Os Mutantes is the debut eponymous album by the Brazilian tropicalia band Os Mutantes. It was originally released in 1968 by Polydor and blends traditional Brazilian music styles with American and British psychedelia. The album includes a cover of The Mamas & The Papas' "Once Was a Time I Thought", translated into "Tempo no Tempo", and a cover of "Le premier bonheur du jour", previously recorded by Françoise Hardy. It was reissued in 1999 on Omplatten Records and again in 2006 by Omplatten's parent company, Universal Records. The album has received critical acclaimed around the world, and was put at #12 on Mojo magazine list of "50 Most Out-There Albums of All Time". It appears at number 9 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of 100 greatest Brazilian albums of all time. It is also listed at 39 on the Rollingstones Top 40 Stoner albums. It also appears at number 9 on the Rolling Stones's 10 Greatest Latin Rock Albums of All Time.
Background
Os Mutantes debuted at a TV Record show, which went on air before the Jovem Guarda show, called O Pequeno Mundo de Ronnie Von. The band was in charge of the soundtrack, mostly playing rock versions of erudite compositions, and also covering hits of The Beatles and other bands. After their debut, the band was invited to be a part of many other shows, including Jovem Guarda itself, but they ended up being rejected because they wouldn't accept the many instruments the band would use on stage. In 1967 they met Gilberto Gil, through Rogério Duprat. They recorded two songs with Gil: "Bom Dia" and "Domingo No Parque"; with the last one, they participated of the tropicalist debut in the III Festival de Música Popular Brasileira, where they were awarded with the second place. After that, they started to get more involved with the tropicalist movement, being a part of memorable moments such as the presentation of the song "É Proibido Proibir" at the III Festival Internacional da Canção, where they got booed; and at the showDivino, Maravilhoso, the last major tropicalist manifestation. The band was also a part of the "manifest-disc", one of the greatest albums of Brazilian music, participied in Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso albums and made television commercials and jingles for Shell.
Reception
called the album "a wildly inventive trip that assimilates orchestral pop, whimsical psychedelia, musique concrète, found-sound environments, fuzztone guitars and go-go basslines," concluding that "it's far more experimental than any of the albums produced by the era's first-rate psychedelic bands of Britain or America." Crawdaddy stated that non-Portuguese speakers "might have no idea what the psychedelic popsters are singing about, but the wild inventiveness and playful hooks of their debut speak loudly enough. The record was deeply influenced by the musiccoming out of the US and the UK at the time, but Os Mutantes were breaking new ground."
