Brazilian music has many styles, all showcasing a bit of the culture, joy, and strength of our people. And there was a musical movement that brought together various 
styles, many talented artists, and revolutionized the history of Brazilian music. Do you know what it was? Tropicália! This was such an important movement that it even helped to bring down the dictatorship in Brazil!
Tropicália brought together a group of artists, singers, poets, and composers to bring something new to the Brazilian artistic scene.
And they succeeded!
Because of the dictatorship, Brazilian music was very nationalistic, that is, 
very focused on singing the wonders of the nation and reminding how lucky the Brazilian people are to live here. Tropicália was against that. The group tried to make the language of Música Popular Brasileira (MPB) lighter, younger.
When all of this was mixed: popular sounds, pop music, various musical innovations, and the colors used in the singers’ clothing, not only did Brazilian music become more modern, but the national culture itself did too! Emerging from the Bossa Nova movement, Tropicalism completely renewed the lyrics of songs. Some were even considered true poetry, all while reflecting on the country’s situation. There was a lot of freedom in the themes of the compositions, with space to talk about Brazil’s traditions and novelties.
Tropicalism mixed rock, bossa nova, samba, rumba, bolero, and baião. The order 
was to experiment, to consider various possibilities in every sense.
The artists of the movement participated in popular music festivals, musical competition programs that were broadcast by various TV stations. It can even be said that the movement began at the III Festival of MPB at TV Record in 1967.
Tropicália transformed much about music, politics, morals, behavior, the relationship with the body, and the way of dressing. The hippie culture was the main influence on the group, with long curly hair and colorful clothes. Although it lasted just over a year and was repressed by the dictatorship, Tropicália influenced an entire generation, changed the face of Brazil in the 60s, and still serves as inspiration for many artists today.
“Tropicália is the opposite of Bossa Nova!” This is how composer and singer Caetano Veloso defines the movement that, throughout 1968, revolutionized the status quo of Brazilian popular music. This current, led by the Bahian from Santo Amaro da Purificação, also actively included composers Gilberto Gil and Tom Zé, lyricists Torquato Neto and Capinam, conductor and arranger Rogério Duprat, the trio Mutantes, and singers Gal Costa and Nara Leão. Unlike Bossa Nova, which introduced an original way of composing and interpreting, Tropicália did not aim to synthesize a musical style, but rather to establish a new attitude: its intervention in the country’s cultural scene was, above all, critical. “Tropicália is the opposite of Bossa Nova!” This is how composer and singer Caetano Veloso defines the movement that, throughout 1968, revolutionized the status quo of Brazilian popular music. This current, led by the Bahian from Santo Amaro da Purificação, also actively included composers Gilberto Gil and Tom Zé, lyricists Torquato Neto and Capinam, conductor and arranger Rogério Duprat, the trio Mutantes, and singers Gal Costa and Nara Leão. Unlike Bossa Nova, which introduced an original way of composing and interpreting, Tropicália did not aim to synthesize a musical style, but rather to establish a new attitude: its intervention in the country’s cultural scene was, above all, critical.
The intention of the tropicalists was not to surpass Bossa Nova, of which Veloso, Gil, Tom Zé, and Gal were acknowledged disciples, especially of the soft singing and the innovative guitar strumming of João Gilberto, a fellow townsman of the four. In early 1967, these artists felt suffocated by the elitism and nationalist prejudices that dominated the environment of the so-called MPB. After several discussions, they concluded that, to freshen up the musical scene of the country, the solution would be to bring Brazilian music closer to the youth, who were increasingly interested in the pop and rock of the Beatles, or even in the iê-iê-iê that Roberto Carlos and other Brazilian idols showcased on the TV show Jovem Guarda. Arguing that Brazilian music needed to become more “universal,” Gil and Caetano tried to win over other composers of their generation, such as Dori Caymmi, Edu Lobo, Chico Buarque de Hollanda, Paulinho 
da Viola, and Sérgio Ricardo. However, the reaction of these colleagues showed that, if they really adhered to pop music, trying to break the hegemony of protest songs and the politicized MPB of the time, the future tropicalists would have to go it alone.
Considered as official landmarks of the new movement, the songs Alegria, Alegria (by Caetano) and Domingo no Parque (by Gil) reached the public already provoking much controversy, at the III Festival da Música Popular Brasileira da TV Record, in October 1967. The electric guitars of the Argentine band Beat Boys, who accompanied Caetano, and the rock attitude of the Mutantes, who shared the stage with Gil, were met with boos and insults from the so-called hardline of the student movement. For those university students, the electric guitar and rock were symbols of North American imperialism and, therefore, should be rejected from the universe of Brazilian popular music. However, not only the festival jury but a large part of the audience approved the new trend. Gil’s song came out as the runner-up of the festival, which was won by Ponteio (by Edu Lobo and Capinam). And, although it ended up in fourth place, Alegria, Alegria became an instant hit on the country’s radio stations, leading the single with Caetano’s recording to surpass the mark of 100,000 copies sold – a high number for the time.
Avant-Garde Arrangements
The festival’s repercussion stimulated the Philips record label to accelerate the production of individual LPs by Caetano and Gil, which became their first tropicalist albums. While Gil already had the contemporary musical baggage of conductor Rogério Duprat in his arrangements, for Caetano’s album, three other conductors linked to avant-garde music were recruited: Júlio Medaglia, Damiano Cozzela, and Sandino Hohagen. Medaglia was responsible for the arrangement of the track that Caetano composed as a kind of manifesto song in the new movement.
Influenced by the delirious Terra em Transe, a film by Glauber Rocha, as well as by the play O Rei da Vela, by modernist Oswald de Andrade, in the aggressive staging of Teatro Oficina, Caetano synthesized in this song conversations and aesthetic discussions he had been having with Gil, with his manager Guilherme Araújo, with the singer (and his sister) Maria Bethânia, with poet Torquato Neto, and graphic artist Rogério Duarte. The result was a kind of poetic collage that traced an allegory of Brazil through its contrasts. The title Tropicália 
for this song was suggested by photographer (later film producer) Luís Carlos Barreto, who, upon hearing it at the end of 1967, remembered the homonymous work that visual artist Hélio Oiticica had exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro a few months earlier.
But the movement only began to be called tropicalist from February 5, 1968, the day Nelson Motta published an article titled “A Cruzada Tropicalista” in the newspaper Última Hora. In it, the reporter announced that a group of musicians, filmmakers, and intellectuals 
in Brazil had founded a cultural movement with ambitions for international reach. The effect was immediate: Caetano, Gil, and the Mutantes began to frequently participate in TV programs, especially the one hosted by Abelardo Chacrinha Barbosa. In May 1968, the tropicalist high command recorded in São Paulo Tropicália ou Panis et Circensis, a collective album with the character of a manifesto. Caetano coordinated the project and selected the repertoire, which highlighted new songs of his authorship, alongside others by Gil, Torquato Neto, Capinam, and Tom Zé. The lineup included the Mutantes, Gal Costa, and Nara Leão, as well as conductor Rogério Duprat, author of the arrangements.
The album was released in August of the same year, at mock parties held in gafieiras in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Songs like Miserere Nobis (by Gil and Capinam), Lindonéia (Caetano and Gil), Parque Industrial (Tom Zé), and Geléia Geral (Gil and Torquato) composed the allegorical portrait of a country that was both modern and retrograde. Rhythms like bolero and baião, alongside the melodramatic song Coração Materno (by Vicente Celestino), recreated by Caetano on the album, indicated the tropicalist procedure of emphasizing the tackiness, the kitsch aspect of Brazilian culture. In tune with the counterculture of the hippie generation, the tropicalists also questioned traditional standards of so-called good appearance, replacing them with long hair and extravagant clothing.
Source: Carlos Calado from the site cliquemusic.uol.com.br
Continues in the next edition (nº 457 – Dec 2017/Jan 2018).