Another in Universal's series of Brazilian pop music anthologies, the Maria Bethania volume skims over three decades and some 30 albums of music in just 14 tracks. The sister of genius singer/songwriter Caetano Veloso, the throaty-voiced Bethania falls more in the tradition of the chanteuse, acting out the lyrics and crunching the syllables in a harsher manner than most Brazilian female singers who are known in North America. There are lushly orchestrated ballads ("Costumes," "Todo O Sentimento"), folk-like numbers, some outbreaks of bossa nova, and only one song by her brother, "Reconvexo," which turns out to be the pick of the collection. Unfortunately, the North American (or even Brazilian) listener may not be able to make much sense of the booklet, where the untranslated Portuguese lyrics are printed in microscopic black-on-red type with each line sprawling horizonally over three pages. As is typical in this series, there are no liner notes or recording details other than the approximate years of the copyrights. ~ Richard S. Ginell