''Ar de Rock'' (literally ''Air of Rock'', meaning "a rock look/appearance"; a pun on

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and Distortion (music), distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the Garage rock, garage, Psychedelic rock, psychedelic and blues ...

) is the debut album by Portuguese musician

Rui Veloso Rui Manuel Gaudêncio Veloso (born 30 July 1957) is a Portuguese singer-songwriter and musician. Commonly called "The father of Portuguese rock" (Portuguese: ''O pai do rock português''), Veloso was a major figure in the boom of Portuguese rock ...

, released in July 1980 by

EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...

Valentim de Carvalho Valentim de Carvalho () is a Portuguese record label founded in 1914. History The company started selling phonograph, musical instruments and music since its 1914 foundation at the Rua da Assunção, Lisbon. It distributes EMI in Portugal ...

. The album, produced by António Pinho, contains eleven songs. The songs "Chico Fininho" and "Rapariguinha do Shopping" were released as singles. ''Ar de Rock'' was commercially successful in Portugal immediately after its release and is retrospectively considered a landmark album of Portuguese pop-rock music. Its success is considered to have triggered the so-called "boom of Portuguese rock" in the 1980s.

Recording

The album was recorded in one week and mixed in three days at RPE Studios, in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

, in 1980.

Reception and legacy

''Ar de Rock'' and the single "Chico Fininho" became an immediate success in Portugal. Their success is considered to have triggered in Portugal what critics call the "boom of Portuguese rock" and a wave of pop-rock hits sung in Portuguese, during the 1980s. It also earned Veloso the nickname "father of Portuguese rock". Francisco Vasconcelos, executive manager at

in the 1980s, said that "with Rui Veloso the politics went out and the social side entered the Portuguese pop music. With Rui Veloso we stopped listening and started feeling and dancing the music made in Portugal. The success of ''Ar de Rock'' happened because, in 1980, Portugal was a country that desperately wanted to change." In 2000, a tribute album named '' 20 anos depois - Ar de Rock'' was released, containing covers from various notable Portuguese artists. In 2009, Portuguese music magazine

Blitz Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to: Military uses *Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign *The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War *, several ships of the Prussian, Imperia ...

named ''Ar de Rock'' as the greatest Portuguese album of the 1980s, in a list ranking the greatest Portuguese albums of the past four decades.

Track listing

Personnel

*Rui Veloso – electric and acoustic guitar, electric piano, blues harp and vocals *Zé Nabo – bass guitar *Ramon Galarza – drums and percussion

Charts

References

External links

Ar de Rock at moo.pt
1980 debut albums Rui Veloso albums {{Authority control