“Gal Costa” is the first solo album by the Brazilian singer Gal Costa, released in 1969 (although all the songs were recorded in 1968). It was ranked the 80th best Brazilian album of all time by the Brazilian Rolling Stone magazine.
Considered one of the most representative records of the countercultural Tropicália movement, the album features songwriting by various artists associated with the movement, with whom Costa had previously worked within the 1968 collaboration album “Tropicália: ou Panis et Circencis”. These include Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Torquato Neto.
The music in the album has been considered unprecedented. It represents a strong departure from the style of “Domingo”, her debut album recorded with Caetano Veloso, which featured a "set of airy, somewhat standard bossa nova tunes". Despite incorporating new influences from Janis Joplin and James Brown, Costa's music still retained strong bossa nova elements.
The sound of Gal Costa has been called "truly psychedelic and very much of its time, but also full of subtlety, as befits the melodic complexity and harmonic freedom" of its songs. This highly limited 180 Gram LP edition also contains one bonus track (“Tuareg”) belonging to his next album (“Gal”) released later in the same year.