VOA文化艺术2024--Old Recordings Gain New Listeners in Brazil

Old Recordings² Gain New Listeners in Brazil

Plastic music recordings, or vinyl records, are popular again in Brazil.

In 2023, more records were sold than compact³ discs (CDs) and DVDs for the first time in many years. That information comes from Pro-Música, an association of Brazil's largest music production companies.

The new interest in the pressed vinyl discs and high-quality but less costly⁴ record players is bringing fame to singers who thought they had been forgotten.

Catia de França is 77. In the 1970s and 1980s, she traveled through Brazil performing her music. But she was not popular when CDs replaced records. Her music was lost to a new generation who did not use old record players.

By 2021, de França was living in a small community in the mountains above Rio de Janeiro. She said it was "where you can't even imagine an internet signal."

But one day, she got a telephone call from the head of a small record company. He said he wanted to make a new version of her first record from 1979 called 20 Words Around the Sun.

"This must be a prank⁵," de França thought at the time. But it was not. The producer wanted to make more copies of her 40-year-old record.

Today, at 77, de França is again traveling Brazil performing her music for new fans.

Her new fame is part of a rising interest in records. Pro-Música research shows that from 2022 to 2023 the money coming from sales of records in Brazil increased from about $1 million to $2.2 million. It is 15 times higher today than in 2019.

Carlos Savalla is a 66-year-old music producer in Rio de Janeiro. He owns about 60,000 records and pays attention to their value. He said many people buy and sell used records on websites and social media sites like Facebook or at record stores. Brazilians and visitors are looking for samba, bossa nova, tropicalismo and other popular forms of music.

The trend is in more places than Brazil. In the U.S., sales of vinyl records brought in $1.4 billion in 2023. Some say the interest in Taylor Swift brought about a jump in record purchases. Swift's 2022 record - Midnights - was the first big release to have its records sell more than CDs since 1987.

Martin Froes reports on music in Brazil. He said today's top-selling records do not come from the most popular artists. They release their songs to digital streaming services. But new music groups and classic singers drive the sales of vinyl records.

By 2008, all of Brazil's vinyl record production centers closed because of digital music services. But after records became popular again in Europe and the U.S., João Augusto and his partners decided⁶ to buy an old vinyl pressing factory called Polysom.

Luciano Barreira is the company's general manager. He said they began producing old records with "commercial appeal and demand." Now, the factory helps record companies and independent music artists put their music on vinyl records. After 15 years, Polysom has pressed 1.3 million records and other companies have re-opened factories.

João Noronha started his pressing center in 2019. He and two friends started a business called Tres Selos. They send their customers one newly pressed record a month.

"We didn't expect much," Noronha said, but in the first month of operations, 120 customers paid for the reissue of Sinceramente, a 1982 album by Sérgio Sampaio, a Brazilian singer from the 1970s and '80s.

A few years later, one of Noronha's partners, Rafael Cortes, saw that de França's record was selling in the used record market for $135. That is when they started working to get permission to re-release her 40-year-old recording¹.

On the first phone call, Cortes said, de França was "suspicious⁷." She wanted to know why anyone wanted her old music.

"I think her mistrust comes from the fact that the industry often pushed her aside," he said.

Cortes and music writer Chris Fuscaldo said de França was combative⁸, firm in her ideas, and off-beat. Although she was performing with many of Brazil's most popular artists and gaining listeners, larger record companies like Columbia Records did not spend the money to advertise de França.

Fuscaldo has written about the lack of support women received in Brazil's music history. She said part of the reason de França is popular now is that she was suppressed⁹ before.

"She's absolutely brilliant," Isadora Attab, a fan, said at a recent performance.

Some of the larger music companies are starting to get interested in vinyl records in Brazil. The Brazilian partner of Universal Music now has a service. It sends customers new pressings of famous Brazilian singers like Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque and Maria Bethania along with foreign singers like Billie Eilish.

De França might be known only to a small number of music fans around Brazil, but she is now reaching 30- and 40-year-old listeners. She recently performed for a crowd at a former industrial storage building in Sao Paulo. She compared herself to the fictional¹⁰ bird, the phoenix¹¹.

"I was reborn, rising from the ashes like a phoenix, disquieting¹² my enemies..."

As she finished, someone put warm clothing over her to protect her from the cold night air. She looked like an old woman, not like the star she has finally become.

Words in This Story

vinyl -n. a kind of plastic used to make records

disc -n. a round, flat object

prank -n. a trick or a joke played on someone

trend -n. the direction of change of something, often of growing, or decreasing popularity¹³

classic -adj. an example of one of the best things from a certain time

customer -n. a person or group who buys a good or a service

suspicious -adj. not trusting, suspecting something is wrong

brilliant -adj. very impressive and successful

1 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

2 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

3 compact   

adj.紧密的，简明的，紧凑的；v.使紧凑，压缩

参考例句：

• It was a compact package.这是个捆得很紧的包裹。
• The article is compact and well organized.文章严密，又很有章法。

4 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

5 prank   

n.开玩笑，恶作剧；v.装饰；打扮；炫耀自己

参考例句：

• It was thought that the fire alarm had been set off as a prank.人们认为火警报警器响是个恶作剧。
• The dean was ranking the boys for pulling the prank.系主任正在惩罚那些恶作剧的男学生。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 suspicious   

adj.可疑的，容易引起怀疑的，猜疑的，疑心的

参考例句：

• A man was hanging about the house in a suspicious manner.一个男人在房子周围可疑地荡来荡去。
• He's so suspicious he would distrust his own mother.他这个人疑心太重，连自己的母亲也不相信。

8 combative   

adj.好战的；好斗的

参考例句：

• Mr. Obama has recently adopted a more combative tone.奥巴马总统近来采取了一种更有战斗性的语调。
• She believes that women are at least as combative as are.她相信女性至少和男性一样好斗。

9 suppressed   

被抑制的，被忍住的

参考例句：

• The rebellion was brutally suppressed. 起义遭到了残酷的镇压。
• Members of these sects are ruthlessly persecuted and suppressed. 这些教派的成员遭到了残酷的迫害和镇压。

10 fictional   

adj.小说的，虚构的

参考例句：

• The names of the shops are entirely fictional.那些商店的名字完全是虚构的。
• The two authors represent the opposite poles of fictional genius.这两位作者代表了天才小说家两个极端。

11 phoenix   

n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生

参考例句：

• The airline rose like a phoenix from the ashes.这家航空公司又起死回生了。
• The phoenix worship of China is fetish worship not totem adoration.中国凤崇拜是灵物崇拜而非图腾崇拜。

12 disquieting   

adj.令人不安的，令人不平静的v.使不安，使忧虑，使烦恼( disquiet的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The news from the African front was disquieting in the extreme. 非洲前线的消息极其令人不安。 来自英汉文学
• That locality was always vaguely disquieting, even in the broad glare of afternoon. 那一带地方一向隐隐约约使人感到心神不安甚至在下午耀眼的阳光里也一样。 来自辞典例句

13 popularity   

n.普及，流行，名望，受欢迎

参考例句：

• The story had an extensive popularity among American readers.这本小说在美国读者中赢得广泛的声望。
• Our product enjoys popularity throughout the world.我们的产品饮誉全球。