Portuguese rock

From Freepedia

The neutrality of this article is disputed.

Please see discussion on the talk page.

The Portuguese rock scene hit mainstream in 1980 with the release of Ar de Rock by Rui Veloso, which was the first popular Portuguese rock song. Before that, Portugal had a vibrant underground progressive rock scene in the 1970s, which included bands like Tantra (Misterios E Maravilhas) and Jose Cid (10 000 Anos Depois Entre Venus E Marte).

In the 1980s, Veloso's success lead to the creation of several rock and roll bands, which became popular with youths growing up in the post-1974 modernized Portugal. Xutos & Pontapés are arguably the biggest success case in the Portuguese rock scene, becoming the first band in the country to celebrate 25 years of career. Their early works had close roots to punk and rockabilly, but later incorporated folk influences into their sound, becoming more diverse. UHF was another band that started in the early 80s. Visually, they resembled the hard rock-playing hair bands that popped up in America and Europe, but, like Xutos, their sound used a lot of folk influences.

Other projects include GNR, Taxi and Jafumega, which turned to ska as an inspiration. GNR abandoned ska after two years when they changed vocalists, with more poetic, although nonsensical lyrics, and a bigger use of synth pop sounds.

During the mid 80s, synth pop became even more prevalent in Portuguese rock. Following the success of Heróis do Mar, which were heavily influenced by acts such as Joy Division and Gary Numan. Combining the modern synth sounds with lyrics exalting the virtues of Portuguese history, they attracted controversy by being accused of being political reactionaries and supportive of the extinct dictatorial regime. Heróis do Mar disbanded in 1985, but their momentum was taken by other projects, from Rádio Macau to Mler Ife Dada. With each band having their own signature sound, Portuguese rock became very rich, spanning a wide variety of themes, not reaching the homogenisation seen in most English language international projects.

Image:Musicalnotes.png

This article about a music genre is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

World rock