The town of Curitiba sits in the southern part of Brazil, a flat and humid outpost in the largest country on the South American continent. With a population of 2 million, it’s no small town, but it has neither the bustle of São Paulo and its 20 million people, nor the glitz and glamour of Rio de Janerio.
But there is a nascent-yet-vibrant music scene. The sounds span the spectrum of modern day Brazilian music from rock, bossa nova and “funk carioca” to the all-encompassing genre known as MPB, short for Brazilian Popular Music. In 2009, a ragtag group emerged from this scene, a group that included members of various bands, some solo musicians and even one professional actress.
They called themselves A Banda Mais Bonita da Cidade, which translates loosely from Portuguese into English as “The Most Beautiful Band in the City,” a moniker inspired by the Charles Bukowski poem “The Most Beautiful Woman In Town.”
While some members brought original songs from their side projects (guitarist Rodrigo Lemos, for example, has a solo act called Lemoskine which contributes some songs to the setlists), they focused mostly on reinterpreting other people’s songs—songs by songwriters in their community, friends and other bands they admired. It was fun—a weekend thing.
Then, in November of 2010 they came up with the idea of making a video to spread to their friends and family as a Christmas gift. The song was “Oração” by their friend Leo Fressato. Well, they didn’t get it done in time for Christmas. In fact it wasn’t until February that they got around to filming. In May, almost as an afterthought, they put it up on YouTube. By the end of that week, the video had over a million views. By the end of the month, five million. Suddenly, they were superstars.
They hadn’t expected or even sought it. After all, they’d put their music on YouTube before. “We had a few videos online,” says Lemos. “One of them was already very popular, for us.” That song, “Canção Pra Não Voltar” had about 10,000 views, what seemed like the pinnacle of exposure at the time. “That was…wow!” says Lemos. “Too high of a number for us.”
But with “Oração” the views kept coming and so did the local press. As word spread, demand did too. The band had yet to release an album and had played only about a dozen shows.
To understand this rapid ascent, it helps to know what drew them to the song and the communal aspects that were ascribed to it. “This song is kind of a mantra,” says Lemos. “[Fressato had] a small gig for 50 people and the people kept leading the song in a way that he lost control. So the song doesn’t belong to him anymore. It belongs to the people. We were very impressed by the power of the song. So we asked him to let us make a version and then we decided to make a video with all the friends who were there.”