Hi, everyone. Beefthony Jerktano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this Gaby Amarantos record, Rock Doido.

Here we have a brand new album from Northern Brazilian singer Gabby Amarantos, a popular veteran artist over there who has been at it for decades now, first breaking through and making a name for herself in the 2000s as a part of the group Banda Tecno Show, with her profile only growing as she went solo — even winning a Grammy for her 2022 album TecnoShow.

Now, Gaby's career started at a very interesting time for Brazilian music. As her singing style does come from a generations' old tradition of brega music, which is a hilarious categorization of a genre, if you're unfamiliar, as the word literally does translate to "corny," essentially the same sentiment as saying something is cheesy. This category is mostly reserved for romantic numbers, dramatically sung pop ballads. Whether or not a song earns this label depends less on the aesthetics and the music and the instrumentation, and more on the performance, the sentiment, the tone.

Gaby cut her teeth in this style of music during a time when there was an increased amount of electronic instrumentation and new production tech influencing the way it sounded and how it was produced, which led to many fans, critics, and observers labeling this new wave as tecno brega.

Gaby has remained on this cutting edge and has continued to experiment and change with brega as it has evolved. And all of that experience, all of that taste, all of that everything culminates here, I believe, on this new album: a record that is just ooozing with ambition, variety, and creativity.

Off the bat, from what I understand, the title of this record is inspired by the idea of pulling off a performance and presentation that is about on the scale of a giant, over-the-top rock show. I think Gaby and her collaborators most definitely achieve that here; though, I would not go into this project expecting some KISS-style arena rock blowout.

But I do see the vision, and I will throw out a few other familiar parallels to compare this record with, for example, Bad Bunny's record El Último Tour del Mundo and the way he tried to specifically use that record to give fans something that sonically ran like a big live experience. I also think there are similarities one could draw to something like the recent Skrillex album, for example, which was almost like a DJ set masquerading as a new album. One could also look at Beyoncé's Renaissance as it is very much an ode to dance music, and it just did a really great job of crafting a tracklist that just had this endless sense of momentum to it.

But, I do want to stress these similarities and points of comparison are more in concept than they are in specific musical practice. Because make no mistake, for as diverse musically as this album is, this is very much a Brazilian experience stylistically, as I think Gaby on this project takes the latest and most significant steps that she can to keep brega and electronic music intertwined with a web of songs that, once again, are presented a lot like a DJ set. But not just any DJ set; specifically, a wild ass dance party in the street in the dead of night in front of a giant sound system, like one of those traveling reggae-style sound systems that you do also see crop up at all sorts of outside events and parties, be it in Brazil, or even in India.

Among the 22 tracks on this record, there are a lot of original ideas, but all of these songs, all of these tunes are buoyed with samples, drops, interpolations, and callbacks — some of which, honestly, I'm not even familiar enough with this genre to pick up on all of them. There are hype transitions, some guests too. It's like this continuous party, which is something that is also echoed in this recent Rock Doido film that Gaby dropped in promotion for this album. The entire video is this crazy, continuous shot where it's just this visual performance of dancers and different outfit changes and even fireworks... Hey, even some of those sound systems I was talking about earlier!

There's really a balancing act going on across this record in terms of giving the listener and giving the audience a lot of different songs, a lot of variety, but keeping the energy flowing and going as we move from moment to moment. Again, the fact that this is presented like a DJ set does make it easy for Gaby and her collaborators to collage all of these different ideas and sounds together. Whether you are getting brega music with those electronic elements and influences that I was talking about earlier, there are also tracks on here that are just straight up Brazilian funk, which has really been taking a lot of the underground by storm these days. You have tracks that dabble a bit in calypso as well as Afropop. And on top of that, of course, reggaeton and EDM, Arabian music, even Western pop, too.

There's a track smack-dab in the middle of this album that just straight up interpolates "Somebody That I Used To Know", which, again, is not the only nod or callback on this album. It just contributes to this wild, random, fun aspect to it where they're definitely smudging some rules with copyright here and there — playing it a little fast and loose, as it were.

But again, despite all these changes and different influences, I love the very focused and holistic Brazilian vision going into the sounds and aesthetics of this record. I'm also very blown away by how well Gaby's vocals play over every single one of these sounds, no matter what her and her collaborators are doing. Whether Gaby is shouting and rapping her way through a banger anthem, doing a track that is maybe more true to her Amazonian roots, or even delivering a romantic but hilarious ballad about a guy who she's head over heels for because he's just so into her and he's like, ugly. But just because he's ugly, that doesn't mean he doesn't have heart, doesn't have a soul; and he's endlessly devoted to her and also is willing to come by and "beat her jerky up" when need be. Yeah, regardless of what it is, Gaby sounds amazing on top of it.

The holistic experience of this record, even during some of its more chill moments, is just this kaleidoscopic experience, this endless rush of bop after bop after bop after bop. Because another thing that I find very surprising about this record is how catchy much of it is despite the fact that a lot of its ideas are not sticking around for very long. They're all just moving at a million miles an hour.

Insanely fun, exciting album. It's just endless hits, endless punches. Gaby's going crazy; this is her big ol' rock show, this is her Renaissance if you want to call it that. It's sounding amazing from my perspective. I mean, there are maybe a few chiller, more ballad-type cuts that don't quite fit in shoulder-to-shoulder with the bopperinos, but I feel like the only way this record could sound better is if it was blasting out of a sound system on wheels that was just going so loud I was about to just go deaf. But yeah, this thing is crazy as hell, fun as hell, and I'm feeling a strong 8 to a light 9 on it.

Anthony Fantano, Gaby, Forever.