Soda Stereo & Gustavo Cerati

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!