Dima Bilan’s victory at Eurovision is bound to bring more interest in Russian music. But where is a English speaker to go? I recommend directing your browser to Far from Moscow, a new blog by UCLA Slavic Professor David MacFadyen. MacFadyen has written several books on Russian popular television, music, film and culture. Far from Moscow is a more publicly accessible extension of that work, and promises to keep fans in tune with the latest twists and turns, releases, up and coming artists, and goings on in the popular and underground Russian music scenes. I recommend anyone interested in Russian tunes to follow the site closely. I plan to.
Unfortunately, most modern Russian music – or at least that which is played on the radio and TV – is appallingly bad, seemingly performed by the remnants of various Pop Idol ripoffs or the untalented offspring of oligarchs or celebraties.
Which is a shame, because Russia has produced, and still produces, some great bands and artists, who get drowned out by the dross on MTV. I find the best place to find good Russian music albeit rather poorly performed is in clubs with a live band and a half-decent DJ.
Celebraties? Jesus, what’s the matter with me? Celebrities.
If those goddamn Kommies didn’t seize power in 1917, we’d have won 90 Eurovision song contests by now, all I can say!
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It will be interesting to try to stay in touch with Russian pop culture once I get back. If only MacFadyen published a feed to keep track of that blog… (That’s a hint-nudge, in case you happen to know him personally.)
Thanks for pointing this new blog out, Sean. You might also want to check out Russian Music Video Blog for, well, some Russian music videos…
http://russianmusicvideos.blogspot.com/
“Unfortunately, most modern Russian music – or at least that which is played on the radio and TV – is appallingly bad, seemingly performed by the remnants of various Pop Idol ripoffs or the untalented offspring of oligarchs or celebraties.”
Speaking of which, did anybody see that British horror movie Alsou was in? It kind of sucked.
“If those goddamn Kommies didn’t seize power in 1917, we’d have won 90 Eurovision song contests by now, all I can say!”
Nah, Sekret and Samotsvety would have taken Eurovision by storm!
I actually really like Sekret…
I actually really like Sekret…
Gotta love Domoi. It’s somewhat of an anthem in one of the clubs here.
There’s some great old footage of Young Pugachava you can see on youtube, by the way.
И в заключение – народная русская песня “Мы Чемпионы, Друзья” в исполнении британского ансамбля Куин.
(And in conclusion – russian folk song “We are the Champions” performed by british group Queen)
the curtian should go back up and all of you criminal ruskiz get back behind it and eat beets!
all generations are jacked at this point. young are worthless, old are stuck wanting to back to the bread line days so bad they allow putin to run amok. the middle gen are all freakin stupid nutscabs. porn lovers, spammers, mafia, wreched politicians, con artists
yes…i’m saying ya suck
jenarnold_42@hotmail.com
sooooo
here is the truth
the curtian should go back up and all of you criminal ruskiz get back behind it and eat beets!
all generations are jacked at this point. young are worthless, old are stuck wanting to back to the bread line days so bad they allow putin to run amok. the middle gen are all freakin stupid nutscabs. porn lovers, spammers, mafia, wreched politicians, con artists
yes…i’m saying ya suck
jenarnold_42@hotmail.com
own it and go home already
That was awesome.
“(And in conclusion – russian folk song “We are the Champions” performed by british group Queen)”
Did you see the version they performed with Zemfira?: http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v187868c062
Candide, if you look around on youtube you can find a clip of Queen doing that song with Zemfira.
Youtube? Better get in line, I suppose. Where Youtube line starts?
Assuming you weren’t being totally sarcastic, you can find it easily by just googling “queen” and “zemfira.” I tried posting a link but Sean’s blog seems to be rejecting those.
I see that there was a message from Chris and Ger that were spammed. I released them. In the future, if you think a comment has been caught in the spam filter, just let me know and I’ll free it.
Chrisius Maximus,
Thanks for the tip. I shall play it tonight, but first I have to eat my beets.
Oh, you cynics! I’m the guy who puts the website together. Take a look – you’ll be more than pleasantly surprised. I wouldn’t judge Russian contemporary music by what you’ve seen on TV any more than I’d use ‘American Idol’ to judge avant-garde risk-taking in US songwriting!
Let me know if you have any questions – I’d be more than glad to help. Oh – and there’s an RSS feed via the Russian URL: ffm.soyuz.ru
Hope to hear from you!
David
I really like your music blog. Back when I was writing concert reviews I was much more au courrant with that stuff.
Dear Chrisius – Thanks for the kind words. I’m really help to help these artists, so if you know of any way to get the word out, please let me know! I’ve got a collection at home of 350,000 Russian songs… I’ve gotta so *something* with them!
D
“…KEEN to help…” (oh, the fruits of higher education!) D.
Thank you Professor MacFadius!
I actually do know a guy who runs a punk/underground music radio show in the States who might be interested in this. I woull like to his myspace page if Sean’s spam filter would let me.
If Professor MacFadyan is reading this, I’d be interested if he knows anything about Marc Almond’s doings in Russia. I know he lives at least part-time in St. Petersburg, recorded an album of covers of Soviet songs a few years ago, and I have seen several clips of him appearing with Russian musicians (for instance, if you search around you can find him doing a duet with Ilya Lagutenko). I think he also did something with the Russian Army Choir.
As somebody with fond memories of Sex Dwarf and Tainted Love, this makes me happy.
Speaking of which, the album Leningrad did with the Tiger Lilies is great. Must be a pain to collaborate with people who don’t speak your language.
“Unfortunately, most modern Russian music – or at least that which is played on the radio and TV – is appallingly bad, seemingly performed by the remnants of various Pop Idol ripoffs or the untalented offspring of oligarchs or celebraties.”
That’s the case in most countries. What we get in mainstream TV etc is mostly crap, whichever country you go to. So it would be very unfair to judge the status of the russian music scene from what you see on TV.
There is a HUGE amount of great contemporary russian music. Check out for example the “Russkij Rock” channel on 101.ru for 24-hour non-stop russian rock. It’s a great way to find your favourite bands, which you can then google for more information about.
http://101.ru takes you to a page where you can choose between a large number of channels. To go directly to Russkij Rock, try the following:
http://101.ru/?an=chan_popplay&uid=40&bit=128