''A Mão de Mao'' ( Portuguese for "'' Mao's Hand''") is the second studio album by

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

ian band Metrô, released in

1987 Events January * January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency. * January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade. * January 3 – Afghan leader ...

Epic Records Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), cong ...

. It was the band's only album to feature Pedro d'Orey on vocals, replacing Virginie Boutaud who was fired the year prior.

Background

By 1985 Metrô was one of the most successful Brazilian bands, extensively touring and performing in numerous

variety show Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a comp� ...

s of the time; however, then-vocalist Virginie Boutaud was growing exhausted from the band's convoluted touring schedule, and her bandmates planned to shift from the pop-influenced style of their previous album '' Olhar'' to a more "mature" and "daring" direction influenced by Barão Vermelho,

Legião Urbana Legião Urbana (Portuguese for Urban Legion) was a Brazilian rock band formed in 1982 in Brasília, Federal District (Brazil), Distrito Federal. The band primarily consisted of Renato Russo (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards), Dado Villa-Lobos ...

and

Titãs Titãs (, Portuguese for Titans) are a Brazilian Rock music, rock band from São Paulo. Though they primarily are classified as a rock band, the band have also experimented with genres such as New wave music, new wave, punk rock, ska, grunge, M� ...

, who were some of the most influential

Brazilian rock Brazilian rock refers to rock music produced in Brazil and usually sung in Portuguese language, Portuguese. In the 1960s, it was known as , the Portuguese transcription of the line "Yeah, yeah, yeah" from the Beatles song "She Loves You". Overv ...

acts at the time.''Bizz'' magazine, "Metrô correndo em linha nova" – May 1987 issue
Numerous creative divergences and frictions led to a deterioration of the relations between Virginie and her bandmates, and she was eventually fired from the band in 1986. Portuguese musician Pedro d'Orey, better known by his stage name Pedro Parq, was chosen as Virginie's replacement after the Metrô bandmembers listened to his work with Mler Ife Dada, of which he was one of its founding members – D'Orey recently had parted ways with the band at the time, and was living in

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

. With D'Orey, the band embraced a more experimental style nearly reminiscent of their earlier material as A Gota Suspensa, removing almost completely the

synth-pop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s b ...

elements prominent in Metrô's previous album. The band initially planned to change its name from Metrô to Tristes Tigres ("Sad Tigers"),''Bizz'' magazine, "Tigres de Pele Trocada" – September 1986 issue
but their record label

Epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

did not allow them. Despite positive reception and the moderate success of singles "Gato Preto" and "Lágrimas Imóveis", ''A Mão de Mao'' was considered a commercial failure. The band's new musical direction heavily alienated its fans, and not being able to recover their former success, Metrô split up in 1988. They endured a 15-year hiatus before reuniting with Virginie for a new album, '' Déjà-Vu''. The album's title is a reference to former Chinese leader

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; traditionally Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Mao Tse-tung. (26December 18939September 1976) was a Chinese politician, revolutionary, and political theorist who founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in ...

. According to Pedro d'Orey, he thought of the album's title after reading a recently published biography of Mao regarding his private life, and wanting to write a song thinking of him "more as a human being than as a dictator".

Track listing

Personnel

* Pedro Parq (Pedro d'Orey) – vocals * Daniel "Dany" Roland – drums * Xavier Leblanc – bass guitar * Yann Laouenan – keyboards * Alec Haiat – electric guitar * Philippe Amey –

bagpipes Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, N ...

(track 1) * Luiz Cláudio Faria –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

(tracks 4 and 5) * Luiz Carlos Maluly – production * Fernando Zarif – photography, cover art

References

External links

''A Mão de Mao'' on Metrô's semi-official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mao De Mao, A 1987 albums 1980s Portuguese-language albums Epic Records albums Metrô (band) albums