"The painter Paul Gauguin loved the light of Guanabara Bay / The composer Cole Porter loved the lights of her night / Guanabara Bay / The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss detested Guanabara Bay / It looked to him like a toothless mouth / And I -- if I knew her less would I love her more? / I'm blind from so often seeing her, from so often staring starry / What is a beautiful thing?" -- O Estrangeiro
Any great musician must be some sort of philosopher as well. Otherwise they're just playing so many notes. Art presents us with somebody's perspective of the truth. Some artists are charlatans and try to paint everything with a rosy glow that will please everyone (and satisfy no one) and that can be safely hung in or played in a dentist's office. Some artists suffer, but haven't the intelligence or skill to dignify the awfulness of their art. Some artists only want to talk about themselves, which is okay sometimes.
But a really good artist -- that is someone who present us with the ugly and the beautiful, enthusiasm and lethargy, sorrow and pleasure, all of it. And Caetano Veloso does it with subtlety and tremendous good taste.
"And the epic grandeur of a still unfinished people / Attracts us, dazzles us and excites us / Nothing matters, not the profile of that mansion / Not the TV cameras, not even that Paul Simon record / No one, no one is a citizen / If you go to the party in Pelourinho, and even if you don't go / Think of Haiti, pray for Haiti / Haiti's right here, Haiti's not quite here." -- Haiti
This Best Of Album gives you Veloso in various epochs of his career, so it's a pretty good overview. There are the dissonant noises in "O Estrangeiro" like echoes at a subway station, the gentle strumming and chanted "Manhattan" litany of "Manhata", the cathedral hymn-like "Michelangelo Antonioni", and the classic Brasiliana of "Na Baixa do Sapateiro".
Buy this album and listen to it many times.
"Some may like a soft Brazilian singer / But I've given up all attempts at perfection." -- O Estrangeiro