Recorded music in Brazil: a study of the development and the phonographic production of the record company Baratos Afins, "the pioneer of the independents" (1981-2013)

• Grant number: 13/26424-1
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: April 01, 2014
• End date: March 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Marcia Regina Tosta Dias
• Grantee: Marcia Regina Tosta Dias
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project aims to carry out a research about the record company Baratos Afins, in business since 1981 in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. This independent record company is linked to a record store that carries the same name and was founded in 1978 in the Grandes Galerias building in downtown, São Paulo. It began its phonographic activities by the planning and recording of Singing Alone, an album by Arnaldo Baptista that was released in 1982. Baratos Afins has been managed by businessman and music producer Luiz Carlos Calanca and has regularly produced albums from various genres and musical styles, from a variety of kinds of rock' n' roll to Brazilian popular music, Brazilian instrumental music and jazz. The record company has also released reissues of albums made by major companies, as well as only distributed albums made by other independent companies.The research aims to exams how the albums were made by the record company Baratos Afins (from the selection of artists and repertoire to the production system - testing, studio work, recording, fabrication, album cover/graphic work, and finishing point) to shows, release, and sales strategies. This investigation intends to reveal not only specific aspects of how independent record companies act, but also understanding how such social agents have collaborated on the diversification of recorded music supply beyond that one offered by major record companies. It is expected that the survey may also reveal information on technical, economic, aesthetic, institutional, and political transformations that recorded music has been facing lately and the cultural scenes featured by these three decades of Baratos Afins record company. More broadly, it is to understand how music enhances every day the distinguished place it occupies in the overall cultural life. In this cultural life, recorded music has been shown to prime synthesis of the various dimensions of social life. (AU)