Wrasse's highly recommended, two-disc collection is drawn from Buarque's time with the Philips label, with which he recorded from 1970–84, the most daring period in his career. He had released his first album in 1966, in a relatively anodyne Brazilian pop style which he followed until near the end of the decade; he was criticized for his political and aesthetic caution by fellow artists Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, leaders of the MPB-related tropicalista movement. But by the end of the 1960s, Buarque's lyrics became more politically conscious and he spent a short time in jail. After a year of self-imposed exile in Italy, Buarque returned to Brazil, signed to Philips and began releasing records which operated on two levels: as music and as politics. In 1985, when the military dictatorship finally gave way to democracy, he moved from Philips to RCA.
Thus, the 40-track Chico: The Definitive Collection 1970—1984 includes many of Buarque's most important, and enduring, songs—some of them written in collaboration with his former critics Veloso and Gil, along with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Milton Nascimento and Vincius de Moraes.