I’ve reviewed everything here but the new Veloso (be patient). The real question is what music should get to your ears? Here’s my recommendations for the year summed up. But without streaming, Brazil Beat wouldn’t exist because most of this music never would have gotten to ears. So willingly or not, I’m being dragged into a streaming era where I will never hold a copy of beloved music like that Marina Sena I keep hoping to find. That leaves mostly overpriced options that bust my budget. The Brazilian store I used to buy from doesn’t seem to ship internationally anymore and hasn’t replied to my e-mails.
There are plenty of traditional albums, and I’m thrilled I just tracked down a CD version of my favorite of the year for a reasonable price. In all three cases, the artists didn’t just fill time or space, but made compelling music. Rennó did stripped down collaborations in safe conditions, sometimes via computer video. Metá Metá tried a series of solo and group shows, including an improvisatory one with Marcelo Cabral. Fróes revisited his catalog and played solo show recaps of albums as he either wandered or staked out a spot in a seemingly empty São Paulo. Three longtime faves: Romulo Fróes, Metá Metá and Iara Rennó released pandemic-inspired projects that figured out how to make art when collaboration was compromised by Covid. Many are, conveniently, about the length you expect an album to be. Making the best of pandemic circumstances, a lot of artists started streaming concerts and such. And then there are things in digital format that aren’t technically classified as albums, but are kind of indistinguishable if you think about it.
But lots of them now only exist in digital format, which fogies like me then ‘burn’ to CDRs.
And even in the smaller things, what was is no more. I know it’s a cliche to say we live in weird times, but we do.
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