Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture
In 1968, young artists and poets in the Brazilian state of Bahia  formed a movement that both mocked elite culture and depicted  the brutal reality of the regime under which they were living.  Tropic lia was thus born even though many of its creators (e.g.,  Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, and Tom Z ) were jailed or  banished. In this reworking of his doctoral dissertation, Dunn  (Spanish, Portuguese, and African and African Diaspora studies,  Tulane Univ.) does a good job of minimizing postmodern  terminology and maximizing delivery of the facts, clarifying the  Tropic lists' goal of shattering Brazil's self-propagated image  as a "garden." He reveals how the movement's vanguard introduced  electric guitars and rock style into Brazilian popular music and  explored African musical ideas; no one rhythm or sound can  represent it. Though Tropic lia remained of local interest in  its early days, its rediscovery via old recordings by David  Byrne of Talking Heads in the late 1980s led to its wider  dissemination. Recommend for serious large collections. Bonnie  Jo Dopp, Univ. of Maryland Libs., College ParkCopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.