João Gilberto: Chega de Saudade 180g Clear Vinyl

Why you'll love it

This Wax Time edition comes on 180g clear vinyl and adds eight bonus tracks to the original album. Chega de Saudade went into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001, and Brazil's Discoteca Básica poll of 162 music experts ranked it third among the country's 500 greatest records.

This edition

180g vinyl
Clear vinyl
8 bonus tracks

About the album

The Portuguese word saudade doesn't translate neatly; "longing" gets you halfway there. Chega de Saudade, roughly "enough with longing," is the record where João Gilberto, a soft-spoken guitarist from Bahia, set a new kind of samba to a hushed voice and a syncopated guitar pattern, and Brazilian music changed course.

The title song, by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, is the founding text, with Jobim arranging around Gilberto's intimate delivery. "Desafinado" caught the ear of the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo when the album came out, which praised his musicality, his unorthodox good taste in melodies and the sobriety of his singing, and the album's short, perfectly poised songs, many of them barely two minutes long, went on to inspire a generation, from Stan Getz to Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.

In 2007 Rolling Stone Brazil named it the fourth best Brazilian album in history, and in 2024 the Los 600 de Latinoamérica ranking placed it seventh across a century of Latin American music. Gilberto never needed volume to make his point, and frankly neither does your stereo.

Also at Kops: more João Gilberto on vinyl · browse World