Soda Stereo: Videography of a legend... 20 years later

Paradoxies are always inherent in big bands, Soda Stereo is no exception to the rule. 20 years after the dissolution of the dream team of Gustavo Cerati , Zeta Bosio and Charly Alberti , it seems that nothing new can be said of the legend they created. Despite this - and being an accomplished fan of his music - a couple of weeks ago I noticed a fact that attracted my attention: his scant - and unequal - videography. It seems inconceivable that one of the most important Latin American rock bands in the world, with seven studio albums and four live albums, after 14 years of existence and almost 1500 concerts around the world, has only made 10 video clips - above all , Taking into account that in the time of the 80s and 90s, the boom was to have presence in the small screen. There is one of the many paradoxes that Soda Stereo has as a band.

If we had to do a split of the Soda Stereo video clips, without a doubt, the one that would mark the milestone would be Alfredo Lois . Considered, along with keyboardist Tweety Gonzalez , as "the fourth Soda Stereo" , this Argentine director studied with Cerati and Zeta and became from the origins of the band the main architect of his visual proposal. In fact, half the videography of Soda Stereo falls on his shoulders and was responsible for many years of the visuals of the band and the look of its members. The other half of his videography is disputed by other directors, but always erected at the base of what created Lois . Another curiosity that powerfully draws attention to Soda Stereo is that many of its emblematic themes: " A million light years", "American blind", "Animal song", "Heart delator", "Fugitive", "Man overboard" , Among others, did not have video ... despite having letters that were easily lent for it.

It seems like yesterday, but this year marks the 20th anniversary of its dissolution - specifically in September, when they gave their famous Last Concert - and, at the same time, the tenth anniversary of Me Verás volver , the tour that reunited them for the last time . To celebrate these two emblematic dates we decided to review their videography to understand the images that make up the universe of Soda Stereo.

Song: Dietetic  

Director: Alfredo Lois  

First videoclip of the band and that served as double album demo life . A song full of social criticism and based on a simple visual proposal but loaded with poison. Lois premiered with Soda Stereo as director of video clips and in " Dietético" you can see several film references that accompanied the band throughout his videography. The first thing is a flirtation with surrealism (vignettes of obese women dancing like dancers, others with the band playing in a pool with the background moon, people eating, dense shadows, color filters), added to the attraction mount to the best Style of Sergei Eisenstein (with pictures that are sifting between a vignette and another one or in the guitar solo). The result is a striking piece with a solid visual proposal and some guys who perform in camera with enough freedom. Charly Alberti tells that the video was recorded on the weekends when Lois brought a camera borrowed from her work.

Song: You need vitamins  

Director: Alfredo Lois  

Shot in the famous program of the 80s Música Total (pioneer along with Rock & Pepsi in promoting the new songs that sounded on the radio). More than a videoclip, it is a performance of the band with its typical lack of confidence and irreverence. The improvised look of the video is because it was shot on the set of a soap opera. It is said that the band went to the show to present the video of Dietético and ended up recording this performance, killing two birds with a single shot. Beyond the game of colored lights and filters-classic of the time-, Lois's work was no big deal. However, for a group that was just starting out, a record in Total Music was almost a must stop.

Song: When the tremor passes

Director: Alfredo Lois

Undoubtedly, one of the most important pieces of the band. In spite of its seemingly simple staging, it marked a milestone in the videography of Soda Stereo to be the first videoclip of an Argentine rock band transmitted by MTV. Beyond the stickiness of the subject - and the particular of its sound - " When the tremor passes" was a success by the visual contrast that it possesses. In the video we can see the members of Soda Stereo , with their punk hairstyles and flashy costumes, unfurling desert landscapes of the Andean region of Argentina, wielding native instruments while inhabiting ruins, deserts, moors and other emblematic places. To this is added a rather cryptic lyrics and very different from the sticky and simple lyric choruses that abounded in the radio for the time. A beautiful homage to the fusion of cultures.

Song: In the city of fury  

Director: Alfredo Lois

Definitely, of the best videoclips of Soda Stereo (besides being one of its most iconic subjects). Here, Lois reaches its zenith as a director in aesthetic terms. In fact, it was like finalist of the MTV prizes in the category of Better foreign video . The piece recreates a mosaic of moments of great visual expressiveness and was shot in black and white with high contrast lighting. The faces of this visual kaleidoscope are several. The first shows us different plans of Buenos Aires - showing us its imposing geometry and, in parallel, the chaos that surrounds it -, the second vignette stars a dancer who dances between shadows and bars (with winks that aesthetically refer us to German expressionism) and , Finally, we have a young man who seems to be lost in the inclement metropolis. All this, accompanied with a performance of Soda Stereo quite sober in comparison to the previous ones and a denouement that lends itself to multiple symbolic interpretations. A fairly mature work at a visual level and that marked a before and after in the videography of the band.

Song: Light music

Director: Alfredo Lois

Soda Stereo's most famous song. In spite of being one of its more sticky subjects, is especially repudiated by the fans of the band to call it mainstream. Unfortunately, it represents a setback in Soda Stereo videography . Far from the cryptic " In the city of fury" , the surrealism of " Dietético" or the poetics of " When the tremor passes", "Of light music" is limited to have the band playing with a psychedelic background and a pair Of interventions in animation. This would be the last time that Lois would take the baton like director of the video clips of Soda Stereo .

Song: The sun falls

Address: Lorenzo / Guebel

Another piece that, visually speaking, does not have much aesthetic value. It is limited to recording the band playing live in the iconic Gran Rex Theater. Beyond the sentimental value of the concert, it goes under the table when compared to past video clips.

Song: I do not need to see you (to find out)

Directed by: Eduardo Capilla

Composed by Cerati and Melero , it evokes the sound that together they would reach months later in the project Colores Santos . The director Capilla manages to revive the visual spark of Soda Stereo in this video clip. Continuing in the experimental wave that characterized the band, but away from Louis with a palette of colors and photography full of life. Chapel injects new blood to videography of the band. In this piece we see a naked woman, with winks to naturalistic paintings, in different vignettes (riding a horse, walking along the beach, holding some flowers). This is accompanied by a performance of Soda Stereo in a patio with fabrics and interacting with their instruments with a relaxed and quite different feeling to the record of the pieces. Many fans hated the subject and the video clip (for not resembling the usual Stereo Soda ).

Song: Spring 0

Address: Boy Olmi

A kind of behind the scene of the recording of Dynamo . With a documentalist aesthetic, the director shows us, for the first time, Soda Stereo in his creative process. The value of this video is found in the organic portrait of rehearsals, audio tests, recordings and in seeing the band as humanly as possible. We watch them laughing, singing, making mistakes, joking and rehearsing, bringing the Soda Stereo audience closer than ever before (something quite common today, but not so much to date).

Song: She used my head like a revolver  

Directed by: Stanley Gonczanski

Considered by his fans - including me - as one of the best videoclips of Soda Stereo - besides being one of my favorite subjects. Starring the band, a pair of twins (Andrés and Rodrigo Súnico, famous in Chilean television) and a mysterious woman who appears as a sex symbol and destruction (metaphor of the Eros-Thanatos connection that explores the song). The video has a rather psychedelic staging, we see in it motifs that are repeated in a kind of loop that hypnotizes: Cerati falls on a bugles, games with magnifying glasses that deform the band , revolvers, snippets of stories (sex, Violence, weddings, fights) and duality as leiv motiv repeated over and over again (embodied by twins dressed in bugles). Possibly, the piece with the strongest visual imprint of all his videography along with Zoom and In the City of Fury.

Song: Zoom  

Address: Eduardo Capilla y Galperín

Last videoclip of Soda Stereo with which closes all the high videography of the band. Repeat Chapel as director, working four hands with Galperín . The piece begins with the trio playing in front of a planetarium while a group of couples approach them, very in the hippie wave of Woodstock. Suddenly everyone begins to kiss and the piece is transformed into a kind of Dionysian fantasy with surrealistic vignettes (people raising raw meat and other elements). The kisses begin to increase their passion until unleashing a kind of orgy that ends with the planetary flying. A metaphor for the sexual liberation of the 90s and, without a doubt, the end of the Soda Stereo era .