Soda Stereo & Gustavo Cerati

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.

some weird stuff about a house he used to live in

I did a relisten to all the Soda Stereo albums. my ranking upthread hasn't changed but it's funny to feel exactly the way about Canción Animal as I did last year - how can I not remember any of the tracks on this album but it's still great? I'm sure the language barrier is part of it but by contrast I can remember most of Dynamo without help. I owed Sueño Stereo a relisten but I still find it a little sluggish in the second half. Opening track and "Zoom" are both up there with their best

I realize there's still several Cerati solo albums I need to listen to. never did hear Colores santos!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXRq8De6SYw

No seas tan cruel

No busques
mas pretextos

Wait Soda Stereo is touring?

Virtual Gus.