Soda Stereo & Gustavo Cerati

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."