Psicopátria: A Satire of Portugal in a Pop-Rock Modulation

Abstract

I will analyze the satirical portrayal that pop-rock band GNR made of the Portuguese 1980s in the album Psicopátria. With the aim of fleshing out the aesthetic trajectory and the internal dynamics of the band, I will start by briefly outlining the history of the group and assessing the impact of Rui Reininho’s integration as the key author of GNR’s song-poems. I will examine the continuities and discontinuities between the GNR of the periods before and after Reininho’s integration. One should note that Reininho did not help start the band and he did not contribute to any of the group’s first records. Psicopátria is a satirical work of music and poetry that foregrounds a number of the social types of its time. Thus, I will do a hermeneutic analysis of various song-poems in the album, contextualizing them in the corresponding period, so that, in the end, we can make a global assessment of the piece and understand its contemporary significance. Given the transmedial nature of Psicopátria’s satire, relying as it does on sound, text and image, the conceptual framework advanced by and Quintero’s idea of the satirist as a “watchgod” will theoretically inform my analysis. I will also use tools and strategies from Literary Studies (questions of textual style, for example) and Popular Music Studies (I will, among other things, explain what it means to write a “concept album”).