After the special issue of Popular Music and Society on post-soviet popular music was published I was contacted by the movie director and photographer Christine Bachmann who asked if I had heard of the movie “Good Bye, Leningrad” – which I had not. After some … Read More →
Category Archives: music
Aerostat on Russian popular music
Since May 22nd, 2005 Akvarium’s lead singer and front man Boris Grebenshchikov (BG) has hosted the weekly radio show Aerostat on Radio Rossii (these shows are also published and archived as podcasts at aerostat.rpod.ru). While quite broad (and primarily about Western popular music) BG at … Read More →
TOL: Rocka Rolla Women and Rocka Rolla Men
The online journal Transitions Online recently brought a very interesting article on popular music in socialist Bulgaria and what meaning Western bands had for Bulgaria’s inhabitants: Rocka Rolla Women and Rocka Rolla Men.
The national anthem lyricist Sergei Mikhalkov (1913-2009)
Among the many links between the Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia maybe the national anthem is the most symbolic one – here in the 1977 version sung by the Ukrainian group 5′Nizza live on RenTV shortly after midnight on January 1st, 2004: When Stalin in … Read More →
Popular Music and Society on Popular Music in the Post-Soviet Space
A happy summer announcement: The journal “Popular Music and Society” (32:3 2009) titled “Popular Music in the Post-Soviet Space: Trends, Movements, and Social Contexts” of which Yngvar Steinholt and I were guest editors is now out. Concluding about two years of editorial work (and a … Read More →
Of spectacles and marmots – Televizor’s Ochki
The group Televizor (Television) based around its vocalist Mikhail Borzykin has been around since 1984 and can be considered the 3rd generation of Leningrad Rock Club bands. The group’s first album “Shestvie Ryb” (Fish parade) was released in 1985, followed by “Otechestvo illiuzii” (Fatherland of … Read More →
NYTimes portrait: “The Loyalist – Valery Gergiev”
This weekend’s New York Times magazine had an interesting and extensive portrait of the Russian/Ossetian conductor and artistic director of the Mariinskii Teatr Valerii Gergiev. He is – in my opinion – one of the top conductors of Western Art music today and definitively one … Read More →
End of an era: Alla Pugacheva to stop giving concerts
Despite that her singing qualities have declined over the last years Soviet Pop-Diva Alla Pugacheva (born 1949) is one of the most popular Russian estrada singers today (she was both 2006 and 2007 ranked 2nd in a popular survey of Russia’s current elite). So it … Read More →
PTVP & Bozhe, khrani Putina eh, Tsaria…
While chopping away some parts of my dissertation I stumbled upon a short paragraph on the Vyborg/St. Petersburg based punk band Posledniye Tanki v Parizhe (Last Tanks in Paris, a.k.a. PTVP). The group was one of the few locally successful (in terms of playing for … Read More →
Bleeping DDT’s Kogda zakonchitsia neft’
Iurii Shevchuk (DDT) is besides Mikhail Borzykin (Televizor) known for being one of the more outspoken musicians within the russkii rok tradition. Following the presidential elections 2008 he has also performed at the Marsh nesoglasnykh and has been featured on the compilations “Muzyka NEsoglasnykh 1 … Read More →
Bozhe, Tsaria khrani & MP44
While listening to MP44′s “Avtoritsarizm” (word play on autocracy and tsarism) on the compilation “Muzyka NEsoglasnykh – chast’ 2” this morning it struck me that the melody they sample was very familiar – some quick research confirmed that the group sampled a male choir singing … Read More →
NY Times Saturday Profile features DDT’s Iurii Shevchuk
Today’s New York Times featured a Saturday Profile on DDT’s vocalist (and leader) Iurii Shevchuk titled “A Star Keeps Rocking in the Not-So-Free World“. The article gives a short summary of Shevchuck’s biography and primarily deals with his questioning of the current regime as well … Read More →