SODA STEREO

 

“Entre tus labios de plata y mi acero inolvidable,

Quiero un loop... protagónico” 

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"C+" 

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Main Decade: 80’s-90’s

Main Eras:

80s Classic Rock

90s Rock: The Golden Age

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Key Members:

Gustavo Cerati, Guitar and Vocals

Charly Alberti, Drums

Zeta Bosio, Bass

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Key Songs:

En Remolinos, Hombre al Agua, Un Millón de Años Luz, En La Ciudad de la Furia, Zoom, Ella Usó Mi Cabeza Como un Revólver, De Música Ligera, Nada Personal, Luna Roja, Sueles Dejarme Solo, Canción Animal, Cuando Pase el Temblor, Entre Caníbales, Trátame Suavemente, Génesis, Signos, Persiana Americana, Juegos de Seducción, Té Para Tres, El Rito, No Existes, Primavera 0, Lo Que Sangra (La Cúpula) Corazón Delator, Ameba, Sweet Sahumerio, Prófugos, Trátame Suavemente, Imágenes Retro, Un Misil en mi Placard, Ángel Eléctrico. 

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Soda Stereo is to Spanish rock what the Beatles are to English rock. Don't get me wrong, of course there are huge differences between the two, and Soda doesn't even reach my absolute favorite... But look at it this way: Soda started like any band of its time, making music similar to that of its influences, The Cure and The Police, to name the most obvious, and with a strong 80s and New Wave influence in its style. Its sole purpose at the beginning was to more or less follow the trend, and at that time the Spanish rock scene was nothing more than pop with juvenile and idiotic lyrics and danceable rhythms; just like the Beatles and English rock 20 years earlier. Later, they began to distance themselves from this movement, gradually distinguishing themselves from their contemporaries and slowly evolving with each album, until they achieved their own sound and were no longer a bland copy of other bands… just like the Beatles. Subsequently, they became a musically mature group, moving away from danceable rhythms. Although they couldn't completely avoid maintaining an 80s style, they completely broke away from the New Wave trend, consolidating a new style of rock, purer and more rooted, but with local influences, opening doors for other Spanish-language rock bands on the continent and inaugurating a golden age of rock in this language. Guess what! The Beatles did the same thing 20 years earlier, leading the so-called “British Invasion” and the “Summer of Love of '67.”

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Soda Stereo, then, didn't revolutionize or invent practically anything. It had all been done 20 years earlier in London. Their merit lies in having brought Spanish-language rock out of its infancy and given it strength and its own character, leading it to a maturity in lyrics and music and freeing it from the eternal clichés of girls, itching powder, and other nonsense in which it had been stuck since Los Locos del Ritmo and Hombres G. Speaking of them, many consider the Madrid band to be the Beatles of Spanish. They also had something to do with it, and I don't dislike them entirely, but I can only partially agree with this assertion. Hombres G are the Beatles in their preppy phase of easy, simplistic rock and roll, and that's where they remained even after their degrading reunion when they were almost fifty. Soda Stereo are the Beatles already hippie-ish and experimental, who took music to extremes that hadn't existed before in this language, or if they had, they were underground and not a unified and directed movement. I therefore consider Soda Stereo the revolutionaries, consolidators, and gurus of rock in Spanish.

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Before them, there were also great bands and solo artists who broke the mold, but none ever achieved the massive momentum that Soda Stereo brought. It's also worth noting that Stereo had some luck, since the stagnation of rock was partly due to the repression and censorship prevalent on the continent. In the 80s, things began to open up more as some dictatorships fell. Young people, who had so much pent-up anger and expression, began to understand the changing times and gradually started to infuse their lyrics with greater depth. Franco's regime fell in Spain, the Argentine dictatorship ended, the Dirty War in Mexico came to a close, and Pinochet would soon fall in Chile. Young people began to be more daring, somewhat subtly, but now without fear of repression, releasing all the feelings that had been dormant during the oppression. Soda Stereo did so through surreal lyrics, often bordering on eroticism, but sometimes with underlying political references, as in "La Ciudad de la Furia" (The City of Fury). Others, like Los Fabulosos Cadillacs and Bersuit Vergarabat, would do it in a much more raw and direct way. A very subtle example of the direction of their lyrics can be found in "Dietético," from their debut album. Despite being a typical disco song with seemingly silly lyrics, it already offers a timid critique of superficial and shallow things, and I could swear that at the end, when Cerati shouts "The regime is over, it's over," they're making their first political statement rather than just uttering an empty phrase about a diet. Wordplay, indeed.

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But let's take it one step at a time. Soda Stereo was formed in 1982 in Buenos Aires through a series of lucky breaks (just like the Beatles, wow!). The first to meet were Gustavo Cerati and Zeta Bosio, who were playing in different bands and crossed paths with them in Uruguay. There, a lasting friendship blossomed when Cerati was left penniless and unable to return to his former life, and Bosio helped him out by bringing him into his band. The friendship grew in part due to their dissatisfaction with their respective groups and the shared dream of forming a band with a style similar to that of The Police, who at that time were the undisputed kings of the genre. Thus began several projects, eventually including Andrés Calamaro, another Argentine musical icon. Another coincidence was Charly Alberti. They met him not through music, but because Charly, much younger, was courting Gustavo's sister. The relationship began with mutual suspicion between the prospective brothers-in-law, but during a phone conversation, it came to light that Charly was the son of Tito Alberti, one of Argentina's greatest jazz drummers. This is how Stereotypes was born, the first name of the immortal Soda Stereo; (Like the Beatles, the final name came from a play on words with a previous name, GADAME!).

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For a time, Richard Coleman joined as a second guitarist, but he left when he realized he was negatively impacting the group's sound. Once again a trio, with Cerati as the undisputed creative and stage leader, they began playing in Buenos Aires nightclubs. Despite their accessible songs, heavily influenced by New Wave, like so many other bands, they immediately stood out. Their demos began to get airplay on the radio, and they climbed the ranks in Buenos Aires' nightlife scene, eventually reaching the city's best bars and clubs. After impressing a producer during one of these performances, plans began to record an LP. The dictatorship collapsed at the end of '83 after the defeat in the Falklands War, and the album was made up of songs written before this event. Therefore, they didn't manage to include many political references, except for the aforementioned "Dietético" and the phrase "with which I could bet, they made the rest of the song." During the recording, Daniel Melero played saxophone, a title he would share with Alfredo Lois, who was in charge of the band's visual effects and videos, and with Tweety González on keyboards, for the title of "fourth Soda Stereo" until the end of the band's era. In December of '84 they presented their debut album live with a sold-out crowd at their first massive concert.

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In 1985, they released their second album: "Nada Personal" (Nothing Personal). Although "Trátame Suavemente" (Treat Me Gently) from their previous album had already hinted at their tremendous talent, a slight evolution began to be noticeable on this second LP. They managed to place three tracks that remain classics to this day: "Nada Personal," "Juegos de Seducción" (Games of Seduction), and "Cuando Pase el Temblor" (When the Earthquake Passes). "Imágenes Retro" (Retro Images) isn't a classic, but even though it's very much an '80s song, it stands out from the rest of the material. The lyrics begin to become more dreamlike and surreal, at least in these tracks. And "Cuando Pase" became a controversial song when, some time later, it was linked to masturbation. Cerati began to avoid adolescent themes and, with this song, initiated his inclination towards lyrics with erotic references. This song itself was very revolutionary for its time; even today, the debate about the song's theme continues, and Gustavo himself has refused to reveal what inspired it. "Ecos" (Echoes) at times even has Floydian sounds; Although the lyrics aren't the most outstanding, Bosio's bass work on this track is top-notch.

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After the album's success and several appearances at various festivals, Soda Stereo was rapidly gaining popularity throughout the rest of Latin America, making a regional tour essential. This was unprecedented for any Latin American band. Until then, bands typically toured only within their own country (or perhaps a neighboring one), and that was it. Soda Stereo already had a name that made it necessary to break this paradigm (guess who else!). They started in Chile, and the euphoria was so intense they couldn't leave the hotel (ahem, cough cough, Sodamania, cough cough, Beatlemania, cough cough). They continued on to Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, returned to Chile, went to Paraguay, and then back to Buenos Aires.

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After the extensive and exhausting tour, they returned to the studio in 1986, creating their first truly revolutionary album, one that finally opened doors for other bands in Latin America. Signos marked Soda Stereo's maturity as a band and Gustavo's as a lyricist. It signified both a break with New Wave and the inauguration of a new era: the era of Rock en Ñ (Rock in Spanish). From this album onward, and no other, bands across the subcontinent began to question what they were doing and changed direction to embrace it. It would take a couple more years for this shift to solidify, but Soda Stereo rallied the best bands to their cause. The charts slowly ceased to be filled with inane lyrics and three-note dance rhythms, and Rock en Ñ finally came of age. This album was a watershed moment, not only for Soda Stereo, who managed to create an album with virtually no filler (even "Prófugos," a danceable, 80s-style song, stands out for its incredibly complex opening riff), but for the entire region. Doble Vida, from 1988, was a bit more daring and experimental. Without this revolutionary album, it's possible that no record label would have opened its doors to such risky projects at the time as Héroes del Silencio, Café Tacuba (two years later), La Maldita Vecindad, the daring lyrics and rhythms of Caifanes' second album wouldn't have received the massive acclaim in Mexico (Rolling Stones????) that the Argentinians' success had, and the risky lyrics of other Argentinian, Chilean, and Colombian bands that were taken to the extreme wouldn't have found support. Again, Floydian sounds are combined with mature 80s sounds in "En el Borde," and they even dare to add an English rap to the song… WITH SUCCESS! The tour that followed this album cemented their status as absolute gods in the Southern Hemisphere, with "Ciudad De la Furia" as its spearhead. As I've already mentioned, this song is a veiled yet furious anthem against oppression, and it quickly became an anthem in every Latin American country. Doble Vida isn't even Soda Stereo's best album, just as Sgt. Pepper's wasn't for the Beatles; but it is, in turn, the most revolutionary album in Latin American rock. Period.

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In contrast, "Canción Animal" from 1990 is, in my very personal opinion, the best Spanish-language rock album to date, perhaps only slightly behind "Al Final de Este Viaje" and "Silvio," and tied with "19 Días y 500 Noches," even though none of them are rock. In other words, excluding these non-rock albums, "Canción Animal" is the best Spanish-language album ever made, a title only contested by "Re" by Los Cafetos, "El Circo" by Los Malditos, and "El Nervio del Volcán" by Los Caifos, which escort it in an honorable and very Mexican second place. Furthermore, its cover design was censored, like the… (errrr?? White Album??). If "Doble Vida" is a sublime album, "Canción Animal" surpasses it. The masses, for the first time showing a counterpoint to my theory, catapulted it to the top of the charts, achieving multiple platinum records in several countries, and Soda Stereo became the undisputed god of Spanish-language rock just as various groups across the globe were beginning to threaten them, having taken advantage of the newly opened door. Soda continued to advance without relinquishing their crown. The lyrics shifted entirely towards an eroticism and politicization disguised with influences from Borges, Cortázar, and Sabato, becoming increasingly exquisite, complex, surreal, and existential. There are, of course, some lesser songs. But these could have been classics on any previous album.

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After the extensive tour that preceded the album, which took them to Mexico, sharing the stage with Caifanes, Soda was exhausted. Cerati, Bosio, and Alberti, after eight years of nonstop touring, after packing 9 de Julio Avenue with over a quarter of a million people for a free concert, after being unanimously proclaimed Latin kings, Soda Stereo reached the pinnacle of success. Musically, Zeta had established himself as one of the continent's best bassists, shining on "Hombre al Agua," "Canción Animal," and "Entre Caníbales." Charly had confirmed his mastery of the drums, and Cerati had reached his peak as a lyricist throughout the album, with "Un Millón De Años Luz" showcasing his finest guitar playing. Tired of fame and touring, the members of Soda Stereo pursued different personal projects. Gustavo recorded an album with Daniel Melero called "Colores Santos" (highly recommended) and released his first solo album, "Amor Amarillo," with a sound much more reminiscent of Soda Stereo's next album. Zeta and Charly also embarked on their own projects.

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After the break, they returned to the studio to revolutionize their sound one last time. In 1992, Soda Stereo released an album that would break (again) with any trend to date: Dynamo, a completely experimental album and one of the most underrated and overlooked albums in Spanish-language rock. Suffice it to say that it's one of the trio's lowest-selling albums, but one of the three best in their history, in my opinion. Full of sequences, loop experiments, electronic effects, and Gustavo's experiments with his pedalboard, the album is brimming with atmospheres far ahead of its time. It's more like a Gustavo solo album than a typical Soda Stereo album. But Zeta and Charly also deliver outstanding performances. It didn't achieve the same level of exposure or sales, both due to the risky nature of the project and the change of record label, but it contains classics like "Luna Roja" and "Primavera 0." We'll delve deeper into it later.

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By this time, Soda Stereo had completely dominated radio stations and television channels like MTV. In 1995, they decided to change course from Dynamo and release a much more accommodating album, "Sueño Stereo," which would be their last studio album. The songwriting quality declined noticeably on most of the tracks, but three melodies stand out and became instant anthems for the new generation, myself included: "Ella Usó Mi Cabeza Como Un Revólver" (She Used My Head Like a Revolver), whose video with two guys in sombreros and horn-heads became a classic (and I hate all kinds of videos), as did the megahit "Zoom." "Disco Eterno" (Eternal Album) also stands out, and "Ángel Eléctrico" (Electric Angel) is a bit of a highlight. The rest, unfortunately, falls far short of what they showed on their two previous albums. Even so, “Sueño Stereo” cemented Soda Stereo's status as an icon and eliminated any competition in the Spanish-language music scene, confirming their position at the top during the golden age of Spanish-language rock and placing them in the top three spots on the radio charts simultaneously (Like Who?).

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In 1996, Soda Stereo recorded a semi-unplugged album called “Comfort y Música Para Volar” (Comfort and Music to Fly), in which Cerati's sound reached its peak with that of Pink Floyd, and Andrea Echeverri, from Atercipelados, gave a new dimension to “Ciudad de la Furia” (City of Fury). Besides the opening track, now more famous than the original, the closing bonus track, “Génesis,” is a masterful, previously unreleased interpretation, even if it is a cover! Well, everything that begins must end. Unbeatable at the top, Soda Stereo (Gustavo, perhaps?) decided to end the cycle. They abruptly began a farewell tour in 1997, after more than 15 years since their formation. In this live recording they revisit their best compositions, renewing the sound of the older ones and giving them a new nineties freshness. And just like that, the famous phrase "We wouldn't have been anything without you, not only without you, but also without all the people who were around us from the beginning; some are still with us today... THANK YOU... SO MUCH!!!" becomes mythical and part of the Latin American collective subconscious.

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The breakup occurred amidst many, many, many rumors that were never corroborated. In the tabloids, the one that sold best was that Gustavo, being an incorrigible Don Juan, had slept with Charly's wife. The more objective accounts pointed to musical and professional differences. The truth (and I don't buy the Cerati sleeping with Charly's wife story) is that Soda Stereo had to die there, before eliciting pity, before risking being overtaken by musical evolution... That's why Soda Stereo is the giant it is. Unlike the Beatles, and although they stand out from their contemporaries, their early albums are very weak and lack depth. Believe me, I thought long and hard about the rating I should give them, but now I think a "C" is the most fitting. Stereo didn't really differentiate themselves much from the rest of the scene until their third album. After reaching their peak, they settled into a lull, releasing only a few live albums with some decent songs, but mostly without adding much to the originals. Soda Stereo fell apart (Last comparison, I promise!) at their peak, in their greatest glory, just like the Beatles… And the gap remains…

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Soda Stereo changed the way rock in Spanish was made and felt. Their lyrics and harmonies are pretty silly at first, and that's why I primarily categorize them as a "B"; but they knew how to break the mold, reinvent themselves, create a new style, and generally revolutionize the Spanish-language rock scene, which is why I rank them so highly for a rock band that I dare say no other will reach their level for a long time.

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In 2007, possibly the three of them, fed up with the constant questions about when they would reunite. Soda Stereo reunited in every place they played separately, embarking on a reunion tour of major cities. This tour was the only time I saw them live, and it was quite an event. For more details, look up that concert review. Finally, until recently, I was one of the many who swore that Soda Stereo was Gustavo Cerati. I didn't realize my mistake until I heard their last tour. One of the differences with the Liverpool band is that Soda Stereo only had one great genius, not two or three. But similarly, the other two members of Soda Stereo are decisive in their roles, precise, decisive, tremendous. And you don't miss them until you hear them. Zeta and Charly are perhaps only a third or a quarter of Soda Stereo between them. But without them, seeing Gustavo is just that: seeing Gustavo as a solo artist. And it's VERY different. Very hollow. Like seeing Bunbury with all the mastery of "El Huracán," but without the power of Héroes del Silencio. Anyway. Soda Stereo is Soda Stereo… And I'm done. I saw it.

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Lineup: And if you don't know them, I suggest you visit a Britney Spears, 50 Cent, or RBD blog instead of wasting your time here… I'd be a complete jerk if I didn't include Daniel Melero on sax, Alfredo Lois for the incredibly effective visual effects and videos, and Tweety González on the always reliable keyboards. They all equally deserve to be called "The Fourth Soda," even up until the 2007 tour.

 

Charly Alberti. Drummer. His real name is Carlos Ficcichia. Son of the renowned jazz drummer, Tito Alberti. The most underrated member of the band. But without him, we couldn't talk about songs like "Zoom," "Ella Usó Mi Cabeza," "Nada Personal," "Ciudad De La Furia"... Charly Alberti can be replaced by any respectable drummer for any Soda cover… But to sound like Soda, only he can.

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Zeta Bosio: Bassist. His full name is Héctor Pedro Juan Bosio. He started out playing fairly simple pentatonic sequences. Over time, he became one of the leading bassists in Spanish-language rock, perhaps not carrying the weight of every song, but building increasingly complex bass structures, eventually reaching the level of Sabo Romo in terms of quality and Juan Calleros in terms of precision. Zeta managed to carry the band on his shoulders on their later albums, standing out like no other bassist in Latin rock, although this was partly due to the other projects Gustavo had in mind. Along with Sabo, he's one of my bass idols in Spanish-language rock.

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Gustavo Cerati. Many consider him the one and only true Soda Stereo. To me, this seems as ridiculous as considering Bunbury the only "Hero." Nope. Cerati is the voice that never stands out, never reaches unreachable registers, never pushes the limits, but always leaves its own mark without sounding out of place. As a lyricist, he tends toward surreal, dreamlike states, almost always leaning toward eroticism, although rarely directly related to it, and even less so to politics, although such instances do occur. He remains an egomaniac, always the focus of the band's attention, confused, and ultimately, introspective, sensual, and an incorrigible Don Juan; which presumably led to the band's end. On guitar, he is quite skillful and creative. He achieves tremendous arrangements on the six strings, always with the help of his pedalboard. He is definitely not a Hendrix, but he is perhaps the best guitarist and vocalist in Spanish-language rock.

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Ladies and gentlemen: SODA STEREO… Totally THANK YOU!!!

 

 

By Corvan 

jan/13/2008

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