The resonant Tropicália movement wasn't the only site of musical subversion in Sixties and Seventies Brazil. Proof is this 1973 pop-rock-samba-jazz gem, the funkiest in a four-disc Marcos Valle series. Sampled by Kanye and others, the Rio singer-songwriter has a wicked rhythmic sense. His speed verses on "Os Ossos Do Barão" out-groove the drumming, while "Mentira" echoes Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." Valle's politically coded poetry dodged the radar of Brazil's military government censors. But his hooks and beats need no decoding. Let's hope his groovy soundtrack for Brazil's Sesame Street is reissued next.

“Tonight's the Night”

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."