Cássia Eller ranks among Brazil’s foremost pop singers and composers. Possessing a singular contralto timbre, she functions chiefly as a pop and rock performer who maintains an outsider stance while occasionally engaging MPB forms. Her album Com Você...Meu Mundo Ficaria Completo received a nomination at the first Latin Grammy Awards in 2000 for Best Brazilian Rock Album. Though her sales never matched the largest domestic figures—often measured in Brazil by totals between 300,000 and 1,000,000 units—she continues to attract a devoted cult following.
Her mother’s deep attachment to music first drew her into the art. At fourteen she was given a violão and began learning Beatles songs on it. In 1981 she appeared with Oswaldo Montenegro in a stage musical. While living in Brasília DF she took part in Massa Real, the capital’s earliest trio elétrico, the mobile sound systems first devised by Dodô and Osmar to animate Bahian carnival. She left school without finishing high school, resolved to devote her life to singing. In 1987 she assembled the short-lived group Malas e Bagagens. Two years later she cut a demo of “Por Enquanto” by Renato Russo for her uncle and first manager, Anderson, who brought the tape to Polygram; the song became her initial hit. After signing with the label she released her debut album, Cássia Eller, in 1990, which contained “Rubens,” the equivocal love song by Premeditando o Breque that had been barred by censors.
The second album, O Marginal on Polygram in 1992, reveals a stronger São Paulo influence. Her third effort, another Cássia Eller issued by Polygram in 1994, moved nearer to MPB and included her reading of Ataulfo Alves’s “Na Cadência do Samba.” Two songs reached the charts: Cazuza’s “Malandragem” and “E.C.T.,” credited to Nando Reis, Marisa Monte, and Carlinhos Brown. Ao Vivo, recorded live for Som Livre in 1996, features her accompanied by two musicians on violões and bass, instruments she also plays. She further issued Veneno Antimonotonia on Polygram in 1997, Veneno Vivo on Polygram in 1998, and Com Você...Meu Mundo Ficaria Completo on Polygram in 1999, the last of which earned the Latin Grammy nomination for Best Brazilian Rock Album.
