Alexey Munipov. Good defeated Evil

Good defeated Evil
Alexey Munipov

Publication date: December 29, 1999

In a way unknown to science

The main result of the outgoing musical year is that the expected kerdyk never came. Show business began to live within its means - like everyone else in this country. It was scary and sometimes even painful: there were drops all around, and we had a snowstorm. It seemed that touring people would stop coming to us, the representative offices of Western labels would close, records would stop selling, and Philip Kirkorov would take over the trade.

None of this happened, except perhaps that Kirkorov really took up trading. What is characteristic is that it is electronic (Philip Bedrosovich is now the official Russian representative of a large online store). The records are being carried, the stars are moving, everything is spinning, everything is spinning, everything is going head over heels. Western representative offices have not closed at all, but, on the contrary, are active. However, sales volumes are still amazing: twenty to thirty copies of one randomly taken disc (not counting bestsellers, of course). This is probably about the level of Suriname.

The market shrank - and it turned out that in this state it could well exist. Not very interesting, but honest - in contrast to the famous song by Ilya Lagutenko. Of the many domestic recording companies, there are essentially only two left: Soyuz and Real Records. Only they can boast of noticeable success, which in our situation means the very opportunity to regularly release discs without detriment to themselves. In the West, let us remind you that a disc is sold wholesale for ten dollars at a cost of one. The remaining nine include fees for musicians, advertising, etc., etc. And, in fact, a mess. In our country, the average cost of a disk is one and a half dollars, with the same cost. But - “they squeak, but they climb,” as a Georgian prince used to say from a famous joke of the 19th century, explaining how Georgian bees of unprecedented size fit into standard hives. But what about: “If they don’t fit in, they spend the night on the street.”

And, in general, everything that is needed comes out. And what doesn’t work out (for example, the new “Va-Bank” album “Lower Tundra”, written based on an unpublished story by Viktor Pelevin), is probably for the better - in the case of “Va-Bank” certainly. As far as one can judge, the situation is improving before our eyes: new labels are appearing ("Bullfinches", for example, whose clients include "Masha and the Bears", "Biplan" and Nike Borzov), and long-time players, who had long seemed to have frozen their activities , suddenly begin to show remarkable activity. Consider the news from the company Gala Records, whose latest release (the single by the group Strelki) was released more than a year ago, about concluding a contract with the group Leningrad for the release of five (!) albums. And the group "Leningrad", it should be noted, is not "Strelki" - it's swagger, swearing and copper pipes.

The changed situation has forced companies to look for new performers. The past year was marked by a simply incredible number of diverse compilations, which brought together promising musicians (some, however, have been doing this for quite some time). Nashe Radio alone has released three “Invasion” collections with “high-quality new music” and “non-pop” music, and all three are quite entertaining. There were also national festivals, a mass outing of provincial performers as part of the “Cultural Heroes of the 21st Century” campaign , and the emergence of truly interesting projects, like “Ivan Kupala”. Pop music is slowly but surely changing for the better - there was no breakthrough this year, but the trends have reached even the most odious pop figures: what are the unexpected and partly caricatured transformations of Kirkorov, Bulanova and Ovsienko into Manson-like dolls (here are both Shirley and Marilyn).

If we talk about names, then we repeat the name of only one star. The Ufa girl with the player is an undoubted discovery of this year, and it’s good if only this one. In a good way, a nervous and melodic clash of the traditions of Russian rock (Diaghilev and Aguzarov in unequal proportions) and the favorite Soviet song - just what, it turns out, bohemian young ladies, picky critics, and simple lovers of simple music were waiting for. “Not because I love her, but because I languish with others” - the continuation of the stanza of Innokenty Annensky can quite clearly indicate one of the reasons for this wonderful phenomenon.