A Foreign Sound

A Foreign Sound was released on 6 April 2004 by Nonesuch. In the 1990s Nonesuch president Robert Hurwitz had urged Caetano in New York to record songs by Cole Porter and Bob Dylan, and the title comes from a line in Dylan's It's Alright, Ma. The 23 tracks take in Irving Berlin's Always, Porter's Love for Sale, Rodgers and Hart's Manhattan, Nirvana's Come as You Are and Stevie Wonder's If It's Magic. He called Morris Albert's Feelings a fake American song written by a Brazilian and Carioca a fake Brazilian song written by Americans. Jaques Morelenbaum produced, the sessions took nine months, and Bob Ludwig mastered it.

In the liner notes Caetano wrote that people all over the world would like to thank American popular music for making their lives and music richer, and that many try, himself included. Critics were divided. AllMusic gave it four and a half stars out of five and Pitchfork's Stephen Deusner 8.8 out of 10, while The Guardian gave it two stars and Rolling Stone Brasil's Marcus Preto thought it perhaps his worst work. Barbara Browning wrote a book on the album in 2017, the first in the 33 1/3 Brazil series.