Singles in Brazil - The past...
Compact records were very popular in Brazil until the middle of the 80's. At that
time, record factories decided not to make them anymore, due to economical
reasons, and this kind of record was completely banned from the Brazilian
market. They survived only as 12" promos for the radio, and some few
releases of foreign 12" EPs that ended up marketed in Brazil as regular albums.
As a result, many recent songs aren't released in Brazil because
they are only released abroad on singles, not on albums - this includes
the bonus Beatles songs on the singles Baby It's You, Free As A Bird and
Real Love.
Other consequence was the development of a "black market" of imported
singles, mostly dance music mixes for DJs,
brought by specialized stores and sold at
very high prices (up to US$ 25 each!).
Through these years, the foreign hits issued only on single abroad
have been released in Brazil by reissuing the last album of the artist including
the track as bonus; meanwhile the Brazilian artists invented the
"one-a-half album": a live-recorded or reissued album,
bundled with a CD5 with four or five unreleased tracks which could
perfectly be sold separately if the CD5 weren't a "forbidden format" in
the market.
There were two trials of reviving the compacts, the first in 1991, with
the George Michael single Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me;
the second in 1993 when Polygram issued a series of foreign and Brazilian
CD5. None of them was successful because of the prices, cheaper than
a regular CD but not cheap enough for a single (50% to 70% the price
of a regular CD).
Present and future...?
The third has come in October 1997!
The commercial issue of the CD-Singles in Brazil is being
planned since the end of 1996, and postponed three times since then.
Now they come by an agreement of all recording
factories, and at a very reasonable price (around five dollars,
25-30% the price of an album).
The announced release of CD singles seemed to be cancelled forever until
the Elton John's charity single for Princess Diana's death become a record seller
abroad, making Polygram decide to release it in Brazil. This opened up the market's
doors to several other titles, planned some months before, that seemed to be almost shelved.
However, we still can't say if this time the singles revival will be successful,
since most of the stores are still not selling them. In spite of this, factories make
an effort to release many titles.
The Beatles' Compacts
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