ARRIGO BARNABÉ – Acapulco Drive-In (1985)

Arrigo Barnabé is a prominent Brazilian composer, singer, pianist, and actor, known for his experimental approach mixing classical avant-garde techniques with popular music. Barnabé is best known for an experimental musical style rooted in avant-garde classical techniques — especially dodecaphonism (the twelve-tone technique) and atonalism — blended with popular music, rock, theatrical/performance elements, social commentary, often with sharp, poetic lyrics about urban life.

Show “Tubarões Voadores” de Arrigo Barnabé, “Acapulco Drive-In” feat. Vania Bastos (vocal), Bozo Barreti (keyboards), Tonho Penhasco (guitar), Otavio Fialho (bass), Paulo “Patife ” Barnabé (percussion), Duda Neves (drums). Recorded by TV Cultura, live at Sesc Pompéia, 1985.

Arrigo Barnabé was one of the leading figures of the “Vanguarda Paulista” (Paulista Avantgarde) movement in São Paulo in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which brought together artists who fused pop, rock, experiment, and high artistic ambition in their songwriting and performance.

His debut album Clara Crocodilo (1980) is especially important. It was critically acclaimed and considered by many as one of the most significant innovations in Brazilian popular music since the Tropicália movement.

Another noted album is Tubarões Voadores (1984), also experimental, based in part on a story by the cartoonist Luiz Gê. He has also composed soundtracks for films, acted, and in recent years has continued to be active: releasing new music, live shows, radio programmes, and being the subject of a documentary about his 40+ year career.

His work is seen as pushing the boundaries of what “popular music” in Brazil could be — blending the experimental, the theatrical, and the subversive with social commentary. Critically, “Clara Crocodilo” is considered a landmark album, and Barnabé is often cited as one of the most original voices in Brazilian music of his generation.