After three years, Rock in Rio is back from tomorrow (2), in its hometown. The list of headliners has three artists who released their first albums in the 10’s (Dua Lipa, Post Malone and Justin Bieber), one in the 00’s (Coldplay) and three more that, given the great time on the road, are already in Rock and Roll. Hall Of Fame (Green Day and Guns n’ Roses), or could be (Iron Maiden).

In this special, we selected five albums that can be considered classics of attractions of the festival because they are already present in some lists of “great albums ever made”. We used as a source the most recent “top 500” from Rolling Stone (2020) and NME (2013), and the book “1001 Albums To Listen Before You Die” in its 2005 edition. their songs will have a certain presence, or almost so, in the shows. The listing is in chronological order.

“The Number Of The Beast” – Iron Maiden (1982)

One of those metal records that even those who don’t like heavy sound can, and should, enjoy. Maiden’s third album was the first to feature lead singer Bruce Dickinson, and the last to feature Clive Burr on drums. Bassist Steve Harris, and guitarists Dave Murray and Adrian Smith were also in the quintet at this time, and remain there to this day.

“The Number…” was the album that took them to a wider audience, reaching the top of the British chart and the American top 40. With eight tracks, as in the two previous LPs, the album alternated songs with more pop appeal, such as the title track and “Run To The Hills”, both classic examples of how to be “pop” without losing its fundamental characteristics, with others of greater breath, like “Hallowed Be Thy Name”.

These three are precisely the songs from “The Number Of The Beast” that are in the current repertoire of the band that made here “one of the greatest heavy metal albums in history”, as journalist Alexander Milas, from Kerrang magazine, says in the book of “1001 disks”.

“Appetite For Destruction” – Guns N’ Roses (1987)

Despite hailing from the same Los Angeles that gave the world glam metal, GNR was seen as a more “street” response to the more polished hard rock practiced by the city’s other bands.

The fact that the band had charismatic members, the ability to make songs that also appealed to classic rock fans and that were far from the radicalism of the most radical strands of metal, obviously helped the quintet formed by Axl Rose, Slash, Duff McKagan (all in the current formation), Izzy Stradlin and Steven Adler to reach megastardom thanks to the album “Appetite For Destruction”, which became one of the best-selling albums in history (estimates are in the region of 30 million copies).

Half of its 12 tracks came out as a single and three yielded videos that passed in very high rotation on MTV, and on any network that had a schedule to show music videos: “Welcome To The Jungle”, “Paradise City” and, of course, “Sweet Child O’Mine”.

As Rolling Stone put it, which ranked the record the 62nd greatest of all time, Appetite “left every other ’80s metal band in the dust”.

Before this Brazilian season, which includes shows in several other cities in addition to the Rio festival, they played seven songs from the album, most of them in all, or almost all of the presentations, in addition to the three mentioned above, “It’s So Easy”, “Mr. Brownstone”, “Nightrain” and “Rocket Queen” can be considered certain presences in concerts. “You’re Crazy” has appeared in fewer shows, which indicates that it will be heard here, although not in every performance.

“Dookie” – Green Day

After the explosion of grunge, the sound that took over the “alternative rock mainstream” of the 90’s in the US was that made by a series of bands that came from the punk scene, and made music with undeniable pop appeal.

The slogan “the year punk really broke out in America” ​​sums up this period, when Offspring (who also plays on this RiR), Rancid and of course Green Day became superstars, even if many critics, and fans of the original punk , the one from the 70s, turned up their noses at these parts.

Of all of them, Green Day was the most successful at that time and maintained its popularity for decades to come, even when they released less-inspired or less successful albums.

Their discography includes two albums that today are seen as rock classics. “Dookie”, 1994, sounds fun to this day, with its simple, direct and uncompromising feel. “The definitive punk-pop album of the 90s”, says the NME of the record, which is 75th on their list, in a text in which “Basket Case” is cited as one of the great singles of modern rock.

The other album is the rock opera “American Idiot”, released ten years later and which, as Rolling Stone says, showed the moment when “the most irresponsible brats of the 90s matured and with a bang”.

Looking at the band’s 2022 concert setlists, fans can count on at least three songs from “Dookie” (the aforementioned “Basket Case”, plus “Longview” and “When I Come Around”) and six from “American Idiot”. ” (“Holiday”, “St. Jimmy”, “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams”, “Jesus Of Suburbia”, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, and its title track) at the Rio show.

“Roots” – Grave (1996)

The Brazilians will perform the opening show of the festival tomorrow (2) accompanied by an orchestra. Needless to say, from the band that burst onto the world metal scene in the 90s, only Andreas Kisser and Paulo Jr. The brothers Max and Iggor Cavalera are in Cavalera Conspiracy and, a few weeks ago, they played a concert in Brazil celebrating “Roots”, playing the album in its entirety.

For the “1001 Discos” book, this work shows Brazilians at the height of their strength and “taking their music to uncharted territories achieving results that are sometimes jaw-dropping.”

As tomorrow’s show will be special, it is likely that the setlist will be different from the others performed in 2022. In these, the hits “Roots Bloody Roots” and “Ratamahatta” were the only two that were shown frequently. “Cut-Throat” appeared in about half of the concerts and “Attitude” in two of them.

“A Rush of Blood to the Head” – Coldplay 2002

The British quartet’s great unanimity is, for Rolling Stone, “the record that showed they had more to offer than arena anthems” and for the NME, which elected it the best album of 2002, it was “an album of beauty extraordinary and natural”.

“A Rush” has sold at least 17 million copies in these 20 years and brought us some of the most enduring pop rock songs of the 21st century, such as “In My Place”, “The Scientist”, “Clocks”, which have a guaranteed presence. at current shows. “God Put A Smile Upon Your Face”, another hit, doesn’t have the same chances, it has only been played in two shows so far, as well as “Green Eyes”. That said, the chances of us hearing “Politik”, whether at Rock in Rio or at one of the many shows they will be doing in Rio and São Paulo in October, are much higher.