Soda Stereo & Gustavo Cerati

Ooo wee I forgot I posted that!, it sounds like a gargantuan task nowadays lol

there should be a division between my personal favorites and the ones I think everyone needs to listen to …

Easiest path is to start with Cancion Animal for Soda and Bocanada for Cerati

^This is not a bad suggestion

I’ve been listening to this stuff a ton for the better part of a year now and still haven’t gotten anywhere near the bottom of it.

Like in theory now that my original Gustavo bro-crush is dying down a bit I should be able to just put him up on the shelf, but nope.

Un hombre alado etc

Not to be confused with a Lobo Hombre.

Revisiting his solo career and I hadn’t really contextualized his music on release date and it’s blowing my mind how in 1992 he was so ahead of the curve. I always assumed a song like “Cozumel” was from the mid 90s. Noone in latinamerica understood and implemented as efficiently trending genres like shoegaze and downtempo/trip hop as good as him. It took several years for the rest of the world to catch up with artists as him.

Best I could do for his solo output: 2 highlight, imho, songs per album - with the exception of “+ bien” which is soundtrack work and probably just worth a listen for completion purposes.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7baccsvllKfsimqhRwCmhj

Thank you kindly - great starting points. Always takes me a bit longer to absorb non-English music so having a little more focus is great.

Problem with the comps, I see now, is that they have some earlier angular post-punk funk tracks (like very early Go-Betweens?) that I don’t really care about that much.

― CeeLô Borges (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, June 13, 2023 10:17 PM

Ha, I have the same issue with early Go-Betweens despite liking other bands that exist solely in the angular post-punk funk zone!

Added two tracks per album of Soda Stereo too… I’m omitting some of his biggest hits (de musica ligera, persiana americana, adios, crimen...) … not because I don’t like them but because I feel like there’s better songs in their respective albums and those are a very basic intro.

Tempted to treat “comfort” as not a live unplugged album but as a closing album, an add songs from it too. Most of the versions in there - particularly their early songs - are wildly different from the original ones. Even a song as iconic as “en la ciudad de la furia” feels like a totally different song. Both the unplugged and album versions are great.

Yeah fuck it I’m adding “te para tres”, that song is nowhere near one of the highlights of “cancion animal” but it turns into one of the best moments in the unplugged version. Adds a solo lifted from “cementerio club” by Pescado Rabioso (Spinetta)- a classic argentinian rock song on its own - and brings the song to another level.

Bocanada is a hard one… again I’d probably recommend to listen to that one in full. It’s probably Cerati’s magnum opus imho.

Picking Raiz and Tabu since they’re the ones I’m most in the mood for with the current heatwaves and they’re the two songs that convinced me in the first place to buy this album back in 2000-something.

Raiz is very sample heavy but it’s built so effortlessly you’d think it’s all Cerati. There’s samples of Deodato (breakbeat), XTC (guitar break), Jaivas (Flutes), Thomas Dolby (main guitar) and even Mark Snow from the X files soundtrack!

Tabu’s main groove is lifted from Spencer Davis Group “waltz for Lumumba”, I love the energy Cerati adds to the groove. Probably Cerati’s best opening track both in Soda and a solo artist.

Could have easily picked the title track or “paseo inmoral” which is based around Garry Glitter’s rock n roll.

Ha, been meaning to concentrate and figure out what this last sample was, and whether it was an actual sample.

Wow at dropping the Bocanada sample knowledge. Just found this handy video about that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HMo9Wun31o

somehow had never noticed Kim Deal in there!

All the samples are fun to learn about but the one that made me smile the most for whatever reason was the John Barry.

For an example of the early stuff that is okay but not my favorite, see “Danza Rota.”

Heh, just came across an album for kids called Babies Go Soda.

I think Soda gets interesting from Signos onwards, the first two albums have some of their big hits but sound too generic - with some exceptions like “cuando pase el temblor” which is probably the first BIG Soda song.

Sounds about right.

Signos has three big hits, I think, but the whole album flows from start to finish. It’s much more open, both spacious and dense, from start to finish.

Also just came across this:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlze59

^“Lo que sangra (La cúpula)” from the reunion tour with some special guests.

I think this is supposed to put the kids to sleep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGyfr_NaEqs

Lol that doesn’t sound very pleasant to sleep to.

Guess they figured they had to give Dan Zanes a run for his money.

Never listened to or even knew about this early live album Ruido Blanco before today.

Then found another live recording from early on, this one simply called En Vivo, which has a lot of noise. Seems to be the soundtrack of a performance, the first night in Viña Del Mar in 1987.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZsMmket4e0

Guess they were promoting Signos, which was released the previous November and then had the three singles coming out throughout the year.

Crowd noise on this sounds like some Beatles stuff#onethread

Crowd doesn’t quite know “Persiana Americana” yet. There is some screaming when he starts singing but that’s it.

Somos cómplices los dos

My music listening in general lately has been slow, but I did finally hear Amor Amarillo (hooray for titles even I can understand). "Lisa" and "Te llevo para que me lleves" are good, the latter a cool take on Isn't Anything MBV, but thought the rest was pretty sluggish. I will give Bocanada another listen eventually but so far I much prefer Soda to Cerati solo

Think the production is less dense on his solo stuff but his singing, songwriting and guitar playing is still strong.

That could be it. I think I tend to like fuller productions in general

Too much time on this thread:

Just a few hours ago I overheard someone saying “Gracias” and my mind automatically added “Totales!”

Soda getting a Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement award.

https://www.grammy.com/news/latin-recording-academy-announces-2023-special-merit-award-honorees

Just read more about when he did that Police tribute song. Pretty interesting.

Heh, can you guess who were the Top Two artists in my Spotify 2023 Wrapped?

Had to step away for a bit but now I’m back

good timing, I just dug out Canción Animal for the first time in a while. for some reason I have a hard time remembering its tracks (apart from "De Música Ligera"), so I forget how good it is

Ha exactly! That album is full of great tracks, many of them also live staples. Often I forget “De Música Ligera” is even on there.

Also many of these tracks not so uptempo so kind of heavier but still really cool.

Yeah they play with time signature, mood, tempo to create a pretty diverse set of songs. Though they throw "Cae el Sol" at the end so you get an anthemic chorus

Also wtf... 9 of the 10 songs were released as singles??

Forgot about that.

What an amazing album Bocanada is.

OTM. Kind of amazing how his solo career was a match for his band years and how many there are who prefer the solo stuff.

Top 10 latinamerican albums of all time and Cerati probably a top 3 latinamerican artist.