What genre of music would you place Os Mutantes in?

I'm curious

Os Mutantes were basically three kids from Sao Paolo who wished they were the Beatles. They did a pretty good job of it, too.

Super stuff...I love their first album (self titled)

I think they're experimenting pushed them past the psychedelic rock genre. They were definately psychedelic but they also had a bossa nova undertone and a plainly experimental streak. They played with sounds and strange materials (they replaced the high-hat with an aerosol can on one song)

The first one, called Os Mutantes, is the one where they're sitting in this big chair together, wearing paisley and other period stuff. The songs on it include Caetano Veloso's "Panem et Circenses" (Bread and Circuses) and "Baby," and Caetano also co-wrote "Trem Fantasma," which is my favorite song on the record.

But on the second, entitled Mutantes, they really come into their own as songwriters, especially "Caminhante Noturno," which sounds like an outtake from Magical Mystery Tour. The Beatles comparisons get even more obvious when you consider "Rita Lee."

The other remarkable thing about that second album is how the songs are sequenced and connected into what amounts to an integrated suite. There's that little violin lick thrown into the end of "Don Quixote" that foreshadows the fiddle all over "2001," for example.

Just to make sure which record I'm talking about, this is the one where they're depicted in a performing situation. Rita Lee is wearing a wedding gown and veil, and that Batistas are in archaic knight-errant outfits. On my edition, the back cover graphic shows them as aliens, with veins bulging out of their big bald heads. They did great costumes!

Supposedly, Os Mutantes were BIG acidheads. Mojo had a great artcile on them a year ago or so.......

According to a biography I read (in Portuguese, so I'm not certain I read it correctly), they didn't get to take acid until they got to do a tour of Europe in 1971. They'd already recorded the first three records.

They did make up for lost time, however-- especially Arnaldo Batista, the older brother and keyboard player, and the guy that married Rita Lee. He did so many drugs, especially after he'd quit the band, that he needed to chill out in a rubber room for a while-- then he freaked out while there and tried to climb out the window, fell and broke his skull, and was in a coma for months. He's still not all there, and certainly no longer plays music publicly.

Rita Lee has had a productive career ever since. I recently heard a live CD she made in the '90s, where she sings "Balada do Louco," one of Arnaldo's songs from the fifth Mutantes record.

Sergio (the younger brother and guitar slinger) is also still working, but nowhere near as successful. He carried on the Os Mutantes name for several years after Rita and Arnaldo quit, as a sort of jazz-rock fusion outfit, pretty lame stuff in my opinion. The other project of his that might surface in the English-speaking world is a collaborative CD he did with Phil Manzanera, ex-Roxy Music.