For the original text, in Portuguese, click here.
It’s hard to find artists who transit adequately between diverse musical styles. Cássia Eller would do that very well, e such a characteristic is made evident in the album Com Você… Meu Mundo Ficaria Completo (With You… My World Would Be Complete). MPB (acronym for Brazilian Popular Music, a style derived from the Bossa Nova) , samba, rock e even baião (a musical style from the northeast of Brazil) are mixed together in precise proportion to create the pearls that make this album. The two most famous tracks are O Segundo Sol (The Second Sun), which opens the record with beautiful orchestration; and Palavras ao Vento (Words to the Wind), a relatively simple balad in structure, but made special by the subtle musical details and the emotion that Cássia gives off.
But that’s not the best this CD has to offer. Um Branco, um Xis, um Zero, a rock song with a strong guitar carrying the tune and piano and percussion making it “funky”, is one of the most exciting moments. And it’s basically impossible not to shout along as Cássia pours out the last word of the lyrics. Aprendiz de Feiticeiro starts with an accordion setting the “dancy” mood, which almost doesn’t go along with the depth of the lyrics, which chronicle the learning through life. There’s also the energy of Infernal, with electronic sounds combined with first class drums.
Gatas Extraordinárias is almost Bossa Nova, almost MPB, it’s sexy, it’s a (poorly) disguised lesbian hymn and maybe the nicest song to hear in the entire album. But the real peak, in my opinion, is Mapa do Meu Nada, a track with fewer elements in the musical arrangement, but so well structured, and with such a strong crescendo that one has to wonder how many singers would be able to carry it as Cássia does. The chorus is flawless, the perfect combination of the sound of words with the sound of instruments.
When the record ends, besides the feeling of “I want some more”, I’m left with the sensation that without Cássia Eller (who died in 2001) it’s our music that rests incomplete.
