One thing about this music is to people who haven't heard about it they will be aware of the influences, aspects of the sound are all over bands like Stereolab and Broadcast, but you really need this cd to enjoy the real music plus the background reading is fascinating.

This music was borne out of a period of heavy political change in Brazil, a familiar story in South America of military dictatorship, multinational intervention in the form of loans etc, the growth of television and the search for a strong Brazilian artistic Left Wing Identity. Out of this came artists such as Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Jorge Ben, Os Mutantes and Tom Ze with an incredible joyful music that mixed Afro-Cuban traditions, Bossa Nova, Western pop and the avant guard into a never to be repeated and endlessly joyful movement called Tropicalia. They did all this as a form of protest, a great deal of the lyrical content are protests against the government, consumerism and the bourgeois. As a result they were arrested, deported and closed down. This cd is a brilliant entry point into this music, and some of the background.