R.I.P. - Gustavo Cerati, the Argentine singer-songwriter who led Soda Stereo, one of the most popular and influential Spanish-language rock and pop groups of the 1980s and ’90s, died on Thursday, September 4, in Buenos Aires, four years after he lapsed into a coma. He was 55. The cause was respiratory failure, his doctors said. Mr. Cerati had suffered a stroke in Caracas, Venezuela, following a concert there on May 15, 2010, and had been hospitalized ever since. Soda Stereo, a power trio in which Mr. Cerati sang and played guitar and keyboards, was founded in 1982, as the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina was crumbling. That timing proved propitious: the return of democracy the next year permitted an explosion of pent-up energy and self-expression among young people, and Soda Stereo, performing in clubs on the underground circuit, quickly came to embody the new freer, atmosphere. The band’s self-titled first album was released in 1984 and was an immediate success. Both Mr. Cerati and the bass player, Héctor Bosio, had worked at advertising agencies, so they were attentive to the group’s image and to new promotional tools like video clips, interactive tracks and, eventually, the Internet. Later in his career, Mr. Cerati wrote for and recorded with other Latin American artists, most notably Shakira. He appears on three of her most popular records, the two “Oral Fixation” discs and “Sale el Sol,” earning a co-producer’s credit on each.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 14:02:25 +0000
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