Chico Buarque – Vida

With different classics songs, 'Vida' showcases an artist in an exuberant phase, inspired by lyrics, music, and singing. At 36 years old, even while recording songs that had already been hits on classic albums, such as 'Bastidores' (which revived Cauby Peixoto's career) and 'Morena de Angola' (which became a hit with Clara Nunes), Chico Buarque proves himself an excellent interpreter of his own work. Released in December 1980, when, amid bombs and attacks, Brazil was rehearsing it's redemocratisation, the album features an artist less targeted by censorship. In the irresistible dance hall samba 'Deixa a Menina', he has fun, fitting in a feminist response to Geraldo Pereira's syncopated classic 'Sem Compromisso': 'Behind a sad man, there's always a happy woman/And behind that woman, a thousand men, always so kind'.