the situation possible meant that new forms of investigation had to be sought in order to obtain data able to redefine the truth of the matter. It was for this reason that some research carried out by students since 1979 (in the Record Production / Audiovisual Resources discipline) were availed of, in order to establish the evolution of the market under study. As will be seen, the results, up to a certain point, coincided with suspicions that the phonographic industry contributes to the incorporation of foreign values into Brazilian culture. Of course, nothing can be said regarding the consequences of this incorporation for in the long run only time can tell what they’ll be. Nevertheless the high rate of repetition of foreign music, of versions and imported styles (typically rock) helps us to foresee the future result of all this sort of “imitation” of foreign values. From a rather personal point of view, I would venture to say that foreign music will not be as harmful as the mannerisms brought in by the music genre in question. And speaking of mannerisms, what immediately comes to mind are the numerous bands we find today in the Rio–Sao Paulo circuit whose great attraction is a certain form of representation. They don’t appear to be Brazilian at all, although the music, the artists, the performers and the 50

scenarios are national. Incredible though it may appear, it was not the genre that made them popular but their way of presenting the genre to the public. This was certainly not modeled on national examples.

The reality If you take into account the number of records released monthly and compare it with the number that reach the hoped-for success and further, if you verify the percentage of foreign music and versions among them, you will see that the Brazilian market is not the most promising for anyone who desires a career as a performer or singer of popular music. Although big and apparently in good shape, it looks as if the national phonographic market is somehow unconcerned with any other evolution beyond that of profits which are sizeable and accrue in large amounts to the record companies themselves. As we know, the musician himself has little control in this field and is at the mercy of the accounting of the music entrepreneurs. Another aspect that should be taken into account concerns the origin of this market which is controlled by the sound entrepreneurs, the record companies. The majority of

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these represent foreign interests in Brazil. Warner (WEA), Odeon, CBS, RCA, Philips, for example, are widely represented in Brazil and sometimes by more than one label. Since the interests of these companies are purely commercial, the utilization of the creative and innovative talent of Brazilian artists is difficult since it is the genre labels and the popular taste that prevail in commercial competition. The record companies have never given any kind of incentive to the production of typically national music, because an investment in this field, besides being commercially risky, would be quite costly and profits would not flow in with the customary speed as in the case of their usual releases. For this reason, the path that has to be followed by typically national composers and performers is very difficult especially in the case of bands. It is no secret that the record companies have not in the past been interested in bands because of the difficulties of promoting them and the high cost. But now, in these changing times and with the dissemination of rock there is a place for bands. On the other hand, it may be seen that the bands that play genuine Brazilian music continue not to have recordings. In addition to the above, another matter, also of vital importance for the stability of the record market, has been operating unaltered for decades: record promotion on the radio. And when it is said that it has been operating unaltered year after year, reference is being made to the fact that programs are structured so as to support releases and promote sales of new titles indiscriminately. 52

In some ways, record and radio have marched together, historically, to such an extent that it may be supposed that radio broadcasting companies have an understanding with the recording industry. In other words, it could be said that it is very probable that if one of them is studied, the findings would concern the other as well.

The problem In this panorama of multiple and growing influences, besides the known material data here discussed, respecting the record market, another matter, of a subjective nature, emerges whatever the circumstances in which titles are imported. This matter does not arise from importation in itself but from the ambience it creates. In other words, it is the same as saying, for example, that a foreign music record, recorded again in Brazil might have little influence on the consumer. However, recording the title is not the only aspect since the record producer is part of a whole context of radio broadcasting. For example, the title goes on to be heard on radio by numerous prospective, latent or potential purchasers who, through attitudes common to all, reveal another important phenomenon, that is, mannerisms for relating to the music.

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It is not easy to define these mannerisms. That is so because as you know, it involves attitudes peculiar to a certain kind of audience, the sort of gestures they make and the postures they adopt even the way they listen to music. For them, listening to music is more than just listening, strictly speaking, one can observe that in the young segments of the audience (probably the greater part of the audience) be it in “discotheques”, record shops or in the auditoriums of radio or TV, the consumer of recently recorded music customarily behaves like his idols, wearing clothes and accessories that class him with all the other followers of the same musical “genre”. And so a relationship arises which is not likely to go away and which is of real importance in the study of the phenomenon called “hit parades”. This relationship concerns three fundamental relationships. These are (a) between record company and radio broadcaster; (b) between radio broadcaster and record consumer; and (c) between record company and record consumer. As far as can be seen, it is in the relationship between record company and radio broadcaster that divulgence of a new release starts, considering that no other means of record promotion seems to be more effective or more utilized than the radio. In the same way, it is the relationship that exists between the radio and the respective audience that guarantees the efficiency of diffusion on the radio so that every release is preceded by a series of playing, and these make the music more accessible to the public. 54

Finally the links between the record company and the public are always made by the artist or by the radio broadcaster and they establish the commercialization space for the record and ensure that it is bought. Typically, in any one of the above contacts, all of them aimed at selling records, other aspects (that are not just about the record itself) are given prominence. These aspects emphasize gestures, clothes, postures and vocal expressions. In other words this means that the record market has a substantial dependence on all these attributes. The mannerisms we referred to have a lot to do with them. It is like highlighting a whole set of non-musical symbols, which, however, as well as the music, determine the survival of a genre since they are manifestly a big identity factor between record consumers and the respective artists. In this connection, there are three problems to be resolved. The first concerns the relationship between the record company and the radio broadcaster and more needs to be known about this. What we know is that there has been little change in the music diffusion programs, the so-called hit parades in relation to music programs in general. It might even be said that the structure of these programs passed from radio to television unaltered, in the form that they have been presented for decades. A second problem, related to the interaction between the radio broadcaster and the record consumer requires an urgent solution. What really is the purpose of the hit parades? Do 55

they just give an indication of the preferences of the listeners, or could they be understood as merely an instrument of new record divulgence. Lastly a third problem, which is in the area of the relationship between the record company and the record consumer, requires more appropriate evaluation. About his, to what extent does the artist act out, (for the record company), exclusively, his role as performer. Or, to what extent (for the consumer) does he become confused with his interpretation and give rise to an ambience of complete identity in the world of staging, consuming and profit (for the record company).

The research In 1979 an opportunity presented itself of being involved simultaneously with two disciplines: Record Production and Audiovisual Resources, given in the Publishing graduation course and Structure of the Phonographic Market given in the Communication Science post-graduation course. This opportunity made it possible to carry out continuous research on releases and record audiences in Sao Paulo, and discern, although somewhat indistinctly, way of determining the true structure which, besides serving the 56

interest of the recording companies, serves to keep unaltered the involvement in which a new record is released and acquired. At that time, a systematic search was begun for empirical data in order to elaborate a true picture giving the structure of the record market, as it really is. For what generally occurs is a tendency to accept as correct and without questioning the data proffered by the record companies themselves. In the event, simply by following the evolution of the hit parades and comparing sales in the city of Sao Paulo it was shown that both have a lot in common, however an inverse relation came to light: first there is divulgence on the hit parade in order to, subsequently, sell the record. In other words, this establishes a manipulation of the market. It was, therefore, the above-mentioned manipulation that contributed to the choice of our proposed theme. Once the project was accepted, we looked for a form of continuous research on this business where the titles of the recordings change, the artists change but the structure of production, diffusion and commercialization remains the same. Basically, since the appearance of the “Morris Albert” recordings, we have seen a transformation of the market, mainly as regards foreign music. Since then and up to the present, the continuous inclusion of imported titles has undergone a change concerning the content of the music. Previously, the versions and 57

adaptations as well as the foreign music produced here in Brazil, just tried to distinguish a liking for music coming from abroad. Today, this class of music has given place to foreign music, strictly speaking, and to Brazilian. We now see that the imported (principally in respect of the genre in question of both) exerts much greater external influence on Brazilian music than before. Then with the initial data to hand, collected since the second semester of 1979, we attempted to evaluate the evolution of the phonographic market by delineating the amount of importation as well as the alternatives that remain for the Brazilian artist who is more and more pressured by external influence. A case in point, for example, was that so talked-about event the Rock in Rio Festival which was held in Brazil when we were finishing our research project. A craze of recent times is the importation of groups from abroad and, if Rock in Rio was not enough; there was the explosive promotion of another imported group, the Menudo, who gave numerous shows all over Brazil. Generally speaking, the data collecting begun in 1979, was recently resumed in order to carry out the present project. With reference to the hit parades in particular, the research indicated that radio is linked to the record market and is its principal means of promotion. Although the data obtained may show just the day by day facts of the radiorecord company relation, the sales of new records at various urban locations evidences that they come precisely after the hit parades. 58

More than this, the promotion of records does not stop here. It goes further, with all the means available including discotheques, shows and other kinds of spectacle like “Rock in Rio”. This not only serves to divulge new music, but becomes the great promotional mainspring of a certain genre very much in vogue at the time, and it is also useful for promoting other recordings, other artists etc. The data collected served to demonstrate that importation in the field of pop music is frequent and is harmful to the national artist. It reduces his space which was never adequate and it is spreading throughout this whole music genre, and contaminating Brazilian culture in an undesirable, artificial and highly compromising way. Rock in Rio, for example, which was held at the end of the current research, presented an opportunity for new research on the records played on the hit parades. The same picture was revealed as before on researching new releases and sales in the record shops. This new research in 1983 was carried out in the same locations as those decided on in 1979. Also in order to characterize the panorama of radio playing on the hit parades better still, we specifically obtained the total number of playing of foreign music and of Brazilian music on radio programs in Sao Paulo.

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Controversial market Since the renunciation of Janio Quadros and the political turbulence aggravated by a coup d’état in 1964, the recording industry and other sectors of the economy have entered into serious depression. This depression, in its turn, ended up by reflecting on the quality of the product offered by the record companies who, among other measures in order to adapt to the new times, withdrew the classical records from their stocks, mainly because these are the most expensive to keep in stock and whose sales, traditionally, involve costly and complex promotion (Cornea, 1977, 4-7). In addition to this and other typical ingredients of the economic crisis, there would be a retraction of the record market (as a result, so to speak, of the crisis) a censorship factor and an adhesion factor. Regarding the censorship factor, because of the laws” set up to guarantee the dictatorship, not everything was permitted. The registration of countless manifestations was hindered or they had to be reformulated. Of course, the record did not escape. No other times were as abundant in restriction of liberty as the years of those last decades. As regards music, as in the entire cultural panorama, the censorship had a generalized action and was imposed without any criteria. If indeed any criteria could be established for this kind of activity. Some time ago, the magazine Som Tres wrote that “the cutting and prohibiting criteria are variable and ample,

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guaranteeing to all factions democratically, the “right of inclusion in the don’t do list” (Bahiana, 1979, 58-63). The adhesion factor, very prevalent in periods of repression, when there are attempts to put the communication media at the service of arbitrary regimes, could not but be present in Brazil during this time. As can still be remembered, during the Medici period various bands and artists emerged who, even individually, sang the marvels of this country. This was the case, for example, of the duo Antonio Carlos and Jocafe, with their records of “patriotic exaltation”. No other word can describe this kind of material, except “adhesion”. Moreover, when explaining this “other side” of artistic creation, one has to agree with the author who wrote about “composers who think that the only duty of an artist is to fawn upon or flatter, the public taste”, inasmuch as “this is the best way to delude the public and not to respect them” (Campos, 1974, 168). Perhaps it was a close connection between censorship, the economic recession and artistic mediocrity that limited creativity and obliged the public to be satisfied and accept peacefully what, since the 60s was offered them. At the same time, the sales structure previously set up which was mainly based on radio programs (and more recently, with the support of television music programs), acts as real market support, where repetition and insistence on the same title, lead audiences to practically learn by heart everything they hear as a kind of consumer self convincing, directed towards the final purchase of certain records. 61

Besides, it should be said the music repetition strategy which starts in radio broadcast programs, is a means of divulging the music product but it also serves to make known the titles which are insistently repeated. As can be seen in Tables I and II, the percentages of foreign music played in AM and FM broadcasts in Sao Paulo city are alarming. It is evident that these percentages are very significant, are not unconnected with this. TABLE I 1979: FM Radio Broadcasters (Sao Paulo) Rates of Brazilian and foreign music Broadcasters

Brazilian music

Foreign music

Bandeirantes Difusora Excelsior Jovem Pan Record Transamerica

52.4 25.7 25.4 24.3 24.5 27.3

44.1 73.6 74.5 74.8 75.3 69.5

Average

29.9 %

68.6 %

As it is seen, with the exception of Globo Radio, whose total playing give an index of 92.5 % of Brazilian music, other broadcasters are between 50.1 % (Difusora) and 89.3 % (Record). Even so, these figures take into account both AM and FM frequencies.

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TABLE II 1979: FM Radio Broadcasters (Sao Paulo) Rates of Brazilian and foreign music Broadcasters

Brazilian music

Foreign music

America Bandeirantes Capital Cultura Difusora Eldorado Excelsior Gazeta Globo Jovem Pan Mulher Record Tupi

69.6 80.2 70.9 50.8 50.1 51.6 52.4 83.4 92.5 57.6 84.2 89.3 86.6

30.4 19.8 27.6 48.1 49.4 46.9 47.5 14.5 7.4 41.7 9.2 9.7 11.9

Average

70.7 %

29.3 %

As it is seen, one frightening percentage of foreign music is played: 75.3 % (Record). The minimum as also can be observed is Bandeirantes, with 44.1 %. When any of these percentages is compared with the “redundancy percentage” of music played in the same program, the data is more curious. As seen in Table III, Antena Um by itself, in FM broadcasts is responsible for 82.1 % of repetition of foreign music, against 17.9 % of Brazilian music.

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It can also be seen in this table and what is more serious, that there is a numerical and irreparable superiority of these indexes of repetition of foreign music. This is the same as saying that redundancy playing was the way that radiobroadcasters found to get around the legislation respecting restriction of abuses due to the super-valorization of foreign music. TABLE III 1979: FM Radio Broadcasters (Sao Paulo) Playing time in Brazilian and foreign music Broadcasters

Brazilian music

Foreign music

Antena Um Bandeirantes Difusora Excelsior Jovem Pan Transamérica

17.9 53.5 38.1 11.9 25.0 23.4

82.1 46.5 61.9 88.1 75.0 76.6

Average

28.3 %

71.7 %

From these findings, we ventured to doubt the eventual criteria used for giving value to national principles and material, which are built into current legislation aimed at guaranteeing a minimum frequency for Brazilian music in radio programs. Of course resources available for producing programs where the law is circumvented are at the disposal of any

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broadcaster. For the same reason, it was feared that the present research work would lead along merely utilitarian paths full of statistical findings when the problem is very different. One must agree with the principle that “bourgeois social science has studied mass communication in a systematic and utilitarian way, which contributes to data manipulation,” which can always have a different conclusion rather than that wished for (Gonzales & Mayor, 1976, 55). In truth, a project like the present one, offers evidence of a practice that can be measured and at the same time, denounces the connivance of the inspectors. The losses, which cannot fail to occur, continue to be debited to the account of Brazil’s own culture, with no hope of solution.

A market panorama When carrying out the first market research in 1979, it was found, among the other things, that the main center of record sales in Sao Paulo city was the central region itself comprising Sao Joao, Duque de Caxias, and Ipiranga avenues as well as the streets adjacent to Republic Square, namely Barao de Itapetininga and 7 de Abril. As may be seen in Table IV, 33.8 % of the volume was sold in this region and this included 20.8 % of the total of LP sales. The 65

two densest regions next, in terms of sales were Osasco and Pinheiros, respectively, with 18.2 % and 14.3 % of record sales. TABLE IV 1979: Rates of record sales by product specification and commercial area Area

LP

Cmpt

Tape

Dbl

Alb

Total

CENTRO

20.8

6.5

5.2

1.3

--

33.8

OSASCO

7.1

8.5

2.6

--

--

18.2

PINHEIROS

9.1

--

3.9

--

1.3

14.3

MALLS

10.3

--

--

--

JARDINS

5.2

--

2.6

--

--

7.8

ITAIM

5.2

2.6

--

--

--

7.8

S. AMARO

6.5

1.3

--

--

--

7.8

Total

64.2

18.9

14.3

1.3

1.3

100

10.3

Probably due to the continuing economic crisis, the research work carried out in November and December of 1984, as can be seen in Table V, has the data inverted. The existing record shops in the urban shopping centers of 66

Iguatemi, Ibirapuera, Morumbi and Eldorado, indicate that 28.8 % of record sales is affected in these places. And although the central region still represents 18.6 % of sales, the Augusta and Jardins streets area follows with 17.3 % and Itaim-Bibi with 13.9 %. This is the same as saying that the season is important since it was before Christmas and the New Year, when purchases of these products tend to be greater. The data shows that in the regions indicated more money still circulated in spite of the crisis. TABLE V 1984: Percentages of record sales by product specification and commercial area Area

LP

Cmpt

Tape

Dbl

Albm

Total

CENTRO

6.4

3.2

5.3

3.7

--

18.6

OSASCO

2.3

1.4

--

2.9

--

6.6

PINHEIROS

1.4

0.6

--

3.5

--

5.5

MALLS

18.2

--

3.3

--

7.3

28.8

JARDINS

12.1

--

2.9

--

2.3

17.3

ITAIM

8.5

--

4.5

--

0.9

13.9

S. AMARO

3.7

1.8

2.1

1.1

0.6

9.3

Total

52.6

7.0

18.1

11.2

11.1

100

It is clear that the record is a superfluous product. Principally when it is a time of crisis, unemployment, and devaluation of currency. Perhaps because of this, the season is also representative of this type of acquisition and of the 67

attributes we are trying to establish, as peculiar to a certain part of the population. As it is known, the months of November and December preceded the “Rock in Rio Festival”. In order to prove, still much more, what it is intended to establish in relation to music being used as a means of generalizing a “genre” of doubtful origin, the role of this event as a cohesion agent to bring together this “genre”, particularly as it involved significant sections of the public, should be stressed. It is not intended to be critical only by the criterion that the incorporation of foreign music be it by the recordings which are sold nowadays, be it because it is a genre atypical to Brazilian culture, and does not represent a spontaneous cultural ebullience. The criticism we intend to make involves more details especially because this musical genre or the foreign music itself has become a commercial tool. In truth, “it is in unfavorable judgments that it is necessary to be still more prudent, since besides being substantially ephemeral and fragile, human opinions are not devoid of passion” (Cande, 1970, 248). Moreover, no matter what taste or color, as the ancients used to say, the role of the new music should be given prominence. This music which emerged in the last six years (after much experience with “foreignisms”, adapted and translated) became a neutralizing element to lessen social tensions. It seems to be a typical national anesthetic against the chronic “no future” outlook, especially for youths. It is worth saying that the lower quality of the most part of the compositions 68

offered the opportunity to divert attention from what was really happening in the country. Looked at in this way, it is not difficult to imagine that this whole situation is at the service of someone or some cause. Voluntarily or involuntarily, whether you want it or not, this “social anesthesia” by means of “Rock in Rio” festivals or the very boring “Menudo” shows, corroborates a situation of total external dominance. It is as if admitting that “in our times imperialism makes use of artifices to hide its real intentions and the true aim of its ideology” (Grachev & Yermochkin). An evidence of the earthquake provoked by the rock festival is associated with the music played on radio broadcasting stations in Sao Paulo city before the festival was held. As can be verified in Table VI, 65, of 6090 playing on the radio in the period between December 1984 and January 1985 just before that festival, 69.45 % were foreign music and 30.55 % were Brazilian music. TABLE VI December 1984 – January 1985: Sao Paulo Broadcasters’ music audience Total of playing

Foreign music

Brazilian music

6,090

4,230

1,860

100 %

69.45 %

30.55 %

69

Again we discover that the volume of “imported” is far greater than that of Brazilian music. Worse than that, is to see in Table VII, in only one day, at the same time as the last days of “Rock in Rio”, the Radio Imprensa played 52.49 % of foreign music against 47.51 % of Brazilian music. It is worse because while the other previous findings referred to a group of broadcasting stations, in a period of more than 60 days, this one referred to a single broadcasting station in only one day. It is not difficult to suppose, therefore, that the facts testify to a situation very little favorable to national values.

TABLE VII January 1985: Music Audience for Radio Imprensa, Sao Paulo Total of playing

Foreign music

Brazilian music

261

137

124

100 %

52.49 %

47.51 %

70

The radio diffusion panorama

As can be seen in Table VIII, in 1979, only 58.3 % of releases were national music. And this refers to records produced in Brazil, so 41.7 % of them were records of foreign music made in Brazil. It is worth remembering that Brazilian labels like Som Livre, Top Tape and WEA had more foreign releases than Brazilian. Moreover, PolyGram, Polidor, GTA and Phonogram released only foreign titles. Accordingly, if you consider that the big sales of Som Livre, for example, account for numerous releases, more than 50 % being foreign, it has to be concluded before anything else that such importation is good business. Now there is something else to point out. Som Livre is a part of the Globo Television communication system, which covers the majority of the major national events. “Rock in Rio” was one of them. The communication media have possibilities of diffusion much the same as in 1979. On the one hand, the business efforts of this television network are concerned with profits. On the other, they have to consider the preferences of the greater part of their audience.

71

TABLE VIII Label

%

Foreign

Brazilian

Personal

Other

SOM LIVRE ODEON RCA TOP-TAPE PHILIPS WEA POLYGRAM COPACABANA CBS RGE CONTINENTAL CHANTECLER K-TEL TAPECAR YOUNG POLIDOR GTA PHONOGRAM SOM MAIOR ELDORADO EMI EPIC

15.5 14.2 9.1 7.1 6.5 6.5 5.2 4.1 4.1 4.1 4.1 2.6 2.6 2.6 2.6 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3

80 35 -36 30 52 52 15 16 --13 13 13 10 13 13 13 ---13

75 107 91 35 35 13 -26 25 41 41 13 13 13 16 ---13 13 13 --

77 111 91 40 65 42 36 41 41 41 41 26 -13 -13 -13 13 --13

78 31 -31 -23 16 -----26 13 26 -13 --13 13 --

TOTAL

100

41.7

58.3

71.7

28.3

It is all a snowball effect, where promotion depends on consumption and this is pressured according to what determines tendencies, which, in their turn, arise from the promotion of the products in the market. This is because this intricate net depends fundamentally on an external support, able to prove that record sales are determined by the radio, in the so called hit parades. A very interesting aspect, already evident as the time of the first research as can be seen in Table IX, is that some

72

bands later on would obtain great notoriety. That was the case of Queen who, considering the volume of records sold during the second semester of 1979, alone was responsible for 6.9 % of sales. In this connection, Commodores, Rainbow and Bee Gees along with singers like Barbara Streisand, Patrick Diamond and Johnny Rivers already represented about 41.7 % of foreign titles against only 58.3 % of Brazilian ones. TABLE IX Singer/Composer

Brazilian

Foreigner

VARIOUS SINGERS SIMONE QUEEN RITA LEE COMMODORES BARBRA STREISAND GAL COSTA BETH CARVALHO RAINBOW GERALDO VANDRÉ PATRICK DIMON BEE GEES KÁTIA JOHNNY RIVERS LUIZ GONZAGA JOANNA ROBERTO GALENA TIM MAIA AMELINHA IVAN LINS OTHERS

17.4 8.3 -5.9 --4.9 4.5 – 4.2 --2.3 -2.0 1.9 1.5 1.5 1.4 1.3 1.1 --

10.9 -6.9 -5.8 5.7 --4.3 – 2.7 2.4 – 2.1 – – – – – – 1 0.9

Total

58.3 %

41.7 %

73

On the one hand, these sales were ascertained by simple and direct information at the sales points, and on the other, it was found that practically, the same titles were being played on the radio. Curiously, however, what you might expect, that is, first playing then selling, does not happen in any hypothesis. What indeed you find is the contrary. Taking Table X, one finds the record titles which would be sold about five days afterwards, as checked by market research. And we might add that in Table X appear the Queen band, the Commodores, Rainbow and the BeeGees along with Barbara Streisand, Patrick Diamond, Johnny Rivers and others (around 20.0 % of playing). Among these others, with a lesser number of playing each, are the Tramps, Peaches & Herb, Dire Streets, Focus, Jimmy “Bo” Horne and Michael Zapper. Incidentally during that period of 1979, a singer called Simone is seen to be the most played by the radio stations in Sao Paulo, with 8.3 % of playing. The Queen band alone obtained a satisfactory place for its record company (6.9 % of the total). And it is well to point out that with regard to the records of various authors/ singers (28.3 % of the total), and other singers with only one playing in the same period (20.0 %), it was found that almost half of the playing were foreign music.

74

TABLE X Singers/Composers

%

VARIOUS SINGERS SIMONE QUEEN RITA LEE COMMODORES BARBRA STREISAND GAL COSTA BETH CARVALHO RAINBOW GERALDO VANDRÉ PATRICK DIMON BEE GEES KÁTIA JOHNNY RIVERS LUIZ GONZAGA JOANNA ROBERTO GALENA TIM MAIA AMELINHA IVAN LINS OTHERS

28.3 8.3 6.9 5.9 5.8 5.7 4.9 4.5 4.3 4.2 2.7 2.4 2.3 2.1 2.0 1.9 1.6 1.5 1.4 1.3 20.0

Total

Of course, nobody doubts any more that the hit parade fulfills a fundamentally important role. When all is said and done, it is the hit parade that continues to publicize new records. Table XI, which shows the frequency of playing on the hit parades for each record company, serves to establish the intervention and the degree of participation of each label in the matter. The record company Odeon, for example, stands out 75

with 25.83 % of the playing. And as perceived, its participation is more or less constant in almost all classifications. TABLE XI Frequency and classification in hit parades: by record company on radio broadcasters in the city of Sao Paulo Class.

1st

Odeon

25.83

20.83

20.83

45.83

20.83

20.83

RGE/ Fermata

18.30

4.16

16.66

12.50

29.16

29.16

Label

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

Copacab.

17.50

25.00

20.83

16.66

20.83

4.16

Polygram

16.66

16.66

16.66

16.66

16.66

16.66

RCA

13.33

25.00

12.50

8.33

4.16

16.66

CBS

2.50

--

8.33

--

--

4.15

S. Livre

1.66

4.16

--

--

--

4.16

WEA

1.66

--

--

--

4.16

4.16

Top-tape

0.83

--

--

--

4.16

--

Continent.

0.83

--

4.16

--

--

--

CID

0.83

--

--

4.16

--

--

Next in the table are FERMATA (18.33 %), Copacabana (27.50 %) and PolyGram (16.66 %). It ill not be difficult to understand why. In Table XVIII or in Table XIX, only one can understand the reason. The first of these tables for example, depicts that in 207 playing, PolyGram has 10.0 % and Fermata 9.0 %, which, in other words, corresponds to almost half (18 playing of foreign music) by the first record company, and almost the total (28

76

playing of foreign music and versions) by the second record company. All this shows that audiences are permanently “inoculated” by artificial divulgence suggesting that the records played in the hit parades as the preferences of the public are a big sales success. In reality, what happens is precisely the contrary: It is nothing more than crude convincing of the consumer to buy the records played in the hit parades. There is yet another aspect to the matter. That is, the consumers themselves are made use of by structuring traditional radio programs of the hit parades kind, in order to promote general involvement with specific titles. So it is all the same thing anyway.

The product panorama As a product, the record, more than any other is characterized by rapid consumption, immediate satisfaction of taste and by the speed at which the market becomes saturated. In other words, any record that is released, and as simultaneous sales promotion campaigns get under way, exerts a paradoxical influence on the consumer, that is, the satisfaction derived from buying the record is soon succeeded by a feeling of saturation (due to this satisfaction). This comes about through the profusion of sounds created and recreated with simultaneous releases.

77

These persistently suggest a necessity to listen to and possess new titles. Nevertheless a record is a product like any other and requires special care in its elaboration. This begins with the design of appropriate packaging for each title. It is not necessary to say that the cover, as in the case of any other product packaging, plays a fundamental role in its presentation. And this almost immediate satisfaction, which stimulates the acquisition of new titles, is not much different, so to speak to the pleasure which is felt by a consumer of any other product when he buys it. However here it is fitting to make an observation of critical character. A record because of its intrinsic characteristics is included in the category of non-durable goods. The only ownership dominance experienced by the consumer lies in the fact that, when purchased a record constitutes an instrument for the satisfaction of a transitory pleasure. The same pleasure, by the way, has been described by some authors as a way of momentary satisfaction of necessity. The opposition between this transitory satisfaction and the consequent loss of pleasure due to the void left by the search for other goods, as Scitovsky, suggests, opens a way to another paradox. In reality the concentration of pleasures in bourgeois society is linked more too combating boredom and stimulation, mainly of the dream, than to satisfying basic physiological necessities (Hirschman, 1983, 31-35). Because of this same motive, when a similar principle is admitted, one

78

is also forced to admit that bourgeois society is made up of paradoxes. So “what distinguishes the industrial society and especially the western capitalist one is anarchy, irrationality, unpredictability, in short, its incredible possibilities of disruption” (Marcondes Filho, 1983, 80-81). The simple fact that “tons” of records are being commercialized nowadays, all over the country, whose nature reveals a genre previously consecrated by no cultural implication for the society that consumes it, in itself, reveals an atypical superfluity. All the same, the fact that its sales justify a permanent commercialization of this superfluity arises because the artificial necessity for the product is stimulated on the basis of the continual satisfaction of a pleasure which is lost when the latest title is acquired. For this reason, it is also fitting to study further the 3 items, which comprise this cycle: consumption, satisfaction and saturation. The first one can be identified by the product package itself, on the cover. For this, one must observe the evolution of this cover during the course of time. Previously there was only the title of the work, the source and name of the author or the artist who made the recording. Gradually, however, a series of other things were included on it. These, in turn, ended up being transformed into the main appeal of the product, and often were totally dissociated from its true content (Weidemann, 1969, 37).

79

The second item, connected with the consumption of this product, directs our study to the question of alienation in the bourgeois society. Marx used to criticize religion, as being the redoubt where man, victim of social and economic circumstances, tries to conceal his unhappiness. Right or wrong, this principle shows that at least, besides religion, there is another form of “escape” from the real problems faced by man in the bourgeois society. Man is a product of his own environment and has available redoubts created by his way of life for the purpose. (Noce & Riestra, 1975, 77-79). The State, in its turn, connives with these forms of alienation, typical of capitalist society, so that the respective structure functions to offer an apparent solution to such problems. Finally, the third item, which comprises the meaning of the saturation of the satisfied necessities, is also a consequence, so to speak, of capitalist society. There is a sort of chronic tendency towards accumulation through the development of consumption. Explaining this, the consuming capacity of salary earners, “is not fixed at the level of their subsistence”, and this always leads to the necessity to consume beyond the real capacity of their salaries. This seems to have been the true tonic of the consuming society. In reality, the whole process of saturation starts from a dynamic principle, established from the necessity to consume and the satisfaction obtained by the acquisition of nondurable goods (Perroux, 1970, 110). So, as everything shows, the record fulfills its role in the capitalist society and this explains the reason for the nature of its contents not being 80

compatible with the cultural values of this society, since it is only good for the purpose of serving as a “refuge” for escape and evasion. The phenomenon cannot be explained however by logic. Of course, the whole industrial set-up of the consumer society is organized to make the dissemination of the superfluous possible. The sound which is recorded and commercialized in Brazil or in any other capitalist country, today, has only one single referential which is that of serving the cravings for the satisfaction of a provoked necessity.

Record market: Consumption and alienation The industrial and commercial schemes of the recording companies which, for the most part of the times, collide with the ideas of artists and performers were set up to yield profit. Because of this, when a new artist enters the field, he has to follow paths governed by arbitrary parameters of a commercial nature, and this determines his work. The result of all this, as might be expected, can be seen in the record shops and discerned by the persistent repetition on the radio, where diverse titles of “canned music” of different labels attract attention by the abundant quantity of playing. The rare exceptions, some hallowed names in authentic popular Brazilian music, manage to keep a certain 81

commercial autonomy, but then they are given less broadcasting time. After apparent success, they almost always fall into anonymity and truly important works founder. Sometimes however, through a lapse of the “bureaucrats of cultural industrial”, they manage to stay a long time in the market, the productions themselves being self sustaining. It is a problem that occurs in the entire world, but which tends to be worse in countries like Brazil, due to industrial dependence in this sector, therefore the record companies’ involvement with the commercialization of “imported sound” means that spaces are filled which, in other circumstances, would be reserved for Brazilian artists. An option that some Brazilian musicians have been experimenting with for some time, are independent productions. They finance their own recordings and then attempt the respective commercialization. It is indeed probable that on account of a momentary valorization of instrumental music by the recording companies, some of these projects come to deserve the so desired success. But most of these productions are low cost since the musicians generally record without onus and have to wait until the product is sold before they are remunerated for their work. Recently, for example, some instrumental cooperatives have come on the scene. These also are a means of guaranteeing success and commercial achievement. As a matter of interest, along with other not very successful attempts, appears the “Cooperativa Paulista de Rock” which was founded in September of 1982 and which until now 82

comprises the A Chave do Sol, Harpia, Abutre, Salario Minimo, Centurias, Anthro, Gozo Metal and Ecclipse bands. An admirable commercial initiative of this cooperative is a phonographic label named “Barato Afins” responsible for the release of 7 LPs. An initiative, which in less than three years has had commercial success and popularity among the followers, so to speak, of this music genre in Sao Paulo. The great lesson to be drawn from this kind of initiative is none other than that it only corroborates the idea of cultural “inoculation” by foreign values. This is because especially this cooperative is taking advantage of the space left by the incorporation of the above mentioned values vis-à-vis this scale of consumption. It is clear that the result could not be otherwise. Taking the advantage of the space generated by the adoption of a non-Brazilian “genre”, but amply diffused by the commercial schemes of recording companies, this cooperative is taking advantage of the consumer avidity for such taste, to commercialize by jumping on the bandwagon of the “mannerism” previously referred. Naturally, the vacuum left by the initiatives and the commercial experiments of the recording companies, who in the last six years, have opened space for the generalized consumption of a non Brazilian genre, it is now easier also for isolated initiatives whose main market appeal lies in this genre. It is clear that more than anything else, its purpose is extremely compatible with serving as escape and alienation in a capitalist society.

83

Statistical evidences As can be seen in Table XII, taking 51 titles, the playing on the hit parades in 1980, reveal that 11.7 % were versions and 23.6% were foreign music. But Table XIII, also reveals that in 1981, taking 120 playing on the hit parades 12.5 % were versions and 20.8 % were foreign compositions. These data show that the presence of the imported element is constant in Brazilian radio programs. TABLE XII 1980: FOREIGN MUSIC & BRAZILIAN MUSIC Percentage for 51 different titles Brazilian

Foreign

Versions

33

12

6

64.7 %

23.6 %

11.7 %

TABLE XIII 1981: FOREIGN MUSIC & BRAZILIAN MUSIC Percentage for 120 playing on Hit Parades Brazilian

Foreign

Versions

80

25

15

66.7 %

20.8 %

12.5 %

84

Following this idea, we have again more data which show, for each recording company, this natural tendency to maintain their production in line. In the same way in Table XIV, it may be perceived which are the recording companies that offer less records of Brazilian music for playing on the radio. Here, as we already had the opportunity to mention, RGE / Fermata appears again with the insignificant figure of 0.83 % of Brazilian music. And in Table XV, we find that it alone is responsible for 12,5 % of the foreign compositions played in the same period. TABLE XIV 1980 - 1981: FOREIGN MUSIC & BRAZILIAN MUSIC Percentage by record company on the hit parades Brazilian music Label

Titles

Playing

%

RGE /Fermata Polygram Copacabana CBS Som Livre Top Tape Odeon CID RCA

9 4 8 6 2 1 1 1 1

25 19 17 13 2 1 1 1 1

20.83 15.83 14.16 10.83 1.66 0.83 0.83 0.83 0.83

Total

33

80

66.63

85

TABLE XV 1980 - 1981: FOREIGN MUSIC & BRAZILIAN MUSIC Percentage by record company on the hit parades Foreign music Label

Titles

Playing

%

Odeon Cobacabana Polygram RGE WEA RGE / Fermata CBS Som Livre

5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

15 3 2 1 1 1 1 1

12.50 2.50 1.66 0.83 0.83 0.83 0.83 0.83

Total

12

25

20.81

And it is clear; it could not be different, since the same recording company offered in that period 5,0 % of the versions played on the hit parades as can be seen in Table XVI. It is to be noted that this percentage is practically half of the volume of this type of music, ascertained in the research. In 1982, this picture did not change and the tendency continued. In Table XVII, taking 207 titles we find that 66.7 % were Brazilian music, 23.3 % foreign music and 10,0 % versions. An observation should be made here. Out of nearly 20.0 % of Brazilian music played daily, almost the total was comprised of Roberto Carlos recordings. This artist, however, would deserve another research regarding the origin, nature 86

and characteristics of his compositions in order to establish the true patterns, inherent (or not) in Brazilian culture, contained in his music. In addition, the sum of the percentages relative foreign compositions and versions, is a figure of 33.3 % rather half of that in respect of Brazilian compositions which, as mentioned, about 20.0 % are compositions Roberto Carlos, and therefore highly controversial.

to or of of

TABLE XVI 1980 - 1981: FOREIGN MUSIC & BRAZILIAN MUSIC Percentage by record company on the hit parades Label

Titles

Playing

%

RGE / Fermata Odeon RCA CBS

2 2 1 1

6 5 3 1

6.00 4.16 2.50 0.83

Total

6

15

12.49

In 1982, for example, as can be seen in Table XIX, Roberto Carlos appeared in first place with 14.22 % of playing on the hit parades. However it should be pointed out once again, he gained this classification thanks to 38 different titles. This serves to show that the above-mentioned singer has been a highly profitable commercial proposition for his 87

recording company – CBS, by the fact that his production has reached the objectives compatible with the content of his work. That is, full of appeal to an artificial reality, without any cultural density. It can also be seen in the same Table that the rating of foreign music in this period (32.9 %) is almost half of the Brazilian. This is because just one foreign music next below the position of Roberto Carlos, “Shake your Groove Things” has 13.53 % of the total. TABLE XVII 1982: FOREIGN MUSIC & BRAZILIAN MUSIC Daily Audience on Sao Paulo Radio Brazilian

Foreign

Versions

207

72

31

66.7 %

23.3 %

10 %

Already in 1983, everything became a little bit worse. Table XX shows that, while 46.5 % of the playing on the hit parades were Brazilian music, 40,5 % were foreign. Things are still more serious when you add to this rating 13.0 % of versions, therefore in fact; the true rating becomes 53.5 % of foreign music and versions. Because deep down, they are the same. Moreover the most frequent music Coisinha Estupida (Little Stupid 88

Thing), is nothing more than an adaptation of the same foreign music. And just this one was responsible for 13.04 % of the playing.

TABLE XVIII 1982: Record Company participation percentage General data for Sao Paulo Radio Audiences Playing Label %

Brazilian

Foreign

Versions

CBS Polygram RCA Odeon RGE/Fermata Copacabana WEA Continental Polidor K-Tel Top-Tape Som Livre CID

26.0 20.0 15.0 11.0 9.0 5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 2.0 1.0 1.0 1.0

66 43 26 22 3 26 9 5 2 --4 --

5 18 9 3 21 -8 --2 2 1 3

4 -11 8 7 --1 ------

Total

100.0

207

72

31

89

TABLE XIX 1982: Participation Percentage (Record Company / Artist) From 8 – 10 times played on radio per month Titles

Playing

%

Music

Roberto Carlos / CBS 38 different titles

62

14.22

Brazilian

Peaches & Herb / Polygram “Shake your groove things”

59

13.53

Foreign

Alcione / Polygram 3 different titles

53

12.15

Brazilian

Benito di Paula / Copac. 3 different titles

53

12.15

Brazilian

Chic / WEA “Good Times”

51

11.69

Foreign

Tim Maia / Odeon 2 different titles

47

10.77

Brazilian

Vanusa / RCA 2 different titles

43

9.86

Brazilian

Sérgio Reis / RCA “Menino da Porteira”

35

8.02

Brazilan

Tony Benett / CBS “Smile”

33

7.56

Foreign

Total

433

100.00

Brazilian/67.1 Foreign/32.9

90

TABLE XX 1983: Participation Percentage (Record Company / Artist) From 4 – 7 times played on Radio per month Titles

Playing

%

Music

Jane & Herondi / RCA “Coisinha Estúpida Wando/ Copacabana “A Gazela” Jimmie Davis “Someone to Care” Ray Charles / London “If you go away” Silvio Brito/ Polygram “Filho da Corrente” Roberto Leal/ RGE “N. Sra. Do Rosário” Bianca / RGE “Rever meus pais” Christian / RGE “Lies” Patrick Hernandez / CID “Born to be alive” Other

27

13.04

Version

25

12.07

Brazilian

25

12.07

Foreign

25

12.07

Foreign

21

10.14

Brazilian

19

9.17

Brazilian

17

8.21

Brazilian

17

8.21

Foreign

17

8.21

Foreign

14

6.76

Total

20.7

100.00

Brazilian Brazilian/46.5 Foreign /40.59 Version /13.0

In 1984, when relevant data was obtained by researching each hit parade program 1-3 times monthly, it was found that the greater volume of interpreters was always concentrated in Brazilian records. In Table XXI, this fact is registered. While 21 interpreters correspond, precisely, to 21

91

titles played in the case of Brazilian music, the same does not happen with foreign music. TABLE XXI 1984: Participation by title, record company, singer and playing From 1– 3 per program Characteristics

Singers

Labels

Titles

Playing

Brazilian Compositions

21

17

21

27

Foreign Compositions

13

5

18

58

Versions

9

11

15

24

Total

43

33

54

89

There are 13 interpreters for 18 different titles. This, by itself, already serves to show that Brazilian artists are devalued by the recording company, who is only concerned with him just because he sings the music it wants. Also in this Table, it can be seen that among 89 playing, 38 are of foreign music and 24 of versions. And of the 54 titles played, 21 were Brazilian, 18 were genuinely foreign and 15 were versions. These consumption statistics, taking them as representation of radio programs in Sao Paulo from 1979 to 92

1984, show that there is a gradual dominance of foreign music. And this is a dominance that began to become aggravated in 1983, when the number of playing came to denounce the playing of more foreign music. It is clear that according to what was articulated before, if this music is being played, it is because either it is being sold or what is much worse its sale is being stimulated.

The “Agony” of Brazilian music There is nothing more suggestive to initiate discussion of the theme than to remember the musical contest held in 1980, entitled “MPB Shell 80”, promoted in Rio de Janeiro and transmitted to the whole country by the Globo network. What attracted the most attention at the winding up of the contest was the suggestive title of the winning composition “Agonia”. Without decrying the merits of any of the others, for certainly there were numerous contestants that could have gained popular acclaim, the winner came to serve as a symbol for the existing state of truly Brazilian music. The award served to make it very clear that the agony since then unleashed, represents the ruin of all the values which sustain national creation., thanks to the means and the resources put at the disposal and at the service of the 93

promotion of foreign values, which are present today more than ever in the artistic scenario, inoculated by the euphoria of “Rock”. Commercial speculation centered especially on the appeal and propaganda of the mass communication media, where what is more apparent is the “copies” unleashes reinforcements so that copying and imitating continue, of the international music genre as well. The record market has grown tremendously in Brazil so that it is today the fifth biggest in the world music market. It loses out only to the United States, Japan and Germany. It is in this background of burgeoning that the imported sound finds its best place in detriment to the national. Research carried out by Phonogram in 1976 revealed that while the market for Brazilian records increased by 47 %, the market for foreign records grew 76 %. Therefore, there are strong economic reasons to justify the recording companies’ greater interest in imported matrices. Thus while a national release has to sell a minimum of 12,000 copies not to show a loss, a release of imported music pays for itself with less than 5,000. As is seen, the roots of this constant dependency which, among other things, produces artistic mediocrity lie in problems of economic nature, as always. In April 1977, the catalogue of the WEA recording company had 48 foreign releases as against only 6 national. The market philosophy of such recording companies explains their kind of preoccupation with releases of the genre. A multinational company’s

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investment for a multinational release can be as much as one million dollars. Certainly none of them expects to get back the investment from one specific country. After all, they have the entire world … and who ends up paying for this, in Brazil’s case, is Brazilian music. The appearance of alternative labels, independent of the traditional recording companies, however paradoxical though it may seem, is also responsible for narrowing the market for Brazilian music. In truth, however wellintentioned they may be, principally the releasers of records connected with the radio broadcasting stations, they always end up at the mercy of the divulgence methods of the big recording companies as well as of the commercial structure of the big record distributors, the majority of whom, represent the interests of the recording companies. And so it goes on. If the widening of spaces for urban popular music is difficult, imagine what it is like for regional music. It is not that the market is insufficient, which is the case, for example, of a whole series of kinds of northeastern music but they will inevitably disappear. In other times in Brazil there were opportunities to preserve a little folklore, through direct apprenticeship. In this way, each one would end up learning something by heart and later on, involuntarily, would transmit it to others. Today, this apprenticeship is unpractical because the time of each person in society in filled up with other duties, and this practice of devoting some time simply for listening is also compromised by other impositions. 95

One perceives that there is a virtual negligence on the part of the government to avoid distortion in the field in question. After all the record is an adequate means of registering culture as well as for the preservation of phonographic work. If nothing is done by the State, inevitably the greed, avarice, rapaciousness and commercial voracity of the recording companies will eventually exterminate national talent completely. In the vacuum left, Rock and other non Brazilian genres will surely remain, and these are always effective in the process of cultural alienation in which expressive parts of the urban population are involved.

Gateway of an illusion If on the one hand the record has, up to the point, been studied as a way of social getaway exploited commercially because it is a big and good business, it should also on the other hand be examined from the viewpoint of the artist who most times is also a victim of the process. “The fact that the recording companies are much sought out by aspirants to the artistic life, seems to manifest a belief in the possibilities of social ascension that the record industry offers. This is indeed true if we observe that practically all singers exhibit an appearance of an easy life with numerous trips abroad, luxury cars and big houses. Thus the aspirants are looking for an opportunity, not to show their artistic 96

value, but rather through this value, find the gap through which to penetrate this easy and romantic life which is shown to them everyday on the radio, on television and in the news columns of magazines and newspapers. This life of an idol must mean for them a great opportunity of social ascension and you can perhaps infer, that the more aspirants there are, less are the chances of ascension in society, at least with reference to the social level to which the majority of these aspirants belong” (Jambeiro, 1975, 21-22). Almost all the producers in diverse recording companies have a real “allergy” to those people who they disrespectfully, call “Perus”. The aspirants to the artistic life by way of the record after they discover their way to the recording companies, rarely give up and submit themselves to all sorts of humiliation, in order to, in exchange, obtain the supreme award: record a compact. It is certain that the record is a getaway for the great masses of listeners and an illusion for a certain minority who desire stardom. The result is that the record becomes a highly lucrative instrument for the minorities who exploit this kind of business. Typical residue of the capitalist economy, nobody doubts that the record fits in very well with the necessities of social anesthesia and economic profit. It is one more dilemma in this country divided between the indefiniteness of government action, unsuccessful in controlling similar anomalies. It is a residue resulting from a policy of economic expansion begun by Getulio Vargas and continued by Juscelino Kubitschek, in the vain euphoria of 97

attracting international interests to Brazil. Solutions of this type designed for other sectors of economy catch unprepared, a fragile society at the mercy of other interests (Ribeiro, 1972, 236). The non-existence of a global policy, with lasting effects on sector policies, including measures of adjustment and collateral compatibility efforts, such as an education policy compatible and adjusted to a proper economic policy, serves as a motive to use and abuse the fragility of an unassisted population by companies uncommitted to national objectives. In the vacuum of this omission, “the expansion of the great industrial companies in the center of the south endangered the generation of the necessary wealth” (Cunha, 1973, 46-47), causing uncontrolled consumption with reflexes on the popular economy and on the consumers’ consciousness. It must not be forgotten that traditional production processes are subject to changing technology, which will have a still greater effect on the present economic structure. For example, it will be almost no use to think of a market reserve for the information sector without taking into account the human element. And the record market is situated right in the center of these problems. At the same time as we are debating the question of the space given to (and taken from) local artists, as well as the respective reflexes on local consumption, the evolution of technology already anticipates automation, inclusive, in the field of music production. What is to be done?

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After so many years of arbitrariness, clearly until the institutions become settled and mature, there aren’t conditions, immediately, to advocate solutions for much greater future problems. “Indeed, since time immemorial, man has adapted things that he finds and transformed them into means of expressing the language of music” (Moraes, 1979, 68). The advent of synthesizers should cause much more apprehension than enthusiasm since, besides subverting the workings of the labor market they will certainly also subvert the creation process. The artifices of capitalist society to create dreams, or to find getaways, go hand in hand with the evolution of history itself.

Music, radio and records: Brazilian cultural dilemma Generally speaking, it may be said that the structure of the phonographic market is compatible with the economic system in force. That is to say it adjusts itself in a coherent and ordered manner with other market segments. It cannot be said, however, that this structure meets the demands of society, principally as regards access to culture. The phonographic market in Brazil, based on data of research carried out in a big urban center like Sao Paulo, is seen to adapt to the very demands of its own structure. The 99

data suggested that all the apparatus of record commercialization is centered on radio and television broadcasts, practically, the only dependence submitted to by this millionaire market. The dispute, up to three years ago between Brazilian music and foreign music, has practically ceased to exist, if you take into account that from that time until now, the excess of imported titles played on the radio programs, shows that there is no dispute whatsoever. Foreign music has won. There is no government control whatsoever over the production of the recording companies who are quite content with the rapid return on their investments. Such investments are made according to traditional market formulas and the production of an “easy sale” title is justified, whatever it may be. Its cultural nature does not matter, even if it does not have any. Although “imitation” of a genre may be called a form of cultural colonization, not to imitate it does not mean redemption. What happened in Europe, for example, in the decade when Jazz took hold (Berrendt, 1975, 353), does not apply to the case of national rock fusions. Here, much more than rock itself, the role taken by the artist, considering his behavior on stage, reflects his cultural compromise with the imported genre, and bears out that there is domination in the field of music as in any other. Furthermore, this domination is tied to three distinct factors: a) one which is determinant arising from the situation 100

established by market conditions. b) one which is conditional upon reality, considering the social characteristics of the consumer. c) one which is coincidental with the political system due to the State’s omission.

A determinant factor As they say, every problem is related to the economic structure. Noise control, or sound industrialization, like any other capitalist initiative turns first to profit considerations before heeding ethical or cultural precepts. In a “repetitive” economy, technological progress hardly takes place just because of any innovations which it is hoped will bring social benefits or create welfare for people. The record industry, like any other enters into worldwide agreements between the principal record manufacturers so as to avoid, more than anything else, the effects of competition (Attali, 1977, 255-256). In this connection, the phonographic industry can take advantage of the situation in Brazil for interaction with the consumer. Brazil for more than 20 years has been campaigning in industrial circles with the intention of attracting foreign capital and factories. It would be a big mistake to picture the importation of technology, of capital or

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of innovations, as a social revolution capable of benefiting the country. Like the iron revolution or the steam engine, the new technologies do not bring social benefits if they are used without control or without planning to determine the true necessity of their existence (Mercier, Plassard and Scardigli, 1984, 175). And this picture tends to become still worse if the said “development” is due to imported industrial activity. The fact is that because of a highly favorable environment, the record industry on setting up in Brazil without the least control, avails of appropriate conditions for expansion, and is developing without the least social criteria and is about to imperil, as it does, local performers and as a result the registration and preservation of Brazilian culture. It is not because it is booming that you can justify the existence of this market, far from and totally divorced from cultural necessities.

The conditional factor The Brazilian consumer, aware of the characteristics it is wished to impute to him, is not a person isolated from a consumption process, determined by an economic structure belonging to his reality. However you cannot but question the role of the State, and the non-existence of government

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programs, which leave him at the mercy of the indiscriminate action of the market. Record companies like the other segments of the industrial sector, design their products and put them on sale, just like a cigarette factory, for example. Music has been dealt with like a consumer product, treating the national creative capacity, authors and interpreters, just as an extension of this product, so as to make them part of a marketing system, harnessed to publicity campaigns, with disperse reflexes throughout all the communication network. In this way, the phonographic consumption is not restricted to the contents of the records produced, but integrates an entire universe of external elements which appeal to and stimulate the consumers. It would be as if to say, it is a market conditioned by values foreign to Brazilian culture and incorporated in it as a form of marketing strategy. In this sense, you should not forget the recent production of the event called “Rock in Rio Festival”. It brought together in a bizarre way foreign and national artists in a strange harmony of genres and styles. You could even say that, apparently, the genre was not important, since the main interest centered on the “epic music”. Nevertheless, the apparent consumer endorsement of this cultural leveling guaranteed the continuity of a system where national and foreign artists work side by side, apparently interpreting similar compositions, is the authors international, be they Brazilian. 103

No innovation comes from this kind of initiative as would be expected. The above mentioned guarantee, obtained in sight of the whole national audience, only ratified the reasons for maintaining the special structure of the already known market.

The coincidental factor It is customary to say that, recently, the phonographic market has undergone a positive evolution due to the appearance of the so-called “selos” characteristic of productions independent of the recording companies. Almost all of them are owned by big radio or television networks and they show a high growth rate, having evolved from 1976 until now, more than 25%. Although opinions vary, in one point they are coincident mainly in respect of the opening of a parallel market which arose in function of recordings for soap opera sound tracks (Sao Paulo, 1980, 130). One label stands out specially Som Livre of the Globo television network that has a different title for each soap opera. However, while those less informed are in the habit of praising this apparent “opening” of the market, it is worth pointing out that far from being evidence of democratization in the phonographic industry, such reality even denounces the 104

aggravation of the conditions of dominance, bias and cultural debasement. And as we know, it is not the big corporations of social communication (and much less, at Globo Television Network) that are the most deserving to be examples in this respect. In reality, this evidence arises out of a coincidental factor, so to speak, with the ruling political order. Although the tendencies for change may really be much more visible today, what has been inherited from a past much compromised with arbitrage, mainly in the field of communication, makes work for change a long and arduous task. Almost all the systems of concession, use and control of electronic communication in Brazil are favorable to the exercise of monopoly and so compromise the objectives of a sector completely dissociated from social reality. For this reason, in view of a structure compatible only with the capitalist economic structure itself, and the systems which make it up, the objectives of the communication monopolies tend to identify themselves and strengthen themselves mutually with the objectives of other monopolies which use communication to expand. And the phonographic industry is one of them. It would be childish to ignore the consequence of a similar structure, directed exclusively towards internal growth.

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Bibliography Attali, J. Bruits: essays sur l’economie politique de musique. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1977. Bahiana, A. M. “Pequena antologia da musica que nao escapou da censura”, in Som Tres, Sao Paulo, 1, 1979. Berendt, J. E. O jazz: do ragg ao rock. Sao Paulo, Perspectiva, 1974. Campos, A. Balanço da bossa e outras bossas. Sao Paulo, Perspectiva, 1974. Cande, R. Ouverture pour une discotheque. Paris, Seuil, 1976. Correa, T. G. “Mercado de discos no Brasil”, in Cadernos de Jornalismo e Editoracao, Sao Paulo, 12, 1979. Correa, T. G. Mercado da musica: disco e alienacao. São Paulo, Expert, 1987. Correa, T. G. Rock, nos passos da moda. Campinas, Papirus, 1989. Cunha, L. A. R. “O milagre brasileiro”, in Argumento, Sao Paulo, 12, 1973.

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Gonzáles, A.; Mayor, J. “Consideraciones sobre la investigacion em los médios masivos de difusion”, in Revista Santiago, Santiago (Cuba), 22, 1976. Grachev, A.; Yermoschkin, N. A new information order. Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1984. Hirschman, A. O. De consumidor a cidadao. Sao Paulo, Brasiliense, 1983. Jambeiro, O. Cancao de massa. Sao Paulo, Pioneira, 1973. Marcondes Filho, C. J. “Imperialismo cultural: o grande vilao na destruicao da ‘nossa’ cultura”, in Comunicacao e Sociedade, Sao Paulo, 9, 1983. Mercier, P. A.; Plassard, F.; Scardigli, V. La societe digitale. Paris, Seuil, 1984. Moraes, J. J. “A curiosa sinfonia da maquina”, in Som Tres, 11, 1979. Noce, A.; Rietra, J. A. Karl Marx: escritos juveniles (1884). Madrid, Critica Filosofica, 1975. Ribeiro, D. Americas and civilization. New York, Dutton, 1972. Sao Paulo (City Hall). O disco em Sao Paulo. Sao Paulo, Secretaria Municipal de Cultura, 1980. Weidemann, K. Buchumschlage und schallplatten-hullen. Stuttgart, Verlag gerd Hatje, 1969. 107

About the author Victor Aquino is a doctor in sciences, faculty and researcher at the Art and Communication School, in the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he had been in charge as dean and other positions before 2000. He has written books and papers on communication, fashion, art and culture. Lecturing in French, German, Spanish and Portuguese universities, he has also supplied cultural studies founded on roots of the art and the knowledge. Born in the extreme South of Brazil he has particular standpoints about life, culture and all kinds of human expression.

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