''Televisão'' (''Television'') is the second studio album by
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 ...
band
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� ...
, released in 1985 via
WEA.
It is the first album to feature drummer
Charles Gavin
Charles de Souza Gavin (born 9 July 1960) is a Brazilian drummer and music producer, perhaps best known for his 25-year tenure with rock band Titãs. Before Titãs, he had brief stints at Ira! and RPM.
Early life and first works
At age 8, his ...
, following
André Jung's departure in the previous year.
''Televisão'' was conceived to mimic a television, in that each track represented a channel, i.e. tracks would navigate between musical genres just like different kinds of programs could be watched by switching channels.
The cover picture wasn't edited so it would look like a TV screenshot; the band was effectively filmed by a camera and the images were broadcast to a television, and the photographer took a picture of its screen.
It was the band's first album produced by
Lulu Santos, who was chosen in order to create a different sound from other Brazilian rock bands of that time.
In 1998, when asked about the destiny of the character Dona Nenê from the homonymous song, the band said "it's a mystery as of today" and that "no one knows where she is".
During a performance of "Massacre" at
Marília Gabriela's program, politician
Jânio Quadros
Jânio da Silva Quadros (; 25 January 1917 – 16 February 1992) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd president of Brazil from 31 January to 25 August 1961, when he resigned from office. He also served as the 24th a ...
protested, saying "that wansn't music" and that it was "crap".
The album sold a total of 100,000 copies, but only 25,000 initially, which was considered a "relative failure" by the band.
In a 2006 article, vocalist and keyboardist
Sérgio Britto
Sérgio de Britto Álvares Affonso (; born September 18, 1959), known as Sérgio Britto, is a Brazilian musician. He is a member of the rock band Titãs, for which he contributes lead vocals, keyboards and, more recently, bass guitar. He has als ...
commented that tracks such as "Televisão", "Massacre", "Pavimentação" and "Autonomia" hinted the musical direction the band would take in their next album, ''
Cabeça Dinossauro''.
Track listing
Personnel
*
Arnaldo Antunes
Arnaldo Antunes (, born Arnaldo Augusto Nora Antunes Filho, September 2, 1960) is a Brazilian singer, writer, and composer. He was a member of the rock band Titãs, which he co-founded in 1982 and left ten years later. After 1992, he embarked on ...
-
vocals
Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...
*
Branco Mello - Vocals
*
Nando Reis
Nando Reis (, born José Fernando Gomes dos Reis; January 12, 1963) is a Brazilian musician and producer, best known as the former bassist and one of the lead singers of Brazilian rock band Titãs and for his successful solo career, with his own ...
-
Bass
Bass or Basses may refer to:
Fish
* Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species
Wood
* Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree
Music
* Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...
, vocals
*
Charles Gavin
Charles de Souza Gavin (born 9 July 1960) is a Brazilian drummer and music producer, perhaps best known for his 25-year tenure with rock band Titãs. Before Titãs, he had brief stints at Ira! and RPM.
Early life and first works
At age 8, his ...
-
drums
The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...
,
Timpani
Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...
*
Sérgio Britto
Sérgio de Britto Álvares Affonso (; born September 18, 1959), known as Sérgio Britto, is a Brazilian musician. He is a member of the rock band Titãs, for which he contributes lead vocals, keyboards and, more recently, bass guitar. He has als ...
-
Keyboards, vocals
*
Paulo Miklos
Paulo Roberto de Souza Miklos (known as Paulo Miklos , born on January 21, 1959) is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, musician and actor. He is best known for his tenure with the band Titãs, in which he was a vocalist, guitarist and occasional ...
- Vocals, keyboards on tracks 2, 6 and 7, bass on track 5.
*
Marcelo Fromer
Marcelo Fromer (3 December 1961 – 13 June 2001) was a Brazilian musician who was the guitarist of the rock band Titãs. One of the founding members and also the band's manager, he died in 2001 after being hit by a motorcycle while jogging.
Ea ...
-
Rhythm & Lead Guitar
*
Tony Bellotto
Antonio Carlos Liberalli Bellotto (; born 30 June 1960) is a Brazilian musician, best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Titãs. He has also written and released several books.
Childhood
Bellotto spent his childhood in the city of A ...
-
Lead & Rhythm Guitar
Guest performances
*
Lulu Santos -
Lead guitar
Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...
on track 5, bass on track 4.
*
Leo Gandelman -
Saxophone
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...
on tracks 1 and 3.
Singles
"Televisão"
"Televisão" was released as the second single by Titãs in 1985. It would be later used as the credit music for ''
Beyond Citizen Kane''. Its chorus refers to someone named Cride - such person did exist; he was Euclides Gomes dos Santos, a close old friend of comedian
Ronald Golias.
Even though the song was released in 1985, it wasn't until 2014 that he met the band personally, when they performed in his hometown
São Carlos
São Carlos (Saint Charles, in English, ; named after Charles Borromeo, Saint Charles Borromeo) is a Brazilian city and municipality in the Interior of São Paulo, interior of the state of São Paulo, 254 kilometers from the city of São Paulo. ...
- he would die in the next year, at the age of 88.
[
The song is "a critical view of the screen present in our daily lives in a manner at times suffocating"] and it debates the role of television in one's dumbing down
Dumbing down is the deliberate oversimplification of intellectual content in education, literature, cinema, news, video games, and culture. Originating in 1933, the term "dumbing down" was movie-business slang, used by screenplay writers, meanin ...
process, though allowing one to notice one is a victim of this process.
The song is the opening theme of '' Tá no Ar'', of Rede Globo
TV Globo (stylized as tvglobo; , ), formerly known as Rede Globo de Televisão (; shortened to Rede Globo) or simply known as Globo, is a Brazilian free-to-air television network, launched by media proprietor Roberto Marinho on 26 April 1965 ...
, since its debut season in 2014. From Season 4 on, in 2017, a cover by Lulu Santos was implemented.
"Insensível"
"Insensível" was released as the third single by the band in 1985. An acoustic version of the song was later recorded and released on '' Volume Dois''.
The music video of "Insensível" shows the band performing on top of a building, with TV monitors behind them. From the half of the video on, a woman (presumably a geisha
{{Culture of Japan, Traditions, Geisha
{{nihongo, Geisha{{efn, {{IPAc-en, lang, ˈ, ɡ, eɪ, ., ʃ, ə, {{IPA, ja, ɡei.ɕa, ɡeː-, lang{{cite book, script-title=ja:NHK日本語発音アクセント新辞典, publisher=NHK Publishing, editor= ...
, given her very white face, red lips and Japanese eyes) starts appearing in the monitors.
Track listing
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Televisao
1985 albums
Titãs albums
Warner Music Group albums
1980s Portuguese-language albums