Soda Stereo & Gustavo Cerati

Probably the biggest rock band in Argentina and one of the most popular amongst spanish-speaking countries. Both them and Cerati's solo work deserve a thread over here imho.

http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=UFEPAspWNPY

Will you get more posts than this one did--
Argentine rock, from the past and present?

mmm that didnt work

Will you get more posts than this one did--
Argentine rock, from the past and present?

― curmudgeon, martes 20 de enero de 2009 6:54

I will once I can convince enough people of their sheer awesomeness past the language barriers. Otherwise I'll post a bunch of youtube links from my favorite songs of theirs.

Mmm only one I could find that's not a live rendition. Ignore the anime

Im actually curious about your opinion on their music.

I like the Cerrati solo cd I have and need to check out Soda Stereo.

Cerati, in critical condition after suffering from a stroke :(

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/05/21/argentina-rocker-gustavo-cerati-suffers-stroke-after-concert/

Really sad. I like 'Sueño Stereo' very much and the last live record. Reminds me of the week I spent in Buenos Aires 10 years ago.

Just 50 years old. Hopefully he will have a full recovery.

One of my faves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2teJAInwyK8&feature=related

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100522/ap_en_mu/lt_venezuela_cerati

slight medical improvement

Sort of big news here in Latin America. Overheard today that he's recovering now but they predict brain damage. Hopefully not severe.

After four years in a coma, Cerati died a few hours ago.

I know noone outside Spanish speaking countries knew him so ILM doesn't really have any grasp of how famous he is (think the equivalent of Bob Dylan, fame-wise) but he was perhaps the most important rock musician in all latinamerica.

There's many songs to choose from and perhaps this one is not the most interesting musically-wise but this unplugged version is the latin equivalent of Freebird over here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57uXgCKy0Xc

If anyone's interested I can make a 10 soda stereo 10 cerati songs playlist - keeping in mind you don't speak spanish and his lyrics are pretty much the point - with a selection of his songs.

:(

RIP :(

Oh ok, spotify is doing a tribute playlist and the selection is good so here you go if any of you ever gets curious about him:

http://open.spotify.com/user/spotifyenespa%c3%b1ol/playlist/7qneCVNFWczoSnfdFqfH66

Just saw the news. Terrible to hear.

RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BntcdLZCxM

Thread of missing Gustavo

tried to listen to this new This Year's Model in Spanish but it made me want to listen to Soda Stereo instead.

Hey timely revive: I only started checking out this band in the past month or so, and wow, Dynamo is excellent! The wikipedia page calls it the "hispanic Loveless", which doesn't seem to quite fit, but maybe the hispanic Achtung Baby? I mean, that would be a huge compliment in my book, anyway

I actually started with Bocanada because it seemed more my thing but I didn't really take to it apart from a track or two

Listening to Gustavo’s last solo album, “Fuerza Natural,” on a friend’s recommendation and it sounds pretty good.

Same friend complains about Soda Stereo being too derivative, but I’ve never agreed with him on that.

Then there’s also this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhyRuCfs5Js

Well he never denied his anglophile tendencies. Here talking about Stereolab on Chilean television in 1996.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h70wnnmMBT4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCdOGM-Ac-8

Thanks!

Me, I usually find his tracks pretty convincing and don't worry about whether they may sound like something else, and I especially like his voice.

i asked my chilean partner who the kevin shields of latin america was and they said cerati. led me down a huge rabbithole. i definitely prefer his solo stuff but dynamo is my favorite SS album. it's like a long-lost shoegaze/dreampop classic.

bocanada is definitely my favorite, but all of his solo albums are worth listening to. the cerati/melero collab is also excellent

also i swear there's a david sylvian sample on 'siempre es hoy'

Haha, talking about the Latin American Kevin Shields, and at the risk of deraling the thread... in the mid-nineties Cerati lived here in Chile and certainly had an influence on the sound of a certain shoegazy indie from that era.

Shogun and Christianes, both Christian Heyne's bands. Later he produced Javiera Mena first albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxjfEl5mRBE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22ARVj3wdv4

Solar had a hit in 97 in Chile ripping off "Soon".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3poBW_8p08

awesome! i'd love to learn about more experimental latin american artists. new thread maybe?

Thanks :-) . I think here we have the all purpose latin experimental, indie, hipster shit thread.

latin american hipster shit

Gracias totales.

Nada más queda

I've listened through all their albums since my post upthread, ending with the debut just a couple weeks ago. I can see why they may be called derivative, but it's much more apt to say they are great at taking different styles and putting their own spin on it. Cerati's unique songwriting and singing voice always comes through

otm

I was just alerted to this song, Richard Coleman’s “Normal,” which is apparently pretty well-known because of Gustavo’s shredding that starts around the three minute and never lets up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVI0vh1Rc84

https://lamejormagazine.com/2022/08/30/zeta-bosio-revela-la-obsesion-de-cerati-en-soda-stereo%EF%BF%BC/

Y hablando de hits, Zeta Bosio confiesa la esencia de los hits de Soda Stéreo compuestos por Gustavo Cerati.

«Las letras las escribía más Gustavo, eran un viaje más personal. Al principio, sobre todo, le costaba mucho y esperaba hasta el último momento. Teníamos el disco casi terminado y las letras llegaban el último día más o menos.

«Algo que descubrió Gustavo, sobre todo al comienzo era: él tenía una obsesión por tratar de que las letras en español no sonaran tan distintas al inglés; o sea ¿por qué el inglés era tan rítmico para el rock?, porque ellos lo habían creado de una manera, pero el idioma está lleno de palabras cortas que expresan mucho en un monosílabo.

«Entonces, él encontró en las esdrújulas del castellano repartirlas en tres sílabas y empezar a hacer con eso melodías, y así vinieron ‘Prófugos…’ y un montón de letras de Gustavo que están hechas de esa manera».

Ricardo Villalobos playing a speeded up version of Nuestra Fe by Soda Stereo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcG8pVLN2Wc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5paepjECJBQ

Re the comments above from Zeta about Gustavo’s lyrical approach: my friend who first cited that to me also told me that pre-Gustavo many of most Argentine Rock en Español artist would write scratch demo lyrics in some kind of English gibberish and then eventually retrofit the Spanish lyrics, providing this Charley Garcia demo as proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxr5c7Pd0d0

Charly García

Still trying to figure out how Richard Coleman fits in. Seems like he was collaborating with Gustavo for a long time and has played in Soda Stereo (with the remaining members? On the recent Gracias Totales tour?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRCHltKDXo0

Here is the original “Gracias totales” moment, his Ziggy Stardust breakup of the band. It’s kind of moving to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX-us7PEfkc

Feed just gave me a video of Gustavo and Shakira singing “Cuidad de La furia.”Gustavo’s solo is pretty terrific.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylndY8Ufx-k

Hadn’t known that Shakira had been a big fan and they ended up collaborating quite a few times.

This is the video I originally came across, which seems to have better sound and picture quality but is missing the intro and some other stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Niv8YWnI41k

I don't/didn´t know if writing scratch demo lyrics in English was a generalized modus operandi in the "rock en español". In south america at least, the break in the use of english, and the beginning of rock in español was between the first generation of post-beatles bands that wrote in english such as Los Shakers, Los Mockers in Uruguay, Los Macs, Vidrios Quebrados in Chile, and groups and artists in Argentina like Los Gatos and Tanguito who started singing in spanish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSHgkQ2Wp5Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPdooS2A0-Y

There were also attempts in the 1970s and 1980s to record in English to enter this market, without success (Spinetta's Only Love Can Sustain perhaps the most notorious example). Soda Stereo even recorded a couple of songs in English. In this case, comparing with the originals I don't think it sounds good, something is lost in the translation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2c9yLAFM8Q

I think Richard Coleman played in one of the first incarnations of Soda Stereo, then he formed his own band Friction, and stayed friends with Gustavo.

Now last he was on tour with the remaining members of Soda Stereo, on a tribute tour to Gustavo.

Thanks for posting.

I just received this as some sort of Exhibit B.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLr_I_4tx1I

Ha! Capussoto is great. Here that time when the rockist audience in Capussoto´s show tried to kill Daniel Melero.

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

OMG!

Another Gustavo Shakira live clip with some great shredding at the end. Bonus points for amusingly enthusiastic German voiceover translation of Shakira's introduction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnGtJ9DJgqg

Anyway, the point was not that there was no Rock en Español prior to Soda, more that Gustavo found a way to make the Rock and Español fit together more organically. "De música ligera" was viewed as some kind of defining moment, iirc, a gigantic hit across all of Latin America, although I wasn't there, I was a continent away.

Big in Spain too, apparently. WIki page is interesting although maybe autotranslated from the Spanish?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_M%C3%BAsica_Ligera

Maybe some it was was translated but the aritcles have diverged about. Spanish version worth reading as well, of course: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_m%C3%BAsica_ligera

Wow, somebody posted pretty much the whole show from when I saw them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em1Tr8qND1c

My seat was not as good though :)

Here is an NYT review of the show by Peter Watrous.
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/06/arts/pop-review-mismatched-latin-bands-still-sell-out.html

I had no recollection of Aterciopelados being the opening act. I do remember seeing them a few years later at Central Park Summerstage, although I had mainly gone to see Otto, who Other Music was pushing at the time.
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/23/movies/pop-and-jazz-guide-725919.html

Come to think of it, the last (the other) big South American concert I saw in NYC was Marisa Monte at the Beacon Theater a few years back.

Mostly what I remember seeing at that Palladium show was the lasers on the celing, which I was much closer to where I was in the nosebleed seating.

Probably wasn't lasers, just regular lights.

I guess they went to Miami about a week later to record the MTV part of Comfort y Música Para Volar, with Andrea of Aterciopelados sitting in, or at least singing backing vox on “En la cuidad de la furia.”

Thats funny, I saw them a month early in La Serena, north of Chile. It was a night concert on the beach. Fittingly, when I was younger Soda Stereo was the sound of summer, since it was the type of music that was heard on the beaches and in arcades.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/soda-stereo/1996/open-beach-la-serena-chile-73d97e59.html

The second time I saw them was the farewell concert in Santiago in 1997.

I think that the general vision about Cerati here is not so much that rock in spanish "clicked" with him (as the are lots of classic albums in spanish before him), but yeah he is one of the best, if not the best making melodies in spanish. But perhaps with english ears the perspective changes.

Fair enough. I don’t know enough about the preceding acts, trying to pull some names out of a hat now, Almendra, maybe? Curious what some of those classic albums you mention are.

That set list is pretty much the same as the show I saw.

You could post on the companion thread linked at the top, although that is Argentina only. In fact, someone over there is complaining about the exact same thing I have a problem with: too much reliance on The Rolling Stones, in particular Mick. It barely works for him in the first place.

Argentine rock, from the past and present?

Pre Soda, from Argentina, among the classics, that is, the equivalents to Bob Dylan, Springsteen, etc., we have Los Gatos, Pappo, Charly García and Spinetta and their respective bands, for example:

Seremos Amigos - Los Gatos (1968)
Almendra - Almendra (1969)
Pappo´s Blues 2 - Pappo´s Blues (1972)
Artaud - Paescado Rabioso (1973)
Wadu-Wadu - Virus (1981)
Clics Modernos - Charly García (1983)

Then see Manal, Vox Dei, Litto Nebbia, etc. but any Top 100 Argentine rock list will work. The Mick & Stones stuff is mainly 90s (see Ratones Paranoicos and Los Piojos, or don't). The 60s, 70s and early 80s stuff is mostly a mix of Beatles, tango, jazz rock, Cream, Prince, New wave and local flavor.

From Chile, we have fewer examples in terms of quantity, since with Allende, and then during the dictatorship, the cultural movement went in another direction (see "Nueva canción chilena"), more politicized, less rock, but I can suggest some records from the 70s and early 80's:

El derecho de vivir en paz - Victor Jara (1971)
Embrujo - Embrujo (1971, it's not on spotify but you can find it on youtube)
La Ventana - Los Jaivas (1973)
Alturas de Machu Pichu - Los Jaivas (1981)

Well, going back to Cerati, for me this is top shoegaze Soda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8ah9X1LnMI

Thanks.

Been sniffing around Gustavo’s solo career. Seems okay, seems like “Adiós” and “Crimen” were some level of hits.

Still down this rabbit hole. Can even hear the voice of Gustavo in my head singing the word "conejo!"

Starting to develop an Elvis-level bro-crush on Gustavo's beautiful voice.

It is indeed amazing. Sorry you haven't had much company on this thread, but I'll chime in with my album ranking, best to worst:

Dynamo
Canción Animal
Signos
Nada Personal
Sueño Stereo (feel like I should give this one more listens)
s/t
Doble Vida ("En la ciudad de la furia" is great though)

Thanks. That's a pretty good ranking. I still don't know the albums that well but starting to go through them. My favorite is still Sueñno Stereo which is the first one I had and listened to the most. I had some kind of beef with Dynamo, which was the other one I got at the time (don't even think the others were easy for me to get in the US) because my friend from Argentina was on the outs with them at the time and said something about them jumping on the bandwagon of "second-tier shoegaze bands." Another friend from Bueños Aires says Doble Vida is his favorite but I couldn't get it into that much except for the hit that you mention, too quirky or herky-jerky or something, like those early Go-Between records with a couple of great tunes along with lots of angular skronk or what-have-you.

I bought Sueño Stereo and Dynamo at Record Mart, the legendary record store in the Times Square subway station, which closed for about a decade during subway renovations, reopened and then finally closed for good due to the pandemic :(
https://www.brooklynvegan.com/record-mart-the-record-store-inside-times-sq-subway-station-has-closed/

https://untappedcities.com/2020/06/10/closed-record-mart-manhattans-oldest-record-store-located-in-times-square-subway-station/

I never made it up to Casa Latina which apparently seems to have closed recently :(

Just took a break from listening to some of Gustavo's solo stuff and put on Dynamo. The psychedelic tablas on "Sweet Sahumerio" are reminding of that one song on Head.

Found this TV show made a few months after he died, which seems to have a long interview with his mother. Feel like it might be painful to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTDjbGTw8iE

A ton of stuff on their YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/@SodaStereoVEVO

The psychedelic tablas on "Sweet Sahumerio" are reminding of that one song on _Head_.

Another friend from Bueños Aires says Doble Vida is his favorite but I couldn't get it into that much except for the hit that you mention, too quirky or herky-jerky or something

Yeah hard to put my finger on it. Mostly I think the songs just aren't that strong, but it does feel on that album that they also weren't sure about the style, it's a less unified sound than any of their other albums. On the other hand, their first album is sure of its style, reminds me a bit of early XTC (who I adore), but the songs just aren't that great compared to other albums

Oh and I bring up XTC to make the point that herky-jerky in itself is my thing, if done well

Sure. XTC are the gold standard for that sort of thing. Among their many merits is that they don’t seem to rush the tempos and that even at their herkiest and jerkiest, their rhythms cycle around like some kind of internal machine, some kind of Buster Keaton train wheel or at least handcar.

It took me a while to like “Persiana Americana,” to take one example, because it goes by a little too fast. Listing to the symphonic version help me gain a deeper appreciation for it. I see that it first appeared on Signos which I still haven’t listened to. Wonder what it sounds like in the context of that album.

Wow, you have Signos in third place, behind Dynamo and Canción Animal, pretty high.

Pre-Soda:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4nCX0FK0_0

Thinking of getting a biography now.

Signos is great, I waffled putting it #2. The first couple tracks are only solid, but "Prófugos" through the end is an excellent run of tracks

How long did it actually take you to listen to all the albums properly and formulate your opinions? I’m starting to think it is somewhat of a daunting task, without even taking into consideration all the live and symphonic versions never mind the solo stuff and side projects. Maybe not quite as gigantic a discography as Wayne Shorter but still.

Speaking of Capussotto, I just learned about this parody of “De música ligera” called “Llamen a Moe.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iUtlksYzEg

“Balsa” on Bocanada has an obvious sample from Elvis Presley’s “It’s Now or Never.”

My first post on this thread was August 2021 so about a year and a half! I've spaced them out pretty evenly since then, and the top ones on my list I've probably given 5-6 listens, the bottom ones only 3. Been meaning to go back to Bocanada and Sueño because I heard them early and might like them more with context

Listening to Colores Santos now and liking it. Somewhat similar to Bocanada but maybe more intense and industrial. ILX0r xhuxk liked it quite a bit. Speaking of Daniel Melero, apparently that Peter Capussotto bit was based on a real incident.

That's the next one for to check out - as you can tell I tend towards the 80s/early 90s material thus far

For me*

Hoy se cumplen 30 años del recital de Los Encargados en BARock, en el que nos tiraron 30 kilos de frutas. ¿Dónde estará toda esa gente, hoy?

— Daniel Melero (@DanMelero) November 7, 2012

Incident mentioned here: https://www.rionegro.com.ar/daniel-melero-el-cowboy-del-pop-ALHRN0108273271011/

So “En la ciudad de la furia” is about…Icarus?

Sad to say, I know next to no Spanish and haven't really paid attention to their lyrics at all. Despite that, I got pretty into them, Café Tacvba, and Caifanes in the last couple years

I have been trying to do some of these at karaoke recently so have been paying a bit more attention to the lyrics.

Wow, “En la ciudad de la furia” has been covered at least two dozen times looks like.

Finally figured out what this SEP7IMO DIA aka Séptimo or Sép7imo Día - No Descansaré is. A Cirque du Soleil show based on the music of Soda Stereo, with some mashups and new recordings of drums and other things, done by Zeta, Charly and longtime Soda sound man Adrián Taverna, along with some assistance from Gustavo’s sister Laura, I think. It’s pretty cool, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFJWWWBMf7o

Actually part of the Soda Stereo origin story is that Charly called up Laura for a date one weekend, she said no, and he said “okay, let me talk to your brother then.”

Haha I think I read that story somewhere

Seem to be many tellings of that story, here is a long amusing interview with Charly about it. It’s in Spanish though.

https://www.facebook.com/ceratisodaperu/videos/charly-alberti-a-mi-me-gustaba-laura-cerati-significado-sodastereo-programa-omar/217183216006505/

Same interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg9q0TBCX4Q

Too much stuff on the web, I probably shouldn’t link to all of it, but here is what seems to be an interesting documentary about Gustavo with interviews from his inner circle, if not from Zeta and Charly, and a title from the lyrics of “En la ciudad de la furia.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dFtiTei2a8

It seems to be an attempt to get deep inside his artistic process as opposed to the usual approach of biographical documentaries, as this review says: https://indiehoy.com/noticias/critica-de-un-hombre-alado-un-profundo-viaje-al-interior-del-universo-de-gustavo-cerati/

A klezmer version of a certain song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51-DWZKvyAY

One thing is that many of the songs just don’t click with me right away for whatever reason. “Canción Animal” is finally registering with me as of this weekend.

This could be said of almost any band tbh.

And right now it's "Primavera 0."

The "original" version of "Llamen a Moe" from Todo X 2 Pesos before Gustavo, who was a huge fan of the show, came to recover it on the show's final episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msjuUlCLxOE

.
Se hacían llamar “Los Estereotipos” La lista incluyó temas como “Dorian Grey” (luego titulado “El Tiempo es Dinero”) “Trae Cola” (que luego terminaría siendo “Juegos de Seducción”) , “Dime Sebastián”, “Detectives”, “La calle enseña”, “¿Por qué no puedo ser del jet-set?”…

— Soda Stereo (@sodastereo) December 19, 2021

Despite the fact that he never actually says “My name is Gustavo and I’m here to say,” “En la borde” has some truly terrible Fruity Pebbles-level English-language rapping.

“En el borde” sorry.

I didn't remember the title of the song but I remember exactly what you're talking about

Seem to recall upthread ILX0r Moja referring to Gustavo as being “the Bob Dylan of Latin America,” but to me he is more like Prince, even in this.

Yeah but it was more of a comparison about him being as famous as Dylan. Sound-wise they don’t have anything in common.

Soda Stereo’s early sound and even looks were highly inspired by new wave and goth, specifically by The Cure.

They were accused back in the 80’s of being a copy of The Cure… i think it was more of how they looked, I’m not hearing any blatant Cure copies in their songs tbh - although yeah, they admit they were huge Cure fans.

I kinda hear more other new wave bands in their sound, some early songs give The Police vibes. And the album version - not the unplugged one - of “ciudad de la feria” sounds lifted from The Fixx - Red Skies.

Believe they specifically mention The Police in interviews.

I don’t think he sounds like Prince exactly, I was mostly just sort of thinking of his significance as a very productive songwriter, singer and bandleader with a bunch of side projects who was also a guitar hero and OCD perfectionist on stage as well as in the studio, even if Gustavo wasn’t as flamboyant as the other guy.

On the first album, the biggest influences are the Police and XTC I think, but after they drop the goofiness, it's harder to point out direct influences. "No Existes" kinda sounds Cure-like but the voice is quite different. A few songs throughout their albums sound like INXS ("Nada Personal", "Doble Vida", others I can't remember) and I think Cerati's voice is a little similar to Michael Hutchence's in the louder moments

By the time Unplugged came out Cerati was on another level as a guitar player and he has a very distinct sound of his own - tends to play chords with the same “figure” in his hand, and also variations of the same chord (songs that go Em - E7 - E - Em per example) - you can hear how the album version of “un misil en mi placard” kinda sounds influenced by The Police and the Unplugged version sounds like a more “Cerati” version… playing the same figure from F#m7 to Em7 almost throughout.

Interesting.

Came to post yet another parody.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yFc6jbMcmQ

Feel like Dynamo suffers from the same comparison problem of every other shoegaze album that isn’t Loveless of not being Loveless. It sounds too slick and too pretty by comparison. As I listen to some of the individual songs outside of the album and return to listen to the album as a whole again I am starting to get into it but can still see why it was flop at the time and then Sueño Stereo was a smash. The latter is heavier and proggier, darker and more distinctive, at least to my ears.

I bought the bio and read the beginning which is really good and makes you feel like you are there with Gustavo and his friends as suffers his stroke and falls into the coma, which of course is also a bit hard to take. This Billboard article summarizes that part in English so I don’t have to.

https://www.billboard.com/music/latin/gustavo-cerati-biography-juan-morris-6656854/

Seems like everyone from Argentina is quite familiar with “Llamen a Moe.”

Hoy regresé temprano a mi saca
Y a Larry encontré en plena resaca
Esto ya pasó, ya no tiene excusas
Larry es vicioso, bidé de partuza
(chorus)
Llamen a Moe, que Larry está en cualquiera
Anda con gatos, le da la ginebra
Llamen a Moe, que Larry está en cualquiera
Anda con gatos y le da la ginebra

Dynamo came after “Cancion Animal” which was a massive hit in latinamerica, so instead of trying to meet the unrealistically high expectations of a sequel that sounded like more of the same, they went with the career move of sending a curveball that most people felt lukewarm about.

That said it did have three “hits” that you can still overhear on latin rock stations or bars: “primavera 0” “ameba” and “luna roja”.

“Primavera 0” sounds way too influenced by MBV and I don’t care much about it. Cerati did better versions of shoegaze on his solo album “cancion amarilla” imho

Ameba is inspired by Iggy Pop’s “Mass Production” and is a better fit.

“Luna Roja” is one of my favorite Soda Stereo songs, the lyrics are interesting and might be either about the end of the world or AIDS or both… and the guitar does that economical thing that I mentioned Cerati’s style is known for… it’s completely done as a one chord song with variations… iirc the whole song is mostly an A chord and I think there’s a section where a second chord (D?) enters. I’m not sure if it’s the simplicity behind the composition but it’s one of the songs in Dynamo where the shoegaze “wall of sound” works for me.

It’s been years since I heard Dynamo I should probably give it another try

Ah yeah looking at the tracklist, here’s a piece of trivia: U2’s Lemon - which we all know is the best U2 song - is allegedly inspired by Claroscuro. The story is that Bono heard it on a radio station while doing ZooTV in Mexico and asked for a copy. The dates don’t quite match and I can’t find a good source to confirm this isn’t just an urban myth made popular by the blogosphere. That said, both Dynamo and Zooropa share a famous audio engineer called Arnie Acosta so there’s at least one confirmed connection between both.

Good stuff. Enjoying the turns this thread is taking. Woke up with more to say but have to do some stuff so will have to save it for later. Will only note I just observed the transition from “Toma la ruta” to “En remolinos” is pretty effective. In fact the whole sequence of those two and “Primavera 0” is pretty cool.

Still down know how I feel about “Camaleón.”

Hmm. Liking that too today.

I feel this guy is hard to wrap one’s arms around because he is so famous in Argentina and Latin America, probably a not-so-distant third, not counting the Peróns, to Maradona and Messi, but there is not much discourse about him in English or on the continent. Whereas Serge Gainsbourg and Françoise Hardy, say, are well-integrated into certain areas of Anglo music appreciation of foreign language pop music. Which is probably a recap of whatever Moka said in the original post.

tbh I also think some Argentines can get a little sick of him, but then they still seem to know all about him. Maybe they just don’t like some gringo talking him up.

Bio says something which can also be read here that Dynamo was originally going to be called Gol until Daniel Melero came by and said something about bicycle dynamos, something I am mostly unfamiliar with and had to look up.

https://indiehoy.com/noticias/soda-stereo-y-los-30-anos-de-dynamo-el-disco-que-inicio-el-rock-sonico-argentino/

Oh hi, look what I found.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EQoLaJMbgM

That was better than expected. And there seem to be many more out there.

Think I will stop there, although this particular guy seems okay. Watching his “Du Hast” video now.

Thanks for reviving this thread and seeing finally some
Interest on Cerati over here. I value a lot the input on this board and I love reading takes from people outside of latinamerica on him.

The biggest Soda Stereo fan I ever met irl was a friend from Slovakia and it made me appreciate them in a different way. I wasn’t even that much into songs like “hombre al agua” or “un millon de años luz” until I heard them drinking with her and seeing her singing them in broken spanish passionately and they’re now my two favorite songs on that album.

Non-english acts are a blind spot in many music forums, it’s fascinating to me how acts like yes, Serge Gainsbourg or Sigur Ros or whatever are known worldwide and acts that are huge on certain regions are virtually unknown.

Anyways this thread revive has me relistening to Cerati and Soda Stereo after years of not hearing them and I’ve been loving it.

¿Qué otra cosa puedo hacer?

^Más que una pregunta, una respuesta.

Sad to say, I know next to no Spanish and haven't really paid attention to their lyrics at all. Despite that, I got pretty into them, Café Tacvba, and Caifanes in the last couple years

― Vinnie

Spanish is my first language and I don’t understand 90% of their lyrics. Cerati was good at writing vague lyrics that somehow resonate with a lot of people. You’ll see people in latinamerica shouting the lyrics by memory of songs like “de musica ligera” and if you ask them what the lyrics mean you’ll get different interpretations.

Cerati himself kept changing versions on what they meant. He would explain a song and say things like “this is what it means to me now; but it might have meant a different thing when I wrote it”

Luna roja” would be explained depending on the year as inspired by a soldier in the gulf war or a song about musician Federico Mouria dying of AIDS, or about menstruation, or about the end of the world as inspired by the book of revelations.

“Ciudad de la furia” is about the 1989 crisis in Argentina, or Icarus or finding refuge in sex.

OTM. Some songs have some themes that can be gleaned at least, like the Icarus motif in “En la ciudad de la furia” that I mentioned or “Crimen” of course, but even in those cases there is no clear cut meaning. The video for “Crimen” is a lot more obvious than the lyrics.
(xp)

I wrote something to a friend recently about what I thought about Gustavo’s lyrics and why I thought they worked so well. I can cut and paste it here if you want.

I tend to like lyrics that open to interpretation, so that's interesting. I just looked up a translation of “En la ciudad de la furia” and I can see what you both mean, but I also wonder if any ambiguity gets lost in translation. Lyrics (and poetry) seem like they'd be very hard to translate sometimes, because it helps so much to know the author's intention, and there's not always a clear one with these

On top of not knowing what the 1989 crisis in Argentina was, heh

There's even more to the story in the bio but I can't go into it now.

Going to give Ahí Vamos a listen now, as it has some big hits. Upon first listen the opening track is bugging me.

Second track picking up.

No

Don’t know where that last post came from

Meant to type “nada,” Gustavo’s favorite word.

Not really, it was a pocket post.

New screenname based on some recent thread-related viewing.

Listening to an electronic New Wave album called Silencio by Daniel Melero’s group Los Encargados, the one that got all the fruit thrown at them by the audience. Pretty cool.

Despite the cheesy sax.

Nobody throwing any fruit here:

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

***SPOILER ALERT***
The lyrics of “Crimen” are actually the plot line of the film DECISION TO LEAVE.

j/k

https://www.latercera.com/culto/2020/08/06/el-crimen-sin-resolver-de-cerati/

Says “Crimen” was inspired by “Jealous Guy” and he was originally going to give it to Shakira.

Gustavo Cerati y Zeta Bosio en la Universidad del Salvador estudiando publicidad antes de formar Soda Stereo

Buenos Aires, 1980

Foto inédita que dieron a conocer sus compañeros de facultad Oscar René Cisneros y Fabiana Frayssinet

La historia aquí: https://t.co/h86jCUqg2V pic.twitter.com/doCwEuBPBz

— FlacoStereo (@FlacoStereo) November 16, 2020

Anyway, enjoyed the run of this revive which seems to be running down. Have learned a lot about Gustavo & Co and their world, and have been nerding out and doing one new Soda song a week at karaoke which has been really fun, especially since people in my neighborhood seem to know every song quite well, sometimes every word.

Maybe this is overreacting, but feel like trying to sing his songs gave me an extra appreciation for his gifts for melody and lyrics. He wrote the lyrics in such a way that he could sing them, not just scribbling down any old stuff he came up with and then sort of force his way through.

Meant to type overreaching not overreacting

I kind of got into some of his tics and tricks a little bit, such as when he likes to go “whoo whoo whoo whoo,” or when he likes to use the vowel “aw.”

Whatever you do, do not click on any video of Chris Martin and Coldplay doing their tribute cover versions.

I am intrigued, despite your warning

Go ahead and click and report back, maybe you will like more than me.

It’s just that – for those who love Gustavo’s voice – Chris Martin’s voice, along with his gringo pronunciation, may be an acquired taste.

Okay, starting to walk that one back. It’s kind of charming to watch them play “De Música Ligera” while the entire audience jumps up and down and sings along.

One of the videos has a guy with a Pulp shirt in it, a man after my own heart.

Another video is a Soda/Coldplay mashup. Which is inadvisable, since the Soda performance is so much more exciting.

Maybe at the show Coldplay played along with a Soda video?

Also thing I didn’t get around to mentioning that the winged man flying

…around with dripping wings en la ciudad de la furia was originally a comic book superhero named Argos created by Gustavo when he was a boy.

xp Tough to judge because I couldn't find a very high quality version, but Chris Martin doesn't seem to give it a lot of enthusiasm. but the crowd seems very into it regardless

Yes, this is exactly right

It functions well as a magnanimous gesture of gringos paying their respects to Gustavo, Zeta and Charly and to Argentina as a whole. As a performance of a piece of music, it makes the song sound like some kind of reasonably enjoyable pop-punk knock-off from some band that had heard Blink-182 or Green Day, instead of the never-stops-giving home grown monster hit that it was and still is.

Kind of fun to listen to Canción Animal in its entirety and finding DML hiding out in the second half after almost always forgetting it’s there. Seems like nine out of ten of the tracks were released as singles too. Two more than Thriller!

Cheesy English rapping in “En el borde” made even worse by very obvious “All You Need Is Love” musical quote. (Listening to the remix on the Languis EP.

There even seems to be a weird “Camille”-like cartoon voice in there!

When Coldplay does DML, the rhythm ends up sounding more like "Smells LIke Teen Spirit." Which came out after DML, I just checked. They also try (sometimes) to emphasize the 4-1 crash from the G-chord to the D-chord but I dunno, it just not nearly a resounding crash as the original.

You know who can perform a Soda Stereo song convincingly? Chilean singer Mon Laferte, who I am sure our Latin American posters are familiar with. I first learned about her because one of my karaoke friends does one of her songs, “Si tu me quisieras.” Here she is on the Gracias Totales tour from last year performing “Un millón de años luz” with Zeta, Charly what looks to be Richard Coleman on guitar, and maybe Tweety Gonzalez on keyboards along with another, younger guitar player, is it Benito Cerati?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp8c6po34oc

Keyboard player not Tweety, seems to be a guy named Fabian Quintero. Guitar player is maybe one Roly Ureta. Benito Cerati sang one song, looks just like his dad with a blond wig. And, oh yeah, Chris Martin was around to sing his sterling version of DML.

Oh, the guy shredding on guitar is Simón Bosio, Zeta’s son. The other guitar player I thought was Richard Coleman is probably Roly de Tal, Coleman appears on another number, I think.

Chris Martin’s DML was the last song of the encore, in Bogotá at least.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracias_Totales_-_Soda_Stereo

I guess the solo on “Canción Animal” is supposed to sound like a lion’s roar or something.

Took a little break, maybe will listen to Bocanada now.

I wish I had a better reason to bump other than that I keep thinking maybe I am maxed out but then end up coming back for more and getting surprised at how solid and deep the catalogue is but so be it.

Just keep getting pleasantly surprised at how solid the albums are. Each one seems to have a big hit or two or three and they usually all flow pretty well from beginning to end. I think they sometimes start a tiny bit tentative and then get stronger by the third track, as I think Vinnie said about one of the albums, Signos maybe.

Friend told me tonight that his favorite Gustavo album is Siempre Es Hoy.

“Tabú” off of Bocanada is a jam, but don’t know if I can make it to the end of the official video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqkM934jBU8
It’s no “Crimen” video.

Soda Stereo talk led to a discussion about "Aguante Megadeth." Do people know about this?

Sometimes the algorithm likes to give me videos from the reunion and they are all usually pretty good.

Lots of vague Twitter references to “aguante megadeth”

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

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9cTNlpyf5M

I had to make kind of an emergency stop at a gas station and it turned out the attendant was from Venezuela and was a huge Soda Stereo fan.

Yeah but before this person, how many strangers did you frantically approach and ask if they like Soda Stereo only get to blank stares?

That happens very infrequently. They almost always know.

Really? In my imagined scenario, half the people you ask respond with "I know those two words, but that question makes no sense"

I only ask people from Latin America.

Ah. Sorta takes the fun out of it

Not really.

Usually the people who don’t know who he is and are from Latin America don’t seem to like any pop music at all.

Lol

As someone from latinamerica I think you have a good 8 times out of 10 chance of people knowing and liking Soda Stereo. Even if you don’t like them that much the effort of a foreigner liking them would give you a polite response.

If you want a more excited response from a Venezuelan maybe mention Los Amigos Invisibles.

Their two first albums are fun. They’re sort of the latinamerican Jamiroquai.

But yeah Soda Stereo in latinamerica are big. They might be the seminal latin rock band. As popular as idk Rolling Stones or Creedence in spanish speaking countries. You might not like them but you certainly know who they are.

I just got a reminder of another band that is popular in certain parts of Latin America, The Smiths.

Anyway the guy from Venezuela had not just a passing acquaintance but clearly demonstrated to me that he was a serious fan. Proof is left to the reader, references provided upon request etc.

As a Mexican, I can say that almost everybody within a certain range of ages knows the big hits, dedicated fans know deep cuts of the albums, some of them even follow Cerati´s solo career, and obsessive fans even know his electronic incursions (roken, plan v).

I think Mrs. Mottola's cover album of Latin-American rock classics is deplorable. I don't know who could prefer this to the originals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ufbkpBNFkQ

^cover of a Luis Alberto Spinetta song. Who didn’t usually approve of covers but later had Gustavo perform this song live with him.

I just got a reminder of another band that is popular in certain parts of Latin America, The Smiths.

― Cathy Berberian Begins at Home (James Redd and the Blecchs)

Yeah I think I once read an article that researched how popular The Smiths were in Mexico.

I think the most important band for late 80’s/early 90s music in Spain and Latinamerican music though is The Cure. Early Soda Stereo and important mexican bands like Caifanes were heavily influenced in sound and looks by them before they started developing a style of their own.

OTM. Gustavo had a girlfriend named Tashi who helped them with the look, maybe I already mentioned.

Los sábados, antes de salir a bailar a Fire o Palladium, se pasaban dos horas encerrados en el baño, maquillándose y usando cerveza, jugo de limón o clara de huevo para batirse el pelo y que los peinados les quedaran lo más espumosos posible. Tashi se ponía camisas escocesas, una minifalda, medias de red y stilettos a los que les cortaba los tacos para que las puntas se levantaran. Esa rutina pronto se extendió a los shows y, antes de salir a tocar, en los camarines del Zero o del Einstein, Tashi los asistía con el vestuario mientras le daba indicaciones a una amiga que se encargaba de cortarles el pelo como Robert Smith, de The Cure.

Cerati: la biografía definitiva, por Juan Morris

https://www.sopitas.com/musica/soda-stereo-historia-detras-zoom-influencia-kiss-gustavo-cerati-ace-frehley-disco-tributo/

^points out that Kiss wanted Soda to appear on a Kiss tribute album, which didn’t work out, but the song “Zoom” has a prominent sample from Ace Frehley’s “New York Groove.”

This Soda-centric playlist of Latin American rock seems pretty good:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1oLpr7CRX8GogGMIqJGKuf

61 hours though!

So far so good though.

She seems to have a good bolero playlist too. Only seven hours.

Have now played 50 songs of 61 hour playlist and so far it’s been pretty enjoyable. Lots of Soda album tracks with maybe one or two hits of theirs so far interspersed with other unfamiliar stuff.

“Adiós” has an interesting phrasing of the melody that is difficult to sing without counting or paying extra attention to the drums etc.

Most of the time he starts singing on the 2 of the bar. There is a heavy pattern played by the drums and the rest of the band leading up to it: TWO THREE Four and One!

There’s also usually a crash on FOUR before that.

What’s your opinion on Cerati’s Bocanada?

My father let me use one of his cars for a year and it was one of those cars that let you load 4/5 cds but one of them got stuck and it got fucked and I couldn’t load anything else other than those initial 5 cds and one of them was Bocanada. It ended up being one of my most listened albums of all time. I think due to overexposure it’s the Cerati work I appreciate the most.

i think bocanada is his best work and it's one of five cds stuck in my car by choice

Ha!

I don’t know Bocanada that well– yet! But give me time. I’m sort of backing into through the hits, such as they are, such as “Puente” and “Paseo Inmoral.” Also love that first track, “Tabu.” I believe it was considered some kind of departure for him and that Ahí Vamos was viewed as return to form, to rock.

“Canción Animal” also has the thing of the vocal starting on the two of the bar.

Yet another guest appearance!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ5zn1Vvd2I

This one too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM7g9wbmjgs

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_lo_Soporto

There's a whole compilation album of this kind of stuff.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sat%C3%A9lite_Cerati

Wears pretty thin in that context though imho

That No Lo Soporto video is fun. With Gustavo in dual roles!

Don’t think I posted the Bajofondo video yet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FakWEAvZE4g

Upcoming Netflix doc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmnkpeYIrb4

Wonder if I should watch the Fito Paez one?

Really like "Pulsar"!

If anyone's interested I can make a 10 soda stereo 10 cerati songs playlist - keeping in mind you don't speak spanish and his lyrics are pretty much the point - with a selection of his songs.

― Moka, Thursday, September 4, 2014 5:21 PM (eight years ago)

If anyone's interested in putting together something like this, I'd be grateful - Soda Stereo alone have over a dozen compilations in their discography and not sure how they compare.

This comp is one I went to in the beginning although it is missing "Prófugos"! Maybe it wasn't much of a radio hit or something, even though it is a very well-known track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNxoPtgj98o

Actually there are some tracks on this I still don't know! Maybe Moka can make a better playlist.

This comp is okay too, I’ve also spent time with it, but don’t have it mastered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Ver%C3%A1s_Volver?wprov=sfti1

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.

Maybe best place to start is one of the live albums? Although even then they are both double albums, but split into two so you can just focus on a smaller portion for a while.

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.