C
Christiano
Guest
On January 2009, Father Fábio de Melo sold out two shows at Rio de Janeiro’s Canecão. The audience was composed mostly of women, who were there to watch the shooting of Melo’s DVD. Released late last year, his CD “Vida” (Life) sold 542,000 units in less than 100 days (in early February 2009, this number reached 600,000 CDs). Therefore, he became the number one singer in Brazil when it came to selling CDs. He was ahead of Father Marcelo Rossi, who was on the top of the ranking in 2006 and 2007 and who almost repeated the feat in 2008 with volumes 1 and 2 of his live CD “Paz Sim, Violência Não” (Yes Peace, No Violence) – till he was surpassed by his church colleague. While the laic record industry was stagnant, this market – in its catholic, as well as in its evangelical side – is unaware of the crisis. And, little by little, it breaks down the wall that separates it from the parades.
Globo TV Network, the biggest TV network in Brazil, announced that a song recorbed by Father Fábio de Melo will be part of the soundtrack of “Caras & Bocas”, the next soap opera the network will air at 7 PM (GMT -03:00) and which will be written by Walcyr Carrasco.
Fábio de Melo and Marcelo Rossi have different approaches on their “shows”. Rossi only goes onstage wearing cassock and uses music and dance to make his Masses colourful. “I don’t expose myself without cassock. If harassment is already big when I wear it, imagine without it”, he says. Melo goes in the opposite direction: he doesn’t like to look like a priest, in the traditional sense. Good-looking and conceited, he only uses fashionable clothes and he takes care of his looks. He develops an image of an attractive man. Musically speaking, he’s also light-years ahead of Rossi’s “aerobics of Jesus” since he has the assumption of making a polished MPB (Brazilian Popular Music). The show at Canecão had a band with 20 musicians and the scenography of a superproduction. Most part of his fans sang his lyrics by heart and the ones of covers of well-known Brazilian artists – like the song “Pai” (Father), originally performed by secular singer Fábio Jr. Some fans yelled to the priest things like “look at me” and “hottie”.
It would be unfair, though, to credit Melo’s success only to his handsome image or to the modern package of his music. He’s an articulate priest, who captivates the faithfull with sermons that translate teological and phylosophical concepts into simple images. He is also as an author of self-help books. One of his books, “Quem me Roubou de Mim?” (Who Stole me From Myself?), sold out 250,000 copies and has been frequent in the list of best-sellers of “VEJA” weekly newsmagazine. Another book written by Melo, “Mulheres de Aço e de Flores” (Women of Iron and Flowers) has already sold 80,000 copies.
Melo got this sudden success because of a distribution agreement made btween his recording company, LGK, and Som Livre, musical branch of the Globo TV network – which offers him publicity spots during the network programming. But he is proof that a religious artist can survive even if established himself in its own environment. The priest has been on the road for 13 years, always selling more than 25,000 records. This happens because the Catholic market – and even more the evangelical one – resists all by itself. Paulinas-Comep, the biggest Catholic recording company in Brazil, released 28 CDs and grew 10% in 2008. Evangelical labels also go on with greath health. The circuit of shows is intense. Catholics have Hallels, meetings that mix catechesis and music, and draws more than 100,000 youngsters in cities like Franca, in the State of São Paulo, and Brasília, the Brazilian capital city. In Fortaleza, Ceará, there’s Halleluyah, held on the same dates of the biggest “micareta” (carnival out of season) of town. The Catholic event has drawn an audience similar to the one of the “micareta”. There’s also “cristotecas”, raves of Catholic electronic music.
The first Catholic priest to take his chance on a musical career was Father Zezinho – the one who sang in Masses using a guitar and a tambourine, for the amazement of the faithfull of the 1970s. “All religions must invest heavily in music. It’s the Chantilly cream of the cake of life”, he says. Father Zezinho is now 67 years old. He’s recorded 117 albums.
Only in the 1980s pop music arrived in the church. The rhythm really grew in the 1990s, with the rising of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and its festive Masses – of which the present singing priests and artists are straight tributaries. But even for a researcher like Samuel Araújo, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the intensity that the flirtation of Catholics with the profane has been reaching is impressive. “A priest with a sexualized image is something astonishing. What will come next?”, he asks. “Not even God knows”, say reporters Marcelo Marthe and Sérgio Martins, from VEJA weekly newsmagazine.
I’ve taken this information from the February 4 issue of the magazine. I’ll post more information from this same article in my next messages. Here are a few pictures:
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8408/padrefabiodemelovida.jpg
Cover of Fábio de Melo’s album, Life
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/7684/pezezi1.jpg
Father Zezinho
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/3/padremarcelorossi01.jpg
Father Marcelo Rossi
Globo TV Network, the biggest TV network in Brazil, announced that a song recorbed by Father Fábio de Melo will be part of the soundtrack of “Caras & Bocas”, the next soap opera the network will air at 7 PM (GMT -03:00) and which will be written by Walcyr Carrasco.
Fábio de Melo and Marcelo Rossi have different approaches on their “shows”. Rossi only goes onstage wearing cassock and uses music and dance to make his Masses colourful. “I don’t expose myself without cassock. If harassment is already big when I wear it, imagine without it”, he says. Melo goes in the opposite direction: he doesn’t like to look like a priest, in the traditional sense. Good-looking and conceited, he only uses fashionable clothes and he takes care of his looks. He develops an image of an attractive man. Musically speaking, he’s also light-years ahead of Rossi’s “aerobics of Jesus” since he has the assumption of making a polished MPB (Brazilian Popular Music). The show at Canecão had a band with 20 musicians and the scenography of a superproduction. Most part of his fans sang his lyrics by heart and the ones of covers of well-known Brazilian artists – like the song “Pai” (Father), originally performed by secular singer Fábio Jr. Some fans yelled to the priest things like “look at me” and “hottie”.
It would be unfair, though, to credit Melo’s success only to his handsome image or to the modern package of his music. He’s an articulate priest, who captivates the faithfull with sermons that translate teological and phylosophical concepts into simple images. He is also as an author of self-help books. One of his books, “Quem me Roubou de Mim?” (Who Stole me From Myself?), sold out 250,000 copies and has been frequent in the list of best-sellers of “VEJA” weekly newsmagazine. Another book written by Melo, “Mulheres de Aço e de Flores” (Women of Iron and Flowers) has already sold 80,000 copies.
Melo got this sudden success because of a distribution agreement made btween his recording company, LGK, and Som Livre, musical branch of the Globo TV network – which offers him publicity spots during the network programming. But he is proof that a religious artist can survive even if established himself in its own environment. The priest has been on the road for 13 years, always selling more than 25,000 records. This happens because the Catholic market – and even more the evangelical one – resists all by itself. Paulinas-Comep, the biggest Catholic recording company in Brazil, released 28 CDs and grew 10% in 2008. Evangelical labels also go on with greath health. The circuit of shows is intense. Catholics have Hallels, meetings that mix catechesis and music, and draws more than 100,000 youngsters in cities like Franca, in the State of São Paulo, and Brasília, the Brazilian capital city. In Fortaleza, Ceará, there’s Halleluyah, held on the same dates of the biggest “micareta” (carnival out of season) of town. The Catholic event has drawn an audience similar to the one of the “micareta”. There’s also “cristotecas”, raves of Catholic electronic music.
The first Catholic priest to take his chance on a musical career was Father Zezinho – the one who sang in Masses using a guitar and a tambourine, for the amazement of the faithfull of the 1970s. “All religions must invest heavily in music. It’s the Chantilly cream of the cake of life”, he says. Father Zezinho is now 67 years old. He’s recorded 117 albums.
Only in the 1980s pop music arrived in the church. The rhythm really grew in the 1990s, with the rising of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and its festive Masses – of which the present singing priests and artists are straight tributaries. But even for a researcher like Samuel Araújo, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the intensity that the flirtation of Catholics with the profane has been reaching is impressive. “A priest with a sexualized image is something astonishing. What will come next?”, he asks. “Not even God knows”, say reporters Marcelo Marthe and Sérgio Martins, from VEJA weekly newsmagazine.
I’ve taken this information from the February 4 issue of the magazine. I’ll post more information from this same article in my next messages. Here are a few pictures:
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8408/padrefabiodemelovida.jpg
Cover of Fábio de Melo’s album, Life
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/7684/pezezi1.jpg
Father Zezinho
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/3/padremarcelorossi01.jpg
Father Marcelo Rossi