In times when many millennials don't know what a real album is, Twenty years have passed since the release of an impressive album that is worth listening to thousands of times before losing the ability to hear, to celebrate life, before dying. It came out in 1999 Puff, the album that confirmed the solo career of Gustavo Cerati, a well-rounded product that demonstrated that the maturity of an already confirmed star did not need to maintain previous ties and that his individual flight had all the tools to grow.
Personally, when it came out Puff, The first thing that caught my attention was the elegance of its cover. While what I had seen throughout Soda Stereo's career was an overly eclectic development of their image, Here you could see the presence of a man who knew exactly where he stood. I'm not saying that the previous work as a group in Soda Stereo lacked conceptual precision, but there were too many external influences and sources, and consolidating what the trio wanted wasn't entirely convincing. Puff, in terms of graphics, It is a statement of a time, of a personality, of a powerful risk that sought to turn the page on a burdensome past and individualize magic with the required confidence. It is, and don't take this the wrong way, fans (on the contrary), to consolidate Gustavo Cerati as a visual icon, Closing the circle of trust for a new stage. The photographic work of Gaby Herbstein It becomes a mandatory reference, both for musical reference products on the continent, and for any design style of the magazines that were published at that time.
But, come on, we're talking about music. We've seen tons of albums with great covers and terrible music. Obviously, this is the opposite case. Upon entering, you can already hear the first moments on the drums of Martín Carrizo, formerly of Animal, opening the show. Taboo, The fantasy begins. A beautiful, jazzy/folk/rock moment that shows the risk is serious. In Cerati's mind, and it shows throughout the album's sixty-nine minutes, There is a premise that everything that one wants to do can be done, as long as it saves the spirit of reinvention and the public's renewed love for beautiful songs. It's a guitar-driven album, but at the same time, it's a production brimming with electronic textures that expand and contract according to the feeling of each second. It's an album with moments of classic feel, but also avant-garde elements, where nothing is predictable and there are no compromises with convention or discretion. There is a commitment to building melodies made to stay in your head without becoming unbearable. Rather, it's all about giving rhythm to poetry with phrases that some will say are made by a brilliant publicist, but which rather reflect the intelligence and sensitivity of a great artist who, perhaps, and here we speculate too much, felt freer than ever in his new stage.
What finally tied me to the emotion of Puff, It was seeing the video of Bridge. A kind of story based on Cerati as a driver, who travels through the city in a futuristic vehicle that serves as a taxi, in which a few characters are transported, including musicians who collaborated on the album, such as Flavio Etcheto and Leo García.Here we find visual confirmation of the grace, the elegance, of a man who knows that his work is a complete package where sound and image are combined in a solid and distinguished way. It's clear that everything was about giving a respectable and memorable visual movement to words like:
«"Above, the sun; below, the reflection"
See how my soul explodes
You are here
And the step we took
It is both cause and effect
Cross love
I'll keep my fingers crossed
And thank you for coming.
Thank you for coming
Adorable bridge
It was created between the two of them.".
I saw the presentation show of Puff in Bogotá at the Palacio de los Deportes. I don't remember it being completely full. I think some people felt that Cerati's decision to go solo hurt more than one radical Soda Stereo fan. They don't know what they missed. Few concerts have generated such excitement among the Colombian capital's audience. Perhaps that was the best performance I saw from the artist during his solo tour in the city. I'm not saying that what followed was of lower quality, but honestly, if I compare it to what I saw later, There were more emotional outbursts that night.
We return to what I said at the beginning, and I repeat: The younger generations no longer really understand how to make full-length albums with a central idea that ties the whole concept together. Now it's just a collection of many singles that may not have much connection to each other. It might sound like inappropriate nostalgia, but listening to, among other things, Puff, It makes us miss the adventure of works that went beyond three minutes of radio broadcast. Spending a little over an hour listening to Cerati telling his own story is worth more than a thousand singles that have smashed the international charts. Unfortunately, those young people of that time missed out on that.