Russian Music

So a twitter conversation with a couple of old school chaps made me want to pop a little thing your way. It occurs to me that there is a LOT of English language music that has penetrated the continent - but not, it would seem, Russia. Our local stolovaya plays music channels (standard practise) which function in the same way as a lot of the English ones do (or did). Except one key difference, they only play Russian pop music.

I actually really like Russian rap music. Or rather, this guy right here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI2mPPjviBE . The song is called "Look into my Eyes" and is all about how he is a working class hero adn a self made man. basically. His name is St1m - pronounced like "steam" - but I would consider him to be the Russian Eminem. I've also found his music great for learning Russian pronunciation - particularly which vowel to put emphasis on. Russians only pronounce one vowel and there are no rules behind it, which makes it a nightmare for English speakers, who pronounce every vowel as it is written. It's a blog post in itself, but basically I think there is a reason it is known as the "stress" of a word!

Russian pop music is a genre of its own. A lot of it sounds exactly the same, but I am going to present to you a few gems of the industry which have actually stood out. I say all this, I mention the gems of Russian music, when actually the intention behind this post was to bemoan the fact that all the stuff out at the moment sounds exactly the same! This is arguably why I cannot find a current video to show you - the songs I've included in this blog are all from 2002/2009/2011 and as I say, stood out for me.

As is probably to be expected with Russia, they have their women who are a bit like Shakira to us English lot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4XrvbaiHpg (Vera Brezhneva, who is actually Ukrainian). This song is called "Love Saves the World" and I confess to actually rather liking it -it's a great summer song. I think every woman has a secret inner Vera Brezhneva that she is dying to unleash. As anti-feminist as that sounds - but let's not go into that right now. Vera Brezhneva is an immensely successful singer over here and it's not hard to see why.

The thing is though that the women are often completely oversexualised and more so than in the West, and yet we complain about Rihanna in the UK as being a bad role model - we frankly ain't seen nothin' yet! Maybe this next video is just a particularly bad example of inappropriate female roles and the Russian alpha-male. I warn you, you will be shocked, those girls are sure to catch their deaths of cold - but I just think the tractor full of dollar bills and the accordion solo are rather amusing in an "OH, RUSSIA" kind of way. I suspect this video is meant in a satirical context, as per that of the song, but it's still pretty shocking. I apologise in advance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r5NIF5d7A0&feature=related . This song is by a rapper who reminds me somewhat of Pitbull/Fat Joe, Potap, and features a famous Ukrainian singer called Nastya Kamenskikh. The song is called "Not a Couple" and is about how the media keeps portraying them as a couple, which they're not, they're friends. The lyrics mention Chuck Norris too in a banterous way, which I must say I appreciate. Just maybe just listen to the song, the video is... yeah. The Georgians (referring to the time period here, not the inhabitants of the country of Georgia - we must be clear on this one!) would have had to have got the smelling salts out...  Potap and Nastya Kamenskikh are actually very popular, which I presume is in part for the satirical nature of their music. This video here is another example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzz-7BzZlRI&feature=related . "Don't love me for my Brains" - pretty sure this is meant in jest too!

 As it happens, I actually like Nastya Kamenskikh when she performs solo material too. I can actually understand this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx280IwxbBw&feature=related and it's pretty clever. It's about Red Riding Hood and her life as a fairytale character and how people expect her to act a certain way. "You think my life is so easy and excellent" "How many roles am I supposed to play? " "I want a Prince at the end of this, not a grandmother and pies!"

And then there is this one, which was released by the group Steklovata has been parodied by groups in at least 2 Eastern European countries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWa9sJzgM4A . It is possibly the most hysterical thing I've ever seen associated with Russia on the internet (and as any viewer of RudeTube on E4 will agree, there is a LOT). They're singing about the New Year (Novi God) and just well...

Yeah...