Consumer Guide Album

Gilberto Gil: Soy Loco Por Ti America [Braziloid, 1988]
Milton Nascimento and Caetano Veloso are aesthetes like, to be kind, Joni Mitchell; Gil is a pop adept like Stevie Wonder, which I'd probably think was kind to Stevie if I understood Gil's lyrics. A warm-voiced natural melodist at home with Afro-American rhythms of every latitude, he's tried to break here with tours and Anglophone flops and reggae albums. Only Brazil fans have taken much notice--Nascimento and Veloso get much snazzier institutional support--and this effortlessly funky tour de force, the finest Gil album I know, probably won't do the trick either, but go for it. I find most Brazilian music genteel myself. Gil ain't, and this definitely ain't. A-