029-Bossa Nova and Middle-Class Melancholy

What this episode covers

This episode begins by asking the deceptively difficult question: what is the middle class? Moreover, what is the middle class's relationship to music? In the second segment, I discuss the rise of the middle class in Brazil alongside the increasing popularity of the samba, along with middle-class criticisms of the Afro-Brazilian genre and Brazilian representation abroad as embodied by Carmen Miranda. In the third segment, I delve into the musical characteristics of Bossa Nova and the manner in which they encourage, reflect, and model a middle-class sensibility. Might its success in this account for its relatively short lifespan as a truly popular genre? The photograph of the Palacio do Planalto used for the episode art comes courtesy of Ministério da Cultura (Creative Commons license) and can be found HERE: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homologação_do_tombamento_de_obras_do_Niemeyer_(35035168191).jpg.

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This episode is 50 minutes long.

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This episode was published on January 31, 2021.

What is this episode about?

This episode begins by asking the deceptively difficult question: what is the middle class? Moreover, what is the middle class's relationship to music? In the second segment, I discuss the rise of the middle class in Brazil alongside the increasing...

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