folks and cowboys : aesthetics of brazilian country music

8/14/2019 FOLKS AND COWBOYS : AESTHETICS OF BRAZILIAN COUNTRY MUSIC

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Folks & cowboys: aesthetics of Brazilian country music.

Copyright byVictor 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) 5

Foreword 7

Part One 15

The roots of new Brazilian country music 17

Part Two 45

Brazilian pop-music in the 70s of the XX Century 47

Bibliography 105

About the author 107

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Why country music?

Its amazing how every day we may find curiositiesabout life and circumstances around us. This book is part of

these discoveries. It argues the problem of the social contactswhose nature transforms them into social change.

Starting from a real case the author shows somemutations in Brazilian folk music. This music, knew asmusica caipira, is a typical kind of folk music of the State

of Sao Paulo, as well as in other some regions of the countryside of Brazil. It has largely changed in the last twenty yearsbecause of contacts in the orange market with the UnitedStates.

This study by Victor Aquino shows a case whosemeans of change must be understood as possible anywhere.The original as well as native kind of regional music, socommon in a part of Brazil, has changed under externalinfluences. Folks & Cowboys is the better way forunderstanding what it happened.

The book also approaches the question of popularmusic from radio programs. The data of one search carriedthrough for the author in years 80 of the XX Century proveas 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 andhuman nature interact. Popular music is also an excellenttool for looking about. Country music the most appropriate.

Why country music?

I think because its a kind of music whose expressionrefuses limits, aesthetical consequences, concepts and forms

without links with the nature. Country music is a naturalmusic, or a natural way for knowing better culture and life ofour Civilization.

Ana Maria BarreiraGEMODE / CEAQ / Universit 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 adiscipline entitled Record Production in the publishingcourse of the University of Sao Paulo. Two years after thetermination 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 industrialrecord production sector was limited and (c) the recorddistributors operated in a market tightly controlled by the

international labels. And so the conclusion was that thesefactors, in practice, hindered the release of any product outsideof the control of the recording companies.

Before discussing the matter in relation to the termmanipulation 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 impressionthat it is something more important and complex than itreally is.

Secondly, if one confines the area of such field of study

to its precise dimensions existing at the time, there is only a

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partial comprehension of the problem. This is because duringthe time when it was being carried out, the research wasstudying a market where the disc jockey was the principalmeans of record diffusion.

Up to the Eighties, when it was unusual to considerthe effects of the technological changes on the horizon and

which shortly began to occur, the phonographic market wasrigorously focused on the production of new titles. This meantthat it was the domain of the record companies and only theyhad the power of decision when it was a question of selectingwhich music, which artists, which records to be released.

After release, the whole commercial process followedinvolving distribution, promotion, publicity and playing of anew phonographic product. To discuss the last three stages ofthis process, however, is to speak of one unique essentialactivity for success. Until the Eighties these last three stages

comprised widespread and repeated playing of each record onradio programs and these constituted the main marketingtool.

This system, based especially on the constantrepetition of the same titles at different times on radio

programs became the most effective tool, not only for phonographic product commercialization but also forconsolidating the record market.

The radio was transformed in Brazil and in the wholeworld into the mainspring of popular music

commercialization.

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It was for this reason that the radio came to offer anopportunity for developing a special sort of programs that,starting in the United States, took hold of record diffusion inthe whole world. These programs were known as hit

parades and everywhere they broadcast the list of the most- played 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 ofpreferences, of the most-listened-to music.

Since the beginning of the forties the presenter wouldacquire the same notoriety as the artists and music that hedivulged in his program. And so it was that this kind of

program, under the conducting of the disc jockeys, emergedand came to structure the record market.

In Brazil it was no different. In Sao Paulo, wherehistorically 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 wouldaffect things in the future.

The technological transformation, which yielded, a newphonographic product, the compact disc, would also modify themarket, would alter the consumer pattern, would create new

production conditions, and would generate a recordingautonomy for artists, producers, groups and composers. Allthese factors contributed towards renovating completely the

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system of record promotion and deeply alter radio programs inthe whole world.

Brazilian culture, principally in the last ten years, hashad a close relationship with the social communication media.

Among these the radio stands out indisputably both as agenerator of expectations as regards cultural production and,

at the same time, as a disseminator of what is produced. Ithas not only been programs based on musical insertions butalso those made up of other content that has always made theradio an indispensable vehicle of communication in Brazilianlife.

Independently of the rise or fall of audiences, publicopinion has been interested in the quality of radio programs.

This book is not an essay on the radio; nevertheless itbrings together two texts that arose from studies focused onradio diffusion. The first, incidentally, features very well the

question of the diffusion and the transformation of a musicgenre, which is mostly dependent on the use of the radio. Thesecond, as it says, deals with research work on the recordmarket 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 beingstudied, on analyzing the way in which power and controlwere 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

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much less to do with the structure of the record market thanwith other influences. By the way, the first text attempts torelate 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 orangetrade with the United States.

In a sense, the present essay is intended to be a recordof a study which traces record production before thetechnological 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 verysimilar foreign genre.

The essay is divided into three parts. The first partentitled Some roots of Brazilian country music is dedicatedto the study of the influence of American country music onBrazilian country music (sertaneja music). The second part

deals with the formation of the phonographic market asperceived from a study of the hit parades and the legislationwhich governed radio programs in Brazil at the time. Thethird part consists of tables that set out the data from theresearch.

While this work was being compiled for publication,the person who suggested it, Julio Martinez, passed away. Hewas a man concerned with culture and its importance on the

formation and development of the New World and his wasthe incentive for this publication. Cuban by birth he had livedin the United States since the Forties and he exercised intensecultural activity in the States of New York and New Jersey.

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with music, musical production and the immense Latin artistcontinent within the United States. He lamented deeply hislittle knowledge of the Brazilian reality that he considered thesweetest side of the New World.

A month after he had begun to organize thepublication of the book, Julio Martinez did not come, unlike

his usual custom, to one of the Saturday afternoon meetings at354 West 45th Street in Manhattan. On this very day hewould have had his first opportunity to hear a Braziliancountry 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 partof the orange plantations in the United States. Perhaps it isnormal for the ordinary person not to realize how importantand serious an occurrence of this kind is.

Distant from calamities like this and living far fromthe regions directly affected, many people even imagine thatsuch happenings do not directly affect their own lives. Themedia with its resources of systematic particularization of the

facts contributes towards having a strong sensation of distancefrom 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 thethings we watch on television each new morning, for us, do not

go beyond the news program. Practically nobody realizes thatprofound 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 theyhave been incorporated into our culture, our habits, ourcustoms, the changes and things, which resulted from them, donot even remind us of what brought them about.

The above-mentioned winters of intense cold and heavysnowstorms that devastated unexpectedly the principal orange

growing region of the United States of America did morethan raze the orange plantations. As a result of thesemisfortunes, actions had to be taken that went much beyond

just the measures for recuperation of the orange plantationsaffected.

Even before the first half of the Eighties decade, theimminence of extensive losses, because of shortage of orangeson the American market, were anticipated. The orange is a

fruit used to produce, among other things, the juicecustomarily 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 therewas a shortage of the ingredients used for making Mexicantortillas?

Or indeed, if there was a shortage of coffee in Brazil?Not only in Brazil but also in a large part of the world. Alsoof 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.

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The shortage of any food item in any culture where itis customarily consumed brings with it a change in attitudesand behavior. Consequently every change is something thatcauses discomfort, insecurity and non-conformity. However,the same force that promotes and sustains changes that arenegative equally consolidates deep-rooted habits by whichhuman beings are identified and characterized.

Naturally these habits support millionaire marketsinvolving the hourly replacement on shelves in all the world ofitems that maintain unaltered the traditional levels of foodconsumption. And so this must have been the first

preoccupation of the United States orange growers in theEighties. Not only the growers but also all the other traders,distributors and processors of the fruit, in the face of themodifications that very soon began to occur in the market.Concomitantly to the shortage of oranges, prices began to riseindicating 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 themerchandise, the extinction of large part of the market wasimminent. Should the market go away, a rich source of

business would disappear and eliminate future profits?

Perhaps as the result of this last preoccupation therewould be developments as follows. Probably having in mindreplacing the product by oranges from new plantations in moreappropriate regions the businessmen in this sector consideredlooking for other geographical regions as an option for large

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scale replanting. A search resulted in the discovery of theinterior of the State of Sao Paulo in Brazil as appropriate fororange growing. Negotiations began immediately for the use ofthe land, the corresponding cultivation, and the preparation of

young orange seedlings, diverse supplies, in short, all thenecessary technology to, from then on, put the market back onits former level.

There are two things right at the beginning of theprocess that evidenced contact between different cultures. The first one refers to the high mobility of the financial sector insupport of the initial agricultural work and the ensuingindustrial activity. The second was the intense movement of

American professionals and technicians with relevantexperience.

Clearly, as well as the movement of the personnelengaged in the activities of the sector, we need to take into

account their physical contact with all the others who byreason of business or otherwise were in the region. But onecontact at least is incontestable. It is the personal relationshipestablished by reason of professional activities. The technicalskills transmitted then are absorbed, generating operating

procedures that are incorporated as they had been planned

and desired. At the same time personal friendships can beinitiated.

Whenever persons of diverse origins come together andwhatever may be the nature of the contact, exchanges aremade and the result always depends on the intensity of theinterest involved. These exchanges are not exclusively

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determined by business reasons. The affections, the interests,the expectations, and the desires of each one involved alwaysreveal values which are added to the cultures of both.

The complex commercial interchange in the orangebusiness between the two countries brought diverse personsnear to each other. These persons, in strange surroundings

ended up by interacting in situations where they had commontastes, affections and expectations. It was precisely a region inthe interior of Brazil, transformed into an orange cultivationarea, 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 andtastes very like those in some interior regions in the UnitedStates.

Although their cultures are specific, the tastes of thetwo 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 isin music where we find more frequently, references to thosenative or nature elements. The ways of expressing sentiments,the extremely personal tone of the lyrics, the atmosphere ofsimplicity, 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 themusic of some regions of Brazil such as the interior of theState of Sao Paulo. It must be acknowledged that this

peculiarity, coincidentally brought nearer persons who, because

of orange production, came into frequent contact.

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As well as the direct contact between professionals ofthe area, we should also take into account the contacts thattook place spontaneously outside work and which contributed

fundamentally to the increase of knowledge of each about theculture of the others. This getting together is owed especially toordinary people, on the farms, in the small towns, in beer-shops, in clubs, in hotels, at festivals. Indeed at festivals and

what were the festivals like in the interior of the State of SaoPaulo, for example, until this contact came about? Well,they were typical country festivals with crowds of girls andboys and couples who went to hear music, dance and court.

Or, indeed, up to that time, still in the Eighties, whatwere the cowhands festivals like, the so-called festas do peaode boiadeiro? Are they still the same today? Or, indeed,have the modifications they suffered transformed them intosomething very different? Why? The replies to these questionsstem from sole evidence.

This evidence states that the modification of theBrazilian 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 theEighties onwards that bring cultural contributions to

Brazilian popular music.

In the preceding decade, for example, due to specificlegislation governing Brazilian broadcasting, there was asimilar phenomenon. Because of an attempt by the governmentto impose a national flavor on radio music programs orsimply to keep jobs for Brazilian artists, it was obligatory to

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include a minimum percentage of Brazilian music composedby Brazilian authors and recorded in Brazil.

A case which happened in the Seventies was narratedin the book Mercado da Musica: Disco e Alienacao(Correa, 1987). The work, published on the initiative of theeditor, Kardec Pinto Vallada, then proprietor of Expert

Editora in Sao Paulo, made it possible to divulge part of theresearch carried out by the University of Sao Paulo on thesubject of the phonographic market and the hit parades.

The present book could well be a new edition of thesame. However, the incorporation of new material has

substantially altered the proposition and the conclusions of the first book. This new material deals with the modificationsundergone by Brazilian regional music and is based onresearch by the same University a number of years later.

Several authors Waldenyr Caldas in an example

have faithfully portrayed the mosaic formed by composers andinterpreters of the regional music of Brazil. Waldenyr Caldasauthor of Acorde na Aurora is the foremost author. Therescue of the origin the primitive and fundamental origin ofthe sertaneja genre taking the pair of singers Tonico and

Tinoco as starting point, which Caldas developed, is perhapsthe most exponential work by a Brazilian author, availableon this subject.

It would have been wholly productive if similar worksabout this music genre in Brazil had also concentrated on the

cultural aspects instead of, as the great majority did, occupying

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themselves with characteristics, music titles, authors of lyrics,singers names, bands, producers labels, and so on. Caldasswork, on the contrary, not only gave a definitive description ofthe genre and the reasons why it exists, but also establishesconsistently the relations between its roots and theenvironments in which it evolved.

The caboclo culture, the caipira culture, or thenative culture (or any other name it is wished to ascribe to therural cultural context in Brazil or whatever country)represents the spontaneity of a more basic social organization.However the description caipira in the interior of SaoPaulo State is uncomfortably constraining and embarrassing.The expression is not always well understood. A succession ofauthors has studied the matter. Works on the subject ofBrazilian roots in general become classics in Brazilianacademia. 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 alternativepolitical paths etc.

Classical works like those by Gilberto Freyre, DarciRibeiro, Egon Schaden, Vianna Moog, Buarque de

Hollanda, Milton Santos, and more recent ones have been ofassistance to many secondary writers who come, one afteranother, trying to explain Brazilian culture. It is worthremembering that, as much in the field of the social sciences asin 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 countrywhose physiognomy is not very well defined.

Nowadays to understand the significance of the termcaipira is no more so important. Today it is equally ormore important to understand the significance in the light ofthe reasons that made the caipira himself not to like to be so

considered. One of the reason lies in the process ofurbanization that Brazil has been going through in adisorientated and completely uncontrolled way for the last fifty

years. This same process, arising from a mistakendevelopment option as well as drawing entire populations tothe cities, created a highly negative concept of the ruralenvironment.

Perhaps the chief explanation of the problem of thecultural rejection of the auto-denomination caipira lies inthe following supposition. If the rural environment is

disqualified, the human being who lives in it is alsodisqualified. Therefore it is easy to understand why nobodywants to be classified according to the characteristics of theenvironment where he lives, or lived.

It may be perceived, in such circumstances, that he

prefers to be classified or identified by something that calls tomind the big city, the urban life or any other thing thatrepresents even though in stereotype development. Thecountryside, the small holidays, or the interior becomesynonyms of backwardness.

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Lamentable though they may be, these are the ideasthat became rooted in the Brazilian interior regions, andwhich transformed the term caipira into somethingextremely negative. Significantly the songs of that time,listened to mainly by the humblest people of these regions, weresynonyms of extreme bad taste.

Up to the Seventies, principally, double acts of singerslike Tonico and Tonico, Millionario and Ze Rico, LeoCanhoto and Robertinho, performed in front of audiences whoearned low wages and had little education. These audienceswere nearly always made up of the humblest people. Theylived 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 audiencessuggests three things that can explain it. The first of theserefers 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 fromanother culture.

Of course it is evident that the change in style is partlybecause the music had incorporated a new aesthetic. But the

change in style must be understood as a separatedphenomenon considering that it resulted from external contactand occurred in co-related ground. This ground, notnecessarily musical, was created by the professional closecontacts during the development of the orange plantations.

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Going back in time a little and journeying on themap, we find a number of Brazilian artists who also madecontributions to the change in the direction of regional music.Sometimes, for diverse reasons other than those beingdiscussed here, the majority of these musicians contributed ina very special way. One remembers the personal style of somewho, often distant from the interior of the State of Sao Paulo,

stamped a new tendency on the taste of the music audiences ofthat region.

Luis Gonzaga is a case in point. Gonzaga was amusician born in the northeast of Brazil. He put himself

forward as a singer and since the Forties was acclaimed byaudiences all over the country. For decades he was one of themost charismatic figures in Brazilian popular music.

In the beginning, as a regional musician he interpretedthe characteristic sentiment of the northeast. With the passing

of time, however, he broke away from the kind of music hehad always sung and went beyond the region of his birth totransform regional music genres into the public preference ofall Brazil.

Of course, inasmuch as in the great capital city of Sao

Paulo, an enormous contingent of people from the northeast isconcentrated, his initial audience was owed to this factor.However, the growth in the numbers of his audiences and fansresulted, above all, from the bucolic content of the lyrics, soclose to the taste of humble people.

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From the Sixties onwards, mainly because of theincrease in television auditorium programs, the opportunities

for new artists to come on the scene were greater.Subsequently, with the explosion of FM radio broadcastingand with the continuous expansion of the phonographicmarket, 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 tocontemporary times, and giving a visible indication of theincorporation of new features, not only musical but also stageeffects and costume, the Eighties saw the emergence of a newBrazilian music.

This music, rooted in the former sertaneja music,adapted to the style of Middle West American music, andrecalling somewhat the primitive side of both, finally in

practice became consolidated as a music genre. Withoutexaggeration, this genre could be called Brazilian countrymusic. That is what it is.

But it is still difficult to give a true account of themixing of the ingredients from Brazil and the United States.

In any event it represents a great incorporation of values, ofboth countries, originating in the simple way of interpretinglife, the world, nature, things.

Using the term in its most pejorative sense, it may besaid that the mostcaipiraside of Brazilian culture is this

mania of copying genres and styles from other countries just

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because it is thought that everything in the country of others isalways 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) whatBrazilian radio programs were like thirty years ago and howthey changed since the so-called explosion of frequency

modulation and the distribution to exploit it? Practicallyevery song with Portuguese lyrics went off the air. It was atime of English songs. But these songs should not be criticizedbecause of the idiom. After all, five or ten years before, in themiddle of the Sixties, practically only Italian music washeard. And nobody thought it was bad.

Certainly long-range radio broadcasting, with not solarge audiences and a refined urban music panorama aimedat 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 inthe middle of the so-called jovem-guarda music movement.It gave way, first, to the novos bahianos movement andthen to tropicalismo so gradually the radio was invaded bythe sounds of the countryside.

Of course these sounds shared the audiences with theimported sounds. However, sometimes not so imported.

Quite a number of composers and singers adopted Anglo-American names like Johnny Black & KidHolydays, George & Jefferson, Tony & Jerry, Christian &

Ralph and so on. Morris Albert, for example, author of

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Feelings also belongs to this time. Even today no one in theUnited States knows that he is a Brazilian artist, althoughmany people know this music.

What might appear to be the establishment of adivision of universes, in the Seventies, definitively separatingurban music and rural music, was nothing more than the first

illusion of the phonographic market. Following that, anapparent urgency on the part of the recording companies totake advantage of provisions in the legislation, ended up byopening space for a second illusion. The legislation requiredradio programs to include a certain percentage of musicrecorded in Brazil by Brazilian artists. The apparently urbantaste for songs of American genre and style together with theobligation to include music recorded in Brazil resulted inmany Brazilians going over to record in English. This wasthe first time there was an urban pop space out of reach of thenative musical aesthetic.

These two market illusions gave rise to a fatal mistakeon the part of those who were then thinking that theseparation of urban music and rural music was at lastconsolidated. As a result of this many people took the stanceof rejecting all music production from the interior of the

country. In Rio Grande do Sul, for example, right in theSixties, people were very clear about the distinction in style ofthe different types of music. This reference to the southernmostBrazilian 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

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where production was not -- until that time affected byaesthetic likes and prejudices.

The standardization of taste arising from an aesthetic preference almost always unleashes an explicit manifestationabout that which does not meet its specifications. Yetwhenever the preferences of the several parties are maintained,

co-existence of different things in the same category of listenersleads to a cultural enrichment of the society where this co-existence 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 theinspirer of numerous characters in the cinema, theatre,literature, and even marketing. But one of these charactersbecame transformed into a stereotype. And because of this, thewriter, who was immortalized for revealing, promoting and

improving the native values of this regional culture, would endup producing unconsciously, contrary to the very objectives ofthe project, the pejorative meaning of the term caipira.

By the creation of the character Jeca-Tatu, precisely inorder 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 tochange, he must enroll in the ranks of progress and well-being. The character became known all over the countrybecause Jeca-Tatu was used in a famous publicity campaign

for a tonic wine, Biotnico Fontoura, recommended for

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combating mental weakness, psychological low spirits andphysical anemia.

Jeca-Tatu was a character created to disseminate theidea of contrast between backwardness and progress. Or,again, to call attention to the necessity of apprenticeship andre-education if a person wants to change culturally and

socially. But Jeca-Tatu became consolidated as astereotyped character. This happened because he stood for apattern of backwardness that needed to be changed. Of course,it was a pattern that was linked intrinsically to the Brazilianrural environment at that time. Soon, a conclusion, alsostereotyped, was drawn from the idea that if the ruralenvironment 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 problemwell understood if the image which represents it is itself not

well defined. Just as a description of a reality, however faithfulit may be, does not always result in a positive image. Eventhough 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 becauseof their more advanced development, always brings on anatural sensation of inferiority. This results in a desire tobe much nearer the other than with the reality it is beingcompared with.

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The caipira element, arising from basic influences inthe interior of the State of Sao Paulo becoming culture, wasalways the principal ingredient of the cultural enrichment ofthe region.

Meanwhile the capital of the State was becoming acosmopolitan 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 assecondary. Though the term caipira had been a sign ofauthenticity it now came to be also a reference ofbackwardness.

It should be remembered that the campaign elaboratedby Monteiro Lobato clearly showed that for anyone to changeand flee from misery and backwardness it was necessary toleave 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 Lobatocharacter managed to do when he abandoned his primitiveway of life.

However, when he adopted a posture centered on

progress and by progress changed completely his life and thelife of his family, Jeca-Tatu disqualified his own origin. Thisdisqualification, evidenced by the confrontation of attitudes(before and after) made it clear that the change occurred underthe influence of progress. Now, progress was in the capital ofthe State, in its cosmopolitan character, in its cultural

pluralism and not in the monolithic culture of the interior,

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which as the diffusion process showed was the cause ofbackwardness.

Actually, the absence of a later project, pointing outthat the change had happened due to a courageous, typicallycaipira attitude, helped the stereotype to overcome thecharacter and give the term caipira pejorative connotations.

In order to understand this representation better, we must goto Rio Grande do Sul and see in that ambience what is thesignificance of their term grosso.

Grosso in spite of being associated with some othercultural values, means the same thing as caipira. Therefore

they are synonyms. Without taking into account the geographical distance that separates the States of Sao Pauloand Rio Grande do Sul, the term grosso andcaipira 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 andcultural authenticity.

The difference between the two terms, nevertheless, is inthe way people in Rio Grande do Sul understand thegrosso attribution as something associated with

spontaneity, authenticity, and the trademark of a humanbeing who possesses the traits of his place of birth. A grossoperson, especially in the case of a man, is an authentic, brave,determined, sincere, objective person who is, above all, faithfulto his own roots. So whoever is truly grosso likes to be andto be noted as such.

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But you cannot say a person born in the State of SaoPaulo and likewise endowed with the same qualities ofauthenticity, sincerity, objectivity, courage and committed tohis roots that he likes to be called caipira. Nevertheless, inthe last few years there have been very great efforts, principallyby the major television networks, to change this concept. Afterall, this region of Brazil has become the second biggest market

in the country for goods and services. The first is this sameinterior added to that of its capital.

There is yet another character to be mentioned whocomes from another region of this country. He inhabits theinterior of the State of Minas Gerais. The mineiro as he iscalled, has much of caipira and something of grosso.

As regards the first aspect of the comparison, he is much likethe inhabitant of the State of Sao Paulo, in being of anapparent physical fragility, by his personal characteristic ofdocility when dealing with other persons, and by his wary and

sagacious air so common to both. In the second aspect of thecomparison, he is somewhat like the inhabitant of RioGrande does Sul, principally by his frankness and by theauthenticity of his verbal expressions.

The three characters have one common trait: a

predilection for regional music, which they especially prize andperform 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. RioGrande do Sul, however, during many years stood firm as the

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most differentiated region of the country in respect of theproduction of these values.

In the Forties and Fifties there was the so-calledexplosion of medium waves on Brazilian radio. Generally,

from the time of the second term of office of President GetulioVargas, when the concession of medium wave radio

frequencies took in practically the whole country, a dual phenomenon occurred in music promotion. Firstly, over alarge part of the national territory people in many places hadcontact only with foreign music. Secondly, because regionalmusic gained in the radio its main means of becoming stillmore popular and consolidating itself in peoples taste.

Rio Grande do Sul, the native State of the above-mentioned president, was eminently privileged by theconcession of broadcasting stations. Already densely

populated, that State benefited greatly from its level geography

without many physical obstacles and, above all, by having anaudience made up of inhabitants many of whom wasdescendants of European immigrants. Divided into a largenumber of municipalities, it was the region best rewarded inthis sector.

Of course other States also got their radio stations.But Rio Grande do Sul, more than any other could, due toits audience and music production characteristics, use this

fundamental means of reinforcing its standard of regionalmusic. 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.

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Previous to the radio, it was the custom of theinhabitants of that State to listen to music, sing and playsome instrument at parties and family reunions. Or, even,

just participate in events where live music was the mostappropriate means of preserving the social custom and thecontact with their musical roots.

The coming of radio offered a new way to preservethese customs and made possible a more permanent contactwith such music. However, the use of radio program timerequires a lot of recordings. For this reason and becauseregional music titles were scarce, the broadcasting stationsbecame targets for products of doubtful quality.

Much material, dressed up as regional music, wasreally nothing more than casual composition just to fill space.

Anyone who was suitably and well publicized became an easysuccess.

The big dilemma of Rio Grande do Sul, of its music,of its artists, in the Fifties and Sixties was principally theabundance of recordings that had not the least justification inregional culture. This was why one of the most representativecomposers 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 administrationof 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

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Grande do Sul. Very popular, initially among the ordinaryworkers of the capital and medium-sized towns of that State,he began making a kind of music that was characterized by asentimental appeal of widespread repercussion, principally inbars and houses of prostitution. After that, and being asuccess 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 thesouth of Brazil. He would be so until his death, when heenjoyed popularity even in other countries of Latin Americaand Africa and in Portugal.

But Teixeirinha would always be accused ofmisrepresenting the regional music of Rio Grande do Sul.Because of him or because of his success a large number ofrtists like him would fill and fill space in local radio

programs, and disfigure more and more the old regional musicof Rio Grande do Sul.

In the Sixties and Seventies, the youth of Rio Grandedo Sul were, for the first time, interested in internationalmusic movements. Regardless of where they were born,whether in the interior or in the capital, these young peopleattached great importance to what was happening abroad.

The Hippie Movement and everything that wasproduced from then on, stimulated interest. Likewise, groupsof international repercussion like the Beatles or the tardy

presence of Elvis Presley motivated the involvement of theregions young people. In practice, this interest andinvolvement almost completely separated the young people of

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the interior and the capital of Rio Grande do Sul from theregional 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 bossanova 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 theexpansion of television since the middle Sixties contributedenormously towards the mixture and confusion that was

produced throughout the world and in Brazil. This wouldbegin to baffle audiences as regards the aesthetic authenticityand good taste of what they were hearing and watching.

Thanks principally to television, to the Brazilianpopular music festivals, and to material in the press dealingwith the ways this cultural production might take, thesematters were discussed even in the interior of Rio Grande do

Sul. It was probably the release of the film, Tropicalia, in theterritory of the Novos Bahianos music group, that alsobrought the reality of Rio Grande do Sul towards aredemption of its own origin. By the way, it would be

practically impossible to speak of such music trends withoutspeaking of the Novos Bahianos, without speaking of

Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Maria Betania,and all the others who contributed to the formation ofTropicalism.

The purists will not like us to allude to this matter.How so they will say, What has the Novos Bahianos andTropicalism to do with the regional music of Rio Grande do

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Sul? Well, it is very simple. The diffusion and the taste forTropicalism right at the time of debate and contestation andthe Hippie Movement would light a flame and rescue theauthentic origins of the different regional cultures. Tropicalismitself is a kind of cultural redemption. This spirit of thetimes, 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 inthe Seventies and Eighties, was very important for the rebirthof native music, just as it was equally important for areawakening of the regional dream. However, totally bereft ofinterest on the part of the big media, it became circumscribedmore as a specific something of a distant region than as amovement of national ambit.

All along, a regional music of, shall we say, national

dimension, continued be produced in the region as it was inother regions of the country including the interior of the Stateof Sao Paulo. It must not be forgotten, of course, that otherStates 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 specifictype of audience, that the production spread and becamewidely known in all the national territory.

This contribution is owed especially to the truckers, tothe truck drivers who, since the Seventies came up from thesouthern States to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. They

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brought the mode of country style music called without frontiers. This style was so-called due to the cassette tapesthat included music of other composers and not only composers

from those regions the truckers came from.

The listeners, especially those who were constantlydriving 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 toshow other reflexes. Some of them, incidentally, had nohistorical or cultural reference whatever. The Seventies andEighties, mainly the latter, had an abundance ofincorporations of kinds that were very different to any thathad 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 badtaste. Leaving aside any exaggeration, it has to be admittedthat the diffusion of this music by this specific contingentcontributed greatly to the dissemination of a certain standardof 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 allfrom 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. Moreso, it would bring it into contact with other genres which

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belong historically to the so-called culture center of thecountry. These also were culture genres, in every way connectedto the cultural origins of the Brazilian north and northeast.We are not speaking, of course, of the aesthetic-type linksbetween them. In this connection, it should be mentioned thatthe fact they were classified as kitsch music always keptthese 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 itscentral character, the truck driver himself, brought all these

genres together, on another it made a mixing. During all theEighties, while the first physical contacts were being madebetween the American Middle West and the interior of SaoPaulo, other events were happening which involved sertaneja,or regional, music in the Brazilian center-south. The first ofthese events is the rise of Nativism in Rio Grande do Sul. Itappeared in the middle of a wave of non-conformism with the

distortions of the local music genre. But there was a problemdue to it being a movement of a more political complexionthan one resulting from spontaneous cultural currents. It was

political because the initiative was tied to the decision ofindividuals 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 thenunknown, 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

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music that originated in the State of Sao Paulo would beginto gain ground.

Numerous names have become known from theEighties on and it can be seen that the greater part of themwere influenced by American country music. The commercialand agricultural exchange due to the orange trade, the

cowhands festivals, the sertaneja music meetings, andeverything that was happening transnational was a motive forincreasing this cultural contact.

It is very true that this influence was far from thatwhich prevailed in the Seventies and Eighties when Brazilian

artists were singing their songs in English. Now the influencehas become one of the styles. And although singing inPortuguese, they have all begun to seem more like singers of

American Middle West music than of Brazilian caipiramusic.

About this time, shops selling American countryarticles began to appear. The former wide-brimmed, dark andbattered felt hats worn by cowhands began to be substitutedby the well-known cowboy hats. There are boots with highheels and pointed toes, big leather belts, showy buckles,

fringed jackets, and countless items which have transformedthe clothing of cattle ranch workers into something neverbefore worn in any region of Brazil. While the contacts, the

parties, the festivals, the fairs, and all the commercialsimilarity were happening, without anyone realizing it, the

former cowhand festivals were also changing into authenticAmerican rodeos.

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It has been through these events in which, since thebeginning, American horse riders and breakers have

participated, that the acculturated music has spread anddraws elect audiences in town and country. This happened

first in the State of Sao Paulo. Subsequently the music spreadthroughout the entire country, crossed the borders andnowadays is heard from the Argentine pampas to the

Peruvian mountains, from the dry brushwood of Brazilsnortheast to the Paraguayan marshes.

When this music genre is heard, there is culturalcontact 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 countrys genres.

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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 positionin the importation of canned entertainment which, at least inrecent times, has ravaged Brazilian culture. This cannedwork, under no obligation except equating low cost withmass sales to make rapid, high and increasing profits,

generally becomes identified with significant segments of thepopulation.

Such business, without suffering the least legalrestraint, besides being incompatible with the financialcapacity of its consumers, makes still more difficult the

situation of the national composer and artist whoseopportunities of work are thus diminished.

When it is stated that the public identified withcanned 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 recordconsumer (according to data supplied by the recordcompanies), the hypothesis of a consumption which is notmatched to the acquisitive power of the consumers.

As will be seen in the following, the record market

possesses particular characteristics which, by their nature,

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establish a controversial consumption scenario, in which theconsumer is what least interests the record companies. This isbecause for them, the consumer is no more than sort of

finishing a process whose touchstone has been theincorporation of foreign values.

The root of a good part of these distortions is not

difficult to find since it lies in the system of packagesadopted by the record companies. This is a peculiar kind ofmercantile transaction, which mirrors other types of culturalimportation and for a long time the record companies have

found in it a way of reinforcing the contents of a product onsale, 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 acommunication complex where the broadcasting station is thelink with the entire chain. Examples shoot out from various

branches, demonstrating the surprising strength of cannedmusic. In 1976, for example, the music most played on theso-called hit parades, by the broadcasting stations in SaoPaulo, was Shes my girl. The singer, the author himself,was Mauricio Alberto from Rio de Janeiro, and made knownto the public under the pseudonym, Morris Albert.

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When the possibility of full time activity in theUniversity of Sao Paulo occurred, nothing seemed moreopportune than the development of a research project in the

pop music field. However an insufficiency of primary data tomake a survey of the situation possible meant that new formsof investigation had to be sought in order to obtain data ableto redefine the truth of the matter.

It was for this reason that some research carried out bystudents since 1979 (in the Record Production / AudiovisualResources discipline) were availed of, in order to establish theevolution of the market under study.

As will be seen, the results, up to a certain point,coincided with suspicions that the phonographic industrycontributes to the incorporation of foreign values intoBrazilian culture. Of course, nothing can be said regardingthe consequences of this incorporation for in the long run only

time can tell what theyll be. Nevertheless the high rate ofrepetition of foreign music, of versions and imported styles(typically rock) helps us to foresee the future result of all thissort of imitation of foreign values. From a rather personal

point of view, I would venture to say that foreign music willnot be as harmful as the mannerisms brought in by the music

genre in question.

And speaking of mannerisms, what immediatelycomes to mind are the numerous bands we find today in theRioSao Paulo circuit whose great attraction is a certain

form of representation. They dont appear to be Brazilian atall, although the music, the artists, the performers and the

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scenarios are national. Incredible though it may appear, itwas not the genre that made them popular but their way of

presenting the genre to the public. This was certainly notmodeled on national examples.

The reality

If you take into account the number of records releasedmonthly and compare it with the number that reach the

hoped-for success and further, if you verify the percentage offoreign music and versions among them, you will see that theBrazilian market is not the most promising for anyone whodesires a career as a performer or singer of popular music.

Although big and apparently in good shape, it looksas if the national phonographic market is somehowunconcerned with any other evolution beyond that of profitswhich are sizeable and accrue in large amounts to the recordcompanies themselves.

As we know, the musician himself has little control inthis field and is at the mercy of the accounting of the musicentrepreneurs.

Another aspect that should be taken into accountconcerns 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 widelyrepresented 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 ofBrazilian 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 ofincentive to the production of typically national music, becausean investment in this field, besides being commercially risky,would be quite costly and profits would not flow in with thecustomary speed as in the case of their usual releases. For thisreason, the path that has to be followed by typically nationalcomposers and performers is very difficult especially in the caseof bands.

It is no secret that the record companies have not in the

past been interested in bands because of the difficulties ofpromoting them and the high cost. But now, in these changingtimes and with the dissemination of rock there is a place forbands. 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 vitalimportance for the stability of the record market, has beenoperating unaltered for decades: record promotion on theradio. And when it is said that it has been operatingunaltered year after year, reference is being made to the factthat programs are structured so as to support releases and

promote sales of new titles indiscriminately.

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

The problem

In this panorama of multiple and growing influences,besides the known material data here discussed, respecting therecord market, another matter, of a subjective nature, emergeswhatever the circumstances in which titles are imported. Thismatter 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 inBrazil might have little influence on the consumer.

However, recording the title is not the only aspect sincethe record producer is part of a whole context of radio

broadcasting. For example, the title goes on to be heard onradio by numerous prospective, latent or potential purchaserswho, through attitudes common to all, reveal anotherimportant phenomenon, that is, mannerisms for relating tothe music.

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It is not easy to define these mannerisms. That is sobecause as you know, it involves attitudes peculiar to a certainkind 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 justlistening, strictly speaking, one can observe that in the young

segments of the audience (probably the greater part of theaudience) be it in discotheques, record shops or in theauditoriums of radio or TV, the consumer of recently recordedmusic customarily behaves like his idols, wearing clothes andaccessories that class him with all the other followers of thesame musical genre.

And so a relationship arises which is not likely to goaway and which is of real importance in the study of the

phenomenon called hit parades. This relationship concernsthree fundamental relationships. These are (a) between record

company and radio broadcaster; (b) between radio broadcasterand record consumer; and (c) between record company andrecord consumer.

As far as can be seen, it is in the relationship betweenrecord company and radio broadcaster that divulgence of a

new release starts, considering that no other means of recordpromotion seems to be more effective or more utilized than theradio. In the same way, it is the relationship that existsbetween the radio and the respective audience that guaranteesthe efficiency of diffusion on the radio so that every release is

preceded by a series of playing, and these make the musicmore accessible to the public.

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Finally the links between the record company and the public are always made by the artist or by the radiobroadcaster and they establish the commercialization space forthe record and ensure that it is bought.

Typically, in any one of the above contacts, all of themaimed at selling records, other aspects (that are not just about

the record itself) are given prominence. These aspectsemphasize gestures, clothes, postures and vocal expressions. Inother words this means that the record market has asubstantial 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-musicalsymbols, which, however, as well as the music, determine thesurvival 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 recordcompany and the radio broadcaster and more needs to beknown about this. What we know is that there has been littlechange 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 radiobroadcaster and the record consumer requires an urgent

solution. What really is the purpose of the hit parades? Do

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they just give an indication of the preferences of the listeners,or could they be understood as merely an instrument of newrecord divulgence.

Lastly a third problem, which is in the area of therelationship between the record company and the recordconsumer, requires more appropriate evaluation. About his,

to what extent does the artist act out, (for the recordcompany), exclusively, his role as performer. Or, to whatextent (for the consumer) does he become confused with hisinterpretation and give rise to an ambience of complete identityin the world of staging, consuming and profit (for the recordcompany).

The research

In 1979 an opportunity presented itself of beinginvolved simultaneously with two disciplines: RecordProduction and Audiovisual Resources, given in thePublishing graduation course and Structure of the

Phonographic Market given in the Communication Sciencepost-graduation course.

This opportunity made it possible to carry outcontinuous research on releases and record audiences in SaoPaulo, and discern, although somewhat indistinctly, way of

determining the true structure which, besides serving the

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interest of the recording companies, serves to keep unalteredthe involvement in which a new record is released andacquired.

At that time, a systematic search was begun forempirical data in order to elaborate a true picture giving thestructure of the record market, as it really is. For what

generally occurs is a tendency to accept as correct and withoutquestioning the data proffered by the record companiesthemselves.

In the event, simply by following the evolution of thehit parades and comparing sales in the city of Sao Paulo it

was shown that both have a lot in common, however aninverse relation came to light: first there is divulgence on thehit parade in order to, subsequently, sell the record. In otherwords, 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 continuousresearch on this business where the titles of the recordingschange, the artists change but the structure of production,diffusion and commercialization remains the same. Basically,

since the appearance of the Morris Albert recordings, wehave seen a transformation of the market, mainly as regardsforeign music.

Since then and up to the present, the continuousinclusion of imported titles has undergone a change concerning

the content of the music. Previously, the versions and

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adaptations as well as the foreign music produced here inBrazil, 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 nowsee that the imported (principally in respect of the genre inquestion of both) exerts much greater external influence onBrazilian music than before.

Then with the initial data to hand, collected since thesecond semester of 1979, we attempted to evaluate theevolution of the phonographic market by delineating theamount of importation as well as the alternatives that remain

for the Brazilian artist who is more and more pressured byexternal influence. A case in point, for example, was that sotalked-about event the Rock in Rio Festival which was heldin Brazil when we were finishing our research project. Acraze of recent times is the importation of groups from abroadand, if Rock in Rio was not enough; there was the explosive

promotion of another imported group, the Menudo, who gavenumerous shows all over Brazil.

Generally speaking, the data collecting begun in1979, 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 marketand is its principal means of promotion. Although the dataobtained may show just the day by day facts of the radio-record company relation, the sales of new records at variousurban locations evidences that they come precisely after the hit

parades.

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More than this, the promotion of records does not stophere. It goes further, with all the means available includingdiscotheques, shows and other kinds of spectacle like Rockin Rio. This not only serves to divulge new music, butbecomes the great promotional mainspring of a certain genrevery much in vogue at the time, and it is also useful for

promoting other recordings, other artists etc.

The data collected served to demonstrate thatimportation in the field of pop music is frequent and isharmful to the national artist. It reduces his space which wasnever adequate and it is spreading throughout this wholemusic genre, and contaminating Brazilian culture in anundesirable, artificial and highly compromising way.

Rock in Rio, for example, which was held at the endof the current research, presented an opportunity for newresearch on the records played on the hit parades. The same

picture was revealed as before on researching new releases andsales in the record shops. This new research in 1983 wascarried out in the same locations as those decided on in 1979.

Also in order to characterize the panorama of radio playingon the hit parades better still, we specifically obtained the totalnumber 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 thepolitical turbulence aggravated by a coup dtat in 1964, therecording industry and other sectors of the economy haveentered into serious depression. This depression, in its turn,

ended up by reflecting on the quality of the product offered bythe record companies who, among other measures in order toadapt to the new times, withdrew the classical records fromtheir stocks, mainly because these are the most expensive tokeep in stock and whose sales, traditionally, involve costlyand complex promotion (Cornea, 1977, 4-7). In addition tothis and other typical ingredients of the economic crisis, therewould be a retraction of the record market (as a result, so tospeak, of the crisis) a censorship factor and an adhesion

factor.

Regarding the censorship factor, because of the lawsset up to guarantee the dictatorship, not everything was permitted. The registration of countless manifestations washindered or they had to be reformulated. Of course, the recorddid not escape. No other times were as abundant in restrictionof 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. Ifindeed any criteria could be established for this kind ofactivity. Some time ago, the magazine Som Tres wrote thatthe cutting and prohibiting criteria are variable and ample,

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guaranteeing to all factions democratically, the right ofinclusion in the dont do list (Bahiana, 1979, 58-63).

The adhesion factor, very prevalent in periods ofrepression, when there are attempts to put the communicationmedia 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 andartists emerged who, even individually, sang the marvels ofthis country. This was the case, for example, of the duo

Antonio Carlos and Jocafe, with their records of patrioticexaltation. No other word can describe this kind ofmaterial, except adhesion. Moreover, when explaining thisother side of artistic creation, one has to agree with theauthor who wrote about composers who think that the onlyduty of an artist is to fawn upon or flatter, the public taste,inasmuch as this is the best way to delude the public and notto respect them (Campos, 1974, 168).

Perhaps it was a close connection between censorship,the economic recession and artistic mediocrity that limitedcreativity and obliged the public to be satisfied and accept

peacefully what, since the 60s was offered them. At the sametime, the sales structure previously set up which was mainly

based on radio programs (and more recently, with the supportof television music programs), acts as real market support,where repetition and insistence on the same title, leadaudiences to practically learn by heart everything they hear asa kind of consumer self convincing, directed towards the final

purchase of certain records.

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Besides, it should be said the music repetition strategywhich starts in radio broadcast programs, is a means ofdivulging the music product but it also serves to make knownthe titles which are insistently repeated. As can be seen inTables I and II, the percentages of foreign music played in

AM and FM broadcasts in Sao Paulo city are alarming. Itis 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

BandeirantesDifusoraExcelsior

Jovem Pan

RecordTransamerica

52.425.725.424.3

24.527.3

44.173.674.574.8

75.369.5

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 Brazilianmusic, other broadcasters are between 50.1 % (Difusora) and89.3 % (Record). Even so, these figures take into accountboth AM and FM frequencies.

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TABLE II

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


AmericaBandeirantes

CapitalCulturaDifusoraEldoradoExcelsiorGazetaGlobo

Jovem PanMulherRecordTupi

69.680.270.950.850.151.652.483.492.5

57.684.289.386.6

30.419.827.648.149.446.947.514.57.4

41.79.29.711.9

Average 70.7 % 29.3 %

As it is seen, one frightening percentage of foreignmusic is played: 75.3 % (Record). The minimum as also canbe observed is Bandeirantes, with 44.1 %. When any of these

percentages is compared with the redundancy percentage ofmusic played in the same program, the data is more curious. As seen in Table III, Antena Um by itself, in FMbroadcasts is responsible for 82.1 % of repetition of foreignmusic, against 17.9 % of Brazilian music.

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It can also be seen in this table and what is moreserious, that there is a numerical and irreparable superiorityof these indexes of repetition of foreign music. This is the sameas saying that redundancy playing was the way thatradiobroadcasters found to get around the legislationrespecting 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


Antena UmBandeirantes

DifusoraExcelsior

Jovem PanTransamrica

17.953.538.111.925.023.4

82.146.561.988.175.076.6

Average 28.3 % 71.7 %

From these findings, we ventured to doubt the eventualcriteria used for giving value to national principles andmaterial, which are built into current legislation aimed at

guaranteeing a minimum frequency for Brazilian music inradio 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 verydifferent.

One must agree with the principle that bourgeoissocial science has studied mass communication in a systematic

and utilitarian way, which contributes to datamanipulation, which can always have a different conclusionrather 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, whichcannot fail to occur, continue to be debited to the account ofBrazils 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 itselfcomprising Sao Joao, Duque de Caxias, and Ipirangaavenues as well as the streets adjacent to Republic Square,namely Barao de Itapetininga and 7 de Abril. As may beseen 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

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two densest regions next, in terms of sales were Osasco andPinheiros, respectively, with 18.2 % and 14.3 % of recordsales.

TABLE IV

1979: Rates of record sales by product specification

and commercial areaArea 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 -- -- -- 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

Probably due to the continuing economic crisis, theresearch work carried out in November and December of1984, as can be seen in Table V, has the data inverted. The

existing record shops in the urban shopping centers of

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Iguatemi, Ibirapuera, Morumbi and Eldorado, indicate that28.8 % of record sales is affected in these places. Andalthough 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, whenpurchases of these products tend to be greater. The data showsthat in the regions indicated more money still circulated inspite of the crisis.

TABLE V

1984: Percentages of record sales by productspecification 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 9.3Total 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, anddevaluation of currency. Perhaps because of this, the season is

also representative of this type of acquisition and of the

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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 RioFestival. In order to prove, still much more, what it isintended to establish in relation to music being used as ameans of generalizing a genre of doubtful origin, the role ofthis 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 criterionthat the incorporation of foreign music be it by the recordingswhich are sold nowadays, be it because it is a genre atypical toBrazilian culture, and does not represent a spontaneouscultural ebullience. The criticism we intend to make involvesmore details especially because this musical genre or the foreignmusic itself has become a commercial tool.

In truth, it is in unfavorable judgments that it isnecessary to be still more prudent, since besides beingsubstantially ephemeral and fragile, human opinions are notdevoid of passion (Cande, 1970, 248). Moreover, no matterwhat taste or color, as the ancients used to say, the role of thenew music should be given prominence.

This music which emerged in the last six years (aftermuch experience with foreignisms, adapted and translated)became a neutralizing element to lessen social tensions. Itseems to be a typical national anesthetic against the chronicno future outlook, especially for youths. It is worth sayingthat the lower quality of the most part of the compositions

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offered the opportunity to divert attention from what wasreally happening in the country.

Looked at in this way, it is not difficult to imaginethat this whole situation is at the service of someone or somecause. Voluntarily or involuntarily, whether you want it ornot, this social anesthesia by means of Rock in Rio

festivals or the very boring Menudo shows, corroborates asituation of total external dominance. It is as if admittingthat in our times imperialism makes use of artifices to hideits 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 radiobroadcasting stations in Sao Paulo city before the festival washeld. As can be verified in Table VI, 65, of 6090 playingon the radio in the period between December 1984 and

January 1985 just before that festival, 69.45 % were foreignmusic 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 %

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Again we discover that the volume of imported isfar greater than that of Brazilian music. Worse than that, isto see in Table VII, in only one day, at the same time as thelast days of Rock in Rio, the Radio Imprensa played52.49 % of foreign music against 47.51 % of Brazilianmusic.

It is worse because while the other previous findingsreferred to a group of broadcasting stations, in a period ofmore than 60 days, this one referred to a single broadcastingstation in only one day. It is not difficult to suppose, therefore,that the facts testify to a situation very little favorable tonational val

folks and cowboys : aesthetics of brazilian country music

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