Bromance

Nothing to do with Russian popular music, really - but quite beautiful.

For the Children

I know, I know Lee Edelman, I'm falling prey to the very discourse I should disavow.  But only a truly bitter, horrible person would not find this song/soloist (Андрюша Орехов/Andriusha Orekhov) adorable:

"В траве силед кузнечик" ("V trave sidel kuznechik"/"In the Grass Sat the Grasshopper") (and he was killed and eaten - by a frog.  Life is hard, kids, learn that early.)

I'm going to guess that 97% of Russian children and adults know this song.  Probably 99.8% know this:

It's the theme music from the children's television program Спокойной ночи, малыши (Spokoinoi nochi, malyshi/Good Night, Kids) which has aired continuously on Russian television since 1964.  Broadcast in the evenings, it's what many children watch and have watched before being put to bed - and I've never met anyone in Russia (or Russians living abroad) who did not know the program and the words to the theme song.  I have always found it fascinating, however, that this arguably most-Russian-of-Russian cultural production (one so ubiquitous in formative years, one operating on arguably affective registers) is so not traditionally Russian, at the level of harmonic/melodic attributes, as well as the level of style.  Yes, certainly "jazz" has been a part of the Russian "soundscape" for decades (and, as Yurchak notes, sometimes lauded, sometimes reviled), so it is definitely not entirely (sonorously) "other"; yet it cannot compare with the ways in which the following - also widely known among the populace (I'll say...98.1%) - adheres to the stereotypical harmonic/melodic (to say nothing of the ideological) structures of so much of Soviet and post-Soviet popular music:

"Что тебе снится, крейсер Аврора?" ("Chto tebe snitsia, Kreiser Avrora?"/"What Are You Dreaming, Cruiser Aurora?")

Everything is better in claymation:

The cruiser, of course, holds an important place in Russian history and memory.

Some more (stylistically) typical Soviet-era songs, performed by the Big Children's Chorus (Большой Детский Хор/Bol'shoi Detskii Khor), soloist Serezha Paramonov (Серёжа Парамонов).  (Paramonov was quite well known in the early 70s; he died at 37.  An interview with him, later in life, can be seen here.)

"Старый барабанщик" ("Staryi barabanshchik"/"The Old Drummer") (I love watching how the children do or do not move during the instrumental breaks - mostly the latter.)

"Не дразните собак!" ("Ne draznite sobak!"/"Don't Tease the Dogs!")

Edelman is, of course, correct - the construction of the image of "the child" plays a central role in so many ideological constructions (and not only in the US).  Listening to children's songs - and taking them seriously as performative cultural constructions - raises so many questions not only about the promulgation of cultural narratives and tropes on a "textual" level (the "meaning" of the "lyrics"), but also about the very production and ontology of memory.  In my book, I suggest that harmonic and melodic structures, as part of the environment in which one lives, are apprehended in part somatically, and thus become lived and re-lived at the level of the body; not exclusively, of course, but certainly as more than a minor adjunct to the "importance" of text and/or discourse and/or ideology.  What can be gained from exploring the very concepts of "memory" and "nostalgia" at the level of "embodied sounds," with attention to those sounds/actions so widely dispersed geographically, culturally, and temporally?

(Answer:  much.)

Killing Him (not so) Softly

The chapter of my current book project tentatively entitled "The Beauty of Justice" will engage just those two foci, exploring how instances of corporeal female beauty may be related - in the context of post-Soviet space, the preceding (ostensibly) "gender neutral" Soviet sphere, and largely Western construction of "feminist" discourse - to a type of social justice, the ideal made visible.  This concatenation - beauty/justice - will be explored not only via theoretical literature and writings in the popular (Russian) press, but by attention to the the music, life, and career of singer Valeriia.

A second part of this chapter, however, will examine - again, in the context of post-Soviet space,  the reporting (or lack thereof) of violence against women in the Russian-language press, and incipient formations of groups devoted to addressing the issue of domestic violence - audiovisual representations in Russian language popular music of a sort of "vigilante justice" by "beautiful" women; here, the concatenation of beauty and justice becomes arguably more tense and intensified.  Below, several examples:

ВИА-Гра, "Цветок и нож" (VIA-Gra, "Tsvetok i nozh"/"Flower and Knife")
This is one of the earliest examples I've found
(And note:  the group's name is a rather funny play on words - and the Soviet musical past - which I'll explain in a future post devoted to the group - the focus of another chapter)

ВИА-Гра, "Сумашедший" (VIA-Gra, "Sumashedshii"/"Crazy")
This clip in particular is very interesting - not only is the "violence" directly related to female sexuality and sexual pleasure (arguably representing male fears of the same), but the object of the "attacks" is one of the group's members, Tat'iana Kotova, in male drag.  What is important here - in terms of my focus on the voice throughout the book - is that Kotova was (to my knowledge) the only of the 16 members of the group's changing roster who never sang a note - she literally had no voice.

Анна Седокова, "Что я наделала" (Anna Sedokova, "Chto ia nadelala"/"What Have I Done")
(Sedokova was a former member of VIA-Gra, from what many call the group's "golden" era)

ВИА-Гра, "У меня появился другой" (VIA-Gra, "U menia poiavilsia drugoi"/"I've Got Someone Else") (That's a rough translation)
This current line-up was the result of a televised competition a-la the Idols or X-Factor franchises; the program, Хочу в ВИА-Гру (Khochu v VIA-Gru/I Want to Be [in/part of] VIA-Gra) featured numerous hopefuls, the finalists chosen by the group's founder/producer/composer/arranger Konstantin Meladze and other celebrity judges (including original VIA-Gra member Nadezhda Meikher-Granovskaia).  As groups were formed, each was mentored by a former VIA-Gra member (Sedakova, Granovskaia, and Al'bina Dzhanabaeva).  It goes without saying that the "competition" was largely an empty spectacle, and that the "winners" - Misha Romanova, Erika Gertseg, and Anastasiia Kozhevnikova were likely selected long before the program began.  It's notable that all three are Ukrainian citizens - but I'll address that in a future post.

The rapper, by the way, is the very talented (although you can't really see/hear it in this song) Вахтанг Каландадзе (Vakhtang Kalandadze).  You can get a better idea of his abilities here.

Полина Гагарина, "Шагай" (Polina Gagarina, "Shagai"/"Walk")

To her credit, Gagarina is one of the few singers on the Russian scene who actually appears to sing live at many of her concerts/performances - something that I'll be discussing in the book.

Also notable is her really radical change in image; in this clip ("Колыбельная"; "Kolybel'naia"/"Lullabye") she's quite different than her man-eating novyi Russkii ("New Russian") persona in "Shagai."

(By the way, I quite like this song - and [here comes a tangent] it was a good choice for singer/model Aida Nikolaichuk's audition on X-Factor Ukraine.  If you watch the clip, note that they stop her - they don't believe that she's not lip-synching, so they ask her to sing a cappella.  She wound up winning the season.)

Ева Польна, "Я тебя тоже нет/Je t'aime" (Eva Pol'na, "Ia tebia tozhe net/Je t'aime"/"I also Don't/I Love You")

For some reason, YouTube will not allow embedding of this video, but you can watch it here.

(Pol'na is a very interesting performer with a very interesting history; I've written about her previously, but am not sure if she will make the final cut for this book - at least not as an artist on whom I will focus at length.  It's a pity.)

The spectacularly untalented Юлия Ковальчук (Iuliia Koval'chuk), "Прямо в сердце" ("Priamo v serdtse"/"Straight to the Heart")
I love a good "girl group," I make no apologies for that (although I am growing very, very tired of Icona Pop for some reason - and not only because of the really problematic nature of this video) - but Koval'chuk was a member of one of the most unlistenable girl groups of all time, Блестящие (Blestiashchie; I'll translate this as "Shiny [Ones]" or "Glittery").  I know, I'm supposed to be objective and open-minded, but for me it just doesn't get any worse than this.  Today's Russian lesson:  дерьмо.

А.Р.М.И.Я, "Я независимая" (A.R.M.I.IA, "Ia nezaisimaia"/"I'm Independent")
A Ukrainian group - and granted, this isn't really "violence," although the stunning number of dislikes on YouTube (about 40%) and several of the nasty comments suggest that many find the message of this song threatening and disturbing.  To be independent?  How dare you!

(As an aside - but an important aside - one of the issues I'll have to deal with in this book is deciding how to engage these artists who are, at least by nationality [if not residence] Ukrainian, but who speak/sing in Russian, appear in all manner of Russian [not only Russian-language, but Russian-owned] media, and are clearly listened to by Russians in Russia - as well as Ukrainian citizens who consider themselves culturally closer to Russia than Ukraine.  It may well be that these groups/artists may have to be analyzed differently, on a case-by-case basis.  The Ukraine/Russia tension will most certainly be in issue in my chapter on VIA-Gra, especially considering the group's latest video/song which not-at-all-subtly draws upon the current political-cultural-military conflicts [and to the group's credit, rallies for "truce"].)

Поющие трусы, "Му му" (Poiushchie trusy, "Mu mu"/The Singing Panties [yes, that's their name], "Mu Mu")
An often funny, often vulgar Ukrainian group that will not be part of my book, but whom I could not resist including.  I don't understand all of their comic references, but here is a (NSFW) video which not only lampoons Madonna, but also unambiguously (and sometimes offensively) engages the topic of homosexuality; in short, the narrator says, you won't be intimate with her because you're gay.) (And the visual references to Kazaky are, of course, obvious.)

Finally, although many of us have become desensitized to images of violence and sex, due to their ubiquity, I find this video accompanying Anna Sedokova's song "Сердце в бинтах" ("Serdtse v bintakh"/"Heart in Bandages") quite disturbing.  In the book I will be examining it in order to argue - in a classically postmodern vein (if "classical postmodernism" isn't an oxymoron) - that a hyptertrophy of the aesthetic can even lead to a justification of violence.

(This last song reminds me of a mega-hit by Irnia Dubtsova, which I'll discuss here)

R E P E T I T I O N R E P E T I T I O N

Every time I hear the opening hook to Sedokova's song "Сердце в бинтах" ("Serdtse v bintakh"/"Heart in Bandages"), I cannot help but hear the opening hook of Irina Dubtsova's megahit "О нём" ("O nem"/"About Him"), a song that was seemingly played in Russia thousands of times per day, every day from 2004 to 2005:

Dubtsova wrote the song herself , a fact that was apparently compulsory to mention in conjunction with uttering the song's title, either in official or social channels:  on the radio, "And now, Irina Dubtsova's 'O nem,' a song that she herself wrote"; among friends, "I love this song, 'O nem' - and did you know that she wrote it herself?"  Y   e   s.      I      k   n   o   w.    E  V  E  R  Y  O  N  E    O  N    T  H  E     P  L  A  N  E  T     K  N  O  W  S).  To be fair, it's actually a pretty good song (or at least it was until the 2,407th time you heard it).  And it was played so constantly that this hook cannot but have been imprinted in the social consciousness - and I'm absolutely certain that Sedokova's producer's knew this.

Dubtsova's certainly did/do - because, in an attempt at "auditory branding," her follow-up closed with the same hook; if you don't want to listen to it, skip to the last 15 seconds or so:

Eight years later, in 2013:

Ирина Дубцова и Брэндон Стоун, "Игра теней" (Irina Dubtsova and Brandon Stone, "Igra tenei"/"Game of Shadows")
Why mess with success.

Dubtsova, by the way, got her major start on and was the winner of the fourth season of Фабрика звёзд (Fabrika zvezd/Factory of Stars), an Idols-type talent competition that ran for years on Russian television.

The runner-up that season was Антон Зацепин (Anton Zatsepin) - whose "talent" was arguably his physiognomy, not his voice:

Nine years later, Anton releases this:

Hey, he was on Dubtsova's season, and he came in second place - it's his hook too, isn't it?

[Humor aside, these sorts of repetitions and borrowing are not uncommon in Russian pop, and if we listen to the homogeneity of vocal timbres, arrangements, and harmonic/melodic structures, it is clear that these musical reiterations warrant a culturally and historically grounded analysis - one that moves beyond an assumption of venality and profit-seeking, or aesthetic homogeneity as constructor of social passivity/docility/conformity, as the sole explanatory loci.]

Putin Sings "Blueberry Hill" (no, really - not kidding)

What can I even say?

It's beyond the limits of the linguistic representation.  It can only be compared to similar experiential states, even those engendered via the visual.

Even the club mix is heinous.  Positively fetid.

I need to go take a shower.

Knife for Frau Müller

Known also as Нож для Фрау Мюллер, Нож для Frau Müller, or Messer für Frau Müller.  I know little about them, as their output is somewhat outside the genres/styles I'm generally researching - but I was first introduced to them by a friend in St. Petersburg, and immediately liked their work, a very original combination of electronica, retro/lounge, and cheese-core.  Their song "Лучшая девушка в СССР" ("Luchshaia devushka v SSSR"/"The Best Girl in the USSR"), from their 1999 album Алло, супермен! (Allo, supermen!/Hello, Superman!) actually had a video, and is one of my favorites:

I'm not entirely certain, but it could be that some of the illustrations are from Russian "ladies" magazines such as Работница (Rabotnitsa/Working Woman).

"Nostalgia" of all sorts is still an important element in post-Soviet popular culture; in a future post, I'll try to remember to talk the practice of remixing theme songs from popular Soviet films into dance mixes - including a very popular remix from the ultra-popular Soviet-era classic comedy Служебный роман (Sluzhebnyi roman/Office Romance).  Below, the protagonists:

Валерия / Valeriia

It's difficult to distill the very long career of Valeriia (stage name of Alla Perfilova) into just a few sentences and clips, so I make no claims to comprehensiveness.

I've been listening to Valeriia for over ten years, and she's been around (and successful) for far longer than that.  Coming to attention on the popular music landscape in the early 1990s, her original style (most certainly due to the creative input of her husband/manager/producer/composer Aleksandr Shul'gin) was somewhat "unique" in the context of what was then being played on Russian airwaves.  Divorce, retreat from the public eye and a temporary cessation of her career, personal revelations (Shul'gin had physically and emotionally abused her for years, detailed in many tabloids, talk shows, her autobiography, and a television film), an eventual re-marriage to manger/producer Iosif Prigozhin - and in the early 2000s she re-emerges, arguably more successful than ever.  Her personal/sartorial style had changed much since her early days (one of my most acerbic friends said she had morphed into the Russian Barbie), as did her musical style, which moved toward one clearly geared toward mainstream pop success.  Here, a couple of clips from her early days:

"Самолёт"/"Samolet"/"Airplane"

(Can't resist comparing the visuals to this - which came out about 10 years earlier.  And there's never a bad time to link to 80s "new wave" pop):

Another clip from the same era as "Airplane" - clearly attempting to construct a "gritty," "alternative" visual/acoustic style:

"С добрым утром"/"S dobrym utrom"/"Good Morning"

The following clips are from her post-divorce, post-Shul'gin phase:

"Была любовь"/"Byla liubov'"/"It Was Love"
This is clearly an autobiographical song about her "release" from Shul'gin's "golden cage"

Here, another track from the same album, which I find horribly catchy; I admit, Valeriia's super-slick populist pop from this era (and following) is one of my guilty Russian pop pleasures:

"Маленький самолёт"/"Malen'kii samolet"/"Little Airplane"
(Ah, the airplane theme - and I'm guessing it's no coincidence that this video uses animation as well)

That sliding synth hook is kind of brilliant - hook, indeed.  But look - the utter blondness of it all!  The hair extensions!  The euro fashion!  And the secret is out - she is just about the most physically awkward singer of the last 320 years.  Much of the time, she looks somewhat deranged.

Around 2008, there's a not entirely successful attempt to break into the English-speaking market (although note that her first album, The Taiga Symphony was in English) and international superstardom - she releases the album Неподконтрольно/Nepodkontrol'no in both Russian and English versions (Out of Control).  From this album:

"Wild" (Russian version:  "Боль"/"Bol''/"Pain"; the subtitle of the Russian is "Schast'e na chasti" ["happiness in pieces"], so the video doesn't make much visual sense in relation to the English version, which does not retain this reference).  Another catchy song with great production - but didn't make many waves in the UK or US (although she was on the cover of Billboard).

Another:

"The Party's Over."  Apologies for essentializing, but there's a clear attempt in this one to court a "gay" audience (shirtless, swarthy hunks, retro-kitsch aesthetics, intimations of lady-lady luv), and it's obviously no coincidence that her western PR people were trying to sell her as "the Russian Madonna" - an appellation at which Valeriia herself balked.  I'll return to that shortly, and move to the present day with one of her latest songs/clips:

"Ты моя"/"Ty moia"/"You Are Mine"
A duet with real-life daughter Anna Shul'gina (now a television host, and - well, I just can't bring myself to call her a "singer," not even with supersize scare quotes), rife with every trope of domesticity and "family values" - those "values" so dear to so many in Russia these days, and an idea with which so many so often construct themselves as "different from the west."  Before getting to some unpleasantness, some humor:

Screen grab; inhumanly "blue" eyes:

Second child from the left; a stunning resemblance:

Valeriia's use of "family values" seems, however, to go beyond her musical output, appears to indicate the singer's personal "moral" code.  In 2013, I was happy to see that she had - along with scores of others from the Russian giltterati - signed a letter, addressed to President Putin, protesting St. Petersburg's passing of an anti-gay propaganda law (prior to the passage of the national legislation).  The move engendered an apparent backlash from her fans, and in the press, and the singer made an awkward attempt (clearly her verbal skills are as challenged as her kinetic/corporeal) to have it both ways, stating (in letters to the press) that of course she was against homosexual propaganda, and of course she was a good Orthodox Russian, and she was not against the law itself, but only against one of the statute's main architects/supporters, Vitalii Milonov, and his attempts to use the political process for personal self-aggrandizement.  

But then, in 2014, this disturbing appearance on the BBC, with recently-fired television host Anton Krasovskii (fired after he came out on national television):

The inability to differentiate between homosexuality and pedophilia is only one example of her stunning ignorance - yet sadly, according to several polls by VTsIOM and other pollsters, she is correct in stating that a majority of the Russian populace agrees with her support for this legislation.  Just don't ask, don't tell, be a "normal person," and you'll get along fine with Valeriia.  You can even be a dancing boy in one of her videos:

(Good for her for making this video a thinly-veiled plug for Westfalika, the Russian online retailer for which she is the celebrity spokesperson.  But really, while it may be impossible to be too rich or too thin, some things are best used in moderation.)

And here she is, at one of her megaconcerts (a birthday concert, to be exact), with "heterosexual" singer Nikolai Baskov (Russia's answer to Andrea Bocelli).  

I won't make any insintuations about Baskov's sexual orientation, because the Russian press does this on a regular basis.  Some "journalists," however, are wont to enumerate Baskov's various "loves" and "sexual conquests"; all these can probably be summed up in one word.

I will also point out that Valeriia's daughter (above) has said that her dream husband would be Baskov.  (Please god, please - let her follow in the footsteps of Mary Cheney).

[And regarding Baskov, as related to larger questions of popular culture and popular music in Russia:  this performance with Valeriia, including his rendition of "Happy Birthday" at the end, is a perfect example not only of the aesthetic of "Russian excess," but also of the longtime practice of attempting to blend the "high" with the "mass" (culture) - one of the main aims of the Soviet period and beyond.  Along the same lines, here is an utterly brilliant piece of "huh??!  what the..???!!" combining Baskov, Radio DJs/song parodists Murzilki International, and Albinoni.  Deliciously horrifying - and not only the haircut.]

K A Z A K Y

Greetings, Gentlefemmes.

In the beginning...

"In the Middle"
Their first video.  I love the way we move from a Disney version of "street style" to BDSM-couture and stilettos (a progression of ever more queerness); the way that the voices don't align consistently with the faces; the way that the one-note melody of the main vocal hook ("in the middle") is at odds with the implied harmonic foundation (a perfect fourth above the tonic); the brilliant sample of the gasping voice that is blended into a synth hook, as well as the sharp inhalations/exhalations that become part of the rhythm track.  After several years, they're still out there, and have released two "albums."

"Crazy Law"
[Trivia:  the clip was shot in the now-abandoned Murru Prison, a Soviet-era prison/labor camp in northern Estonia.]

Yes, they're not Russian (they're Ukrainian, although I believe Artur was born in Armenia) - but that hasn't stopped them from commenting (not so) obliquely on Russian legislation.  Who knew that electroclash/synthcore/neo-new-wave could be so socially committed?

(Neo-new-wave indeed; I can't listen to the vocals of the "chorus" without hearing this.  Hurrah, another excuse to invoke the 80s.)

(And for fun - try to figure out the vaguely unintelligible lyrics.  Others have tried - with humorous consequences.)

It's not just that they are so visually delicious (although they are sure to make men as insecure about their bodies as the beauty "industry" and male scopophilia have done to women for decades centuries), or that they are stunning examples of so many post-s (-modern, -human, -gender, -Soviet) - many of their songs are actually quite good (thanks in part to their slick, sick production).  I originally assumed they were simply dancers lip-synching to tracks laid down and composed by other musicians/vocalists, but turns out that two of the members - Artur and Kirill - are responsible for most of the songwriting, and that they and Oleg provide most of the vocals.

Of the original four - Oleg, Stas, Kirill, Artur - three were gay, one was straight, and two were lovers.  All are (obviously) trained dancers.  Oleg, the main choreographer, is apparently still associated with the group, but doesn't perform in their new videos; Stas has left for the second time, and has been replaced with Artemii, so the quartet - for now- has become a trio.

"What You Gonna Do"
Hot track, and really gorgeous video (which, as always, makes me think of "you and you and Gareth Pugh").

How about a smackdown with these guys?