"Hello, hello Brazil" was the standard greeting Brazilian radio announcers of the 1930s used to welcome their audience into an expanding cultural marketplace. New genres like samba and repackaged older ones like choro served as the currency in this marketplace, minted in the capital in Rio de Janeiro and circulated nationally by the burgeoning recording and broadcasting industries. Bryan McCann chronicles the flourishing of Brazilian popular music between the 1920s and the 1950s. Through analysis of the competing projects of composers, producers, bureaucrats, and fans, he shows that Brazilians alternately envisioned popular music as the foundation for a unified national culture and used it as a tool to probe racial and regional divisions.
McCann explores the links between the growth of the culture industry, rapid industrialization, and the rise and fall of Getúlio Vargas's Estado Novo dictatorship. He argues that these processes opened a window of opportunity for the creation of enduring cultural patterns and demonstrates that the understandings of popular music cemented in the mid-twentieth century continue to structure Brazilian cultural life in the early twenty-first.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
An almost perfect study:
This is a fascinating book that begins a much needed investigation into how the politics of Getulio Vargas' "Estado Novo" were tied to the development of many of the trends that led to overt "Brasilidade" in popular music. McCann argues that these relationships were intricately connected and complicated as he balances the varying ideas of nationalism, commercialism, and creativity. McCann carefully traces concurrent histories of radio development, musical development, the influence of the US, the invention... more info
Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil:
For any who are interested in the effect Getlio Vargas's nationalism as projected via 1920s radio's promotion of the Samba had upon the national character, I find "Hello Hello Brazil" a fascinating book. I got into this field because the Bossa Nova seduced my musical tastes. I had to know more. Clearly Rui Castro's book on the subject, plus a book entitled "The Brazilian Sound" by Chris McGowan and Ricardo Pessanha told me much. "Hello, Hello Brazil" though scholarly oriented, fills in many of the blanks.... more info
