The girl took off

Anna Asti is a Russian star with Ukrainian roots that walks in bars and hit parades, while the war is in her native country. Can it be called "Our Taylor Swift"?

Anna Asti gained popularity as part of the Ukrainian duet Artik & Asti, and after the group broke up, she began her own solo career and led Russian hit parades. The second time in a row, she becomes the artist of the year according to Yandex.Music, tickets for her concerts in Moscow and Minsk in the fall and winter of 2023 were completely sold out, and the songs almost continuously hold on the tops of the charts. At the end of September, the singer released her second album and continued a tour of Russia.

Asti spoke at the scandalous Almost Naked Party at Anastasia Ivleeva at the Mutabor club, and after that, Anna New Year's concerts at the GIPSY Moscow Club and Barvikha Luxury Village were canceled. In addition, the Kion service suffered the premiere of the Asti film concert: it was supposed to take place on January 5, and now, instead of the exact date, it stands “soon”. Shot even writes that the singer can be left without Russian citizenship, which she received two months ago, due to a complaint of the “forty forty” movement. Novyevropa decided to understand the phenomenon of Asti and tell her story-from childhood in Ukrainian Cherkasy to the success of wartime in Russia.

"History of Cinderella"

Asti has always been called the "Ukrainian performer." The singer, who is truly called Anna Anatolyevna Dziuba, was born on June 24, 1990 in the Ukrainian city of Cherkasy and until 2013 she lived and built her solo career in Ukraine.

The girl’s parents were also musicians: Anna Tamara’s mother sang in an ensemble with her father Anatoly, who played drums. However, the father eventually became a businessman in the field of catering, and the mother taught in the courses of cutting and sewing.

After graduating from high school, Anna entered the legal, and while studying at the university, she worked as a lawyer and makeup artist. In an interview with Ksenia Sobchak, Anna said that she had a difficult relationship with her father and that for some time he was even engaged in the sale of drugs in Cherkasy.

In 2010, the producer born in Zaporozhye, Artem Umrikhin, offered Anna Dziuba to cooperate after he heard her performances on the Internet: he was attracted by the timbre of voice. Three years later, the group moved to Moscow. Artik & ASTI became part of the Ukrainian musical expansion of the period of the 2000-2010s, when a significant share of the hita pop music in Russia was made by Ukrainians, such as Vera Brezhnev (from the Dnipropetrovsk region), Kiev VIA Gra, Svetlana Loboda (from Irpenia of the Kyiv region), Ani Lorak (from the Chernivtsi region), and the monatic Ivan Dorn, who grew up near Kyiv.

Umrikhin in a conversation with Sobchak expressed the opinion that there are talented artists in Russia and Ukraine, but in Ukraine they, in his opinion, are “more branded, Europeanized”: “It was more for centuries - the nationality is more singing”,

He says.

For ten years, Artik & Asti released four studio albums, received several Golden Gramophone awards, VK Music Awards, as well as RU.TV and Muz-TV channels. According to the results of 2020, the couple got into tops on listening to most popular stream services in Russia.

“I was lucky. How did I get here from Cherkas? It is not clear how, in fact. This is the story of Cinderella. <...> It is ten years to go to your goal and get to such a level. And this is not without talent and without perseverance, ” says Anna.

Musical critics in a conversation with New Evrop confirm: at the beginning, the couple was ready to play for the minimum amount before the rich public, so that they were heard and then called for corporate parties. They for a long time searched for a target audience, upholstering the thresholds of radio stations, musical television channels and concert halls. They did not have a producer like Max Fadeev ( he produced Serebro, Molly, Nargiz, also worked with former participants in the Russian “Star Factory” - Yulia Savicheva, Lena Temnikova and Polina Gagarina. - Approx. Ed. ), Which would pour money into them. But their simple material with memorable melodies and texts really clung.

Half of the "indivisible" becomes "queen"

Anna Asti songs are similar on topics, meaning and musical style. These are messages-excalses about co-dependent relationships, where the lyrical heroine either suffers, anticipating an early parting, or has already parted with a partner and is acutely experiencing breakdown, resentment and anger. Or it is “revived”, perceiving the experienced experience.

Musical journalist and editor of the Waves of Latvia, Nikolai Ovchinnikov, in a conversation with the New Evrope, expressed the opinion that the sound of Asti songs is “an example of bringing to the point of absurdity” of the Pop House, the most popular music of the second half of the 2010s: “Basochka knocks, electronic bass pulsates, slightly old-fashioned acoustics, restrained atmospheric keyboards. All this grew out of nostalgia for the pops of the end of the nineties, ”he argues.

Ovchinnikov says that he would not share the work of the girl in the group and as a solo performer. But if you consistently listen to Asti albums from the beginning of her career to the very last hits, you can trace how the lyrical heroine grows emotionally, becoming wiser and independent.

The singer's early songs in the Artik & Asti group are a description of the very beginning of the co -dependent relationship. The girl constantly reminds the partner that she is nearby and that he can “everything” (“everything can be possible for you”, 28 million views on YouTube), and believes that it is cool to be “one whole and indivisible”, while feeling “Cosmos and Infinity” between themselves and the partner (“indivisible”, 134 million views on YouTube). In these lines, not only the first experiences and “red flags” of co -dependence are sounded, but also enjoyment of such relationships.

Why do not evaluate performers only by the number of listening and views on streaming services and which indicator can be taken as an alternative

Musical critics in a conversation with the New European expressed the opinion that it is better to measure the popularity of the contractor by the number of concerts, since in this case you can determine the “real” audience that is ready to pay money to listen to the artist live.

If the artist does not collect concert halls, but has a lot of auditions in streaming, there is an occasion to think about whether it is so popular: firstly, there are wraps in streaming; Secondly, there are, for example, chanson artists who have gained popularity in the late 1990s-early 2000s thanks to one song, and people have been driving this song for years in a circle, twisting the listening to the singer.

Charts are also not an indicator of popularity: firstly, this is a bought story, and secondly, they reflect only today.

Late songs in the group are already a premonition of a quick parting and the gap itself. Both the girl and the young man are burning that “the one who was” so “necessary” is already “too alien to be family” (“Sad Dance” with Artyom Board, 348 million views on YouTube). This is minor songs, where both partners are experiencing a crisis, telling about their feelings and letting each other with a scandal.

In November 2021, Artik & Asti officially broke up . Anna left the group, and instead of her, Seville Velieva entered the project - a singer who was born in Uzbekistan and grew up in Crimea.

Artik & ASTI sold to the public a dialogue of two people, and some techniques that Anna uses now were felt even then.

In her songs, the principle of this dialogue is still noticeable, only now this man has become imaginary. Also in the compositions there are fewer hip-hop, since Umrikhin read the recitative part (at the same time, Anna’s recitative is still present-for example, in the song “Queen”).

Further - Asti songs are already without an artica. Anna introduced her solo project Anna Asti at the end of 2021 under the wing of the Russian branch of the Universal Music musical giant, and therefore it is not surprising that the hits of Asti sounded everywhere. And in March 2022 - after the start of the Russian full -scale invasion of Ukraine - Universal left the Russian Federation.

Then Asti opened her own label - Fenix ​​Music. However, her relations in the industry remained the same, and dozens of people are working on the Anna Asti brand, the music journalist Denis Boyarinov noted in a conversation with the New Evrope: “This is the same team that knows how to promote songs, how to produce them. Therefore, we see such impressive results - it works with very good professionals, this is really an honest production of popular songs. ”

The author of most texts to the debut record is composer Dmitry Loren, who wrote poetry to the songs of Svetlana Loboda (“Fly”, “Native”), Polina Gagarina (“Angels in the Dance”), Elena Temnikova (“Neon”) and others.

Boyarinov, in a conversation with the New Evrope, noted that Loren has a recognizable manner of “compose words in the texts”: he skillfully draws signs and “beacons” of the modern life of citizens (Sesapers, drunken calls, Storis on Instagram), but at the same time tells the same good old story about the drama of unrequited love.

Phoenix is ​​a rebirth and resurrection. The key line of the same leading single - “to resurrect, you need to incinerate” (2022, 95 million views on YouTube). This composition is not as dance and fast as other songs by Asti, but attracts the plot and vivid lyric images: the girl throws old feelings, “soot, soot” and pain, leaving herself “only experience”, and degenerates like a poultry of a phoenix. And then there is a kind of revenge and mirroring:

Somewhere in another life, she, promising to give her heart to the partner, holds out only a “cold stone” to him, and it is already he “swallows sleeping pills from resentment”, experiencing both pain and hatred of lyrical heroine.

The chosen single of Asti's first record-“Barars”-became a hit of 2022, which thundered after the Western Major Lablla and a number of top artists and producers left Russia. He scored almost 200 million views on YouTube, was in Tiktoka’s trends all year, climbed the top-1 even at the Russian musical radio station in Latvia and still occupies the upper positions of the Russian charts. The plot of the composition is simple: the couple broke up, and the lyrical heroine “wiser, or maybe just fell out of love,” while the “dislike of the boy” staggers “along the bars in a drunken clip”, recalling how they “walked along the sidewalk”.

Further - more.

The war that unfolded in her native country did not prevent her from making friends with Philip Kirkorov, who had previously supported the Russian invasion. And in April 2022, their first joint work “Hobbies” was released.

According to the plot, a man (Kirkorov) more experienced in love affairs gives his girlfriend (Asti) tips on how to survive the loss, and offers “still by whiskey”, promising that “he will let go soon.” Pop-king also appears in the film about Asti on the Kion platform. “Damn, again, Hityara ( about the song“ Cosmic. ” - Approx. Ed. )! You generally understand that you are number one today? " He says.

The lyrical heroine of the second record “Queen” clearly has been going to a psychologist for several months. She became wiser and stronger, learns to understand and accept herself, and most importantly - to live in love for herself. She is no longer weak, not bewildered. Yes, she is lonely, but self -sufficient, she copes with everything herself (as the heroine of the song “At night in the kitchen”) and understands the value of this. She has no longer a heart inside, but a “precious stone”, and she herself is the queen, while her former partner was drunk through her fault and “sailed” right in the center of the Denses Plopadka.

"Factory of hits"

The uniformity is both plus and minus of Asti creativity. On the one hand, having heard a familiar unique voice in her own way, her character characteristic of her and the same bits, the listener will immediately recognize her. The performer seemed to find a recipe that helps her turn every idea into a hit. However, on the other hand, many criticize her work as "the same songs about the same thing."

Ovchinnikov in a conversation with the New Evrope indicates that love is actually the only topic of all the tracks of Anna, and besides love in this world, it seems that nothing exists. Asti music continues, Ovchinnikov, turned into an elegant frame for the mirror, as on the cover of the last album, into a set of sound patterns that can be endlessly shaken.

Boyarinov agrees with this: in his opinion, the solo project of Anna Asti can be called the “Factory for the Production of Hits” - all the songs have a stencil in structural, ideological, and musically, and this stencil revolves around the “banal, straight dance, House barrel”.

But in this “averaging” there is a reason for its success, Ovchinnikov believes: “Asti offers the most distilled pop about the most distilled feelings. He is birch the soul, but does not penetrate it. He amuses the body, but does not send you into space. This music has no catharsis. She occupies, she entertains, she pleases, she gets stuck in her head, she goes well with the backdrop to anything: from a trip to a taxi to a dull seat in the office.

This is probably the secret of success - a beautiful life with small tragedies and a cozy design. Everyone wants it, everyone is available, no sharp corners. ”

Boyarinov notes that Asti gets well into the audience - these are young women, citizens who experience similar dramas and conflicts and need songs that would guess their life. They are attracted by the image of a strong, self -confident girl, which, although it depends on men, since it is constantly in the process of clarifying relations with them, but nevertheless has an independent and proud look.

Asti suffers and worries, but pretends that she is all right, and the one who deceived and betrayed her, will regret it, argues the boyars. In addition, one cannot deny a large targeted work, which has been done by promoting the singer for more than a dozen years:

“Asti and the team that stands behind it felt for a certain recipe for a working hit. If you try to describe it, this is the version of the series "Sex and the City", but in a song format. In every song, Asti's heroine leads an imaginary dialogue with her young man, with whom she was in conflict relations. This is a drama spinning around love, romantic feelings, written in modern language. Fans of Anna Asti recognize themselves in these subjects, ”says Boyarinov.

Researcher of the Russian chanson Natalia Khomyakova expressed the opinion that Anna Asti is "Irina Allegrova for those who are now less than 45 years old." She notes that Allegrova began with Eleklub and sang in tandem with Igor Talkov, but the country really recognized her and fell in love with solo status.

“Allegrova in a voice with hoarse sings about strong women who were not lucky with love. But she does not suffer directly, but continues to light up to die those who did not want her. Asti - similarly, but the voice is not sonorous, but sipper ",

- argues Khomyakova.

The Empress is the mother of the Queen, she continues. “One in the arms of young gentlemen forgets about everything. The second dances so that in girls he is jerking his faces with envy, and the boy floats and gets, shy and kisses. Both are easy to fall in love with them. But they do not need no one, because they rule the ball. ”

As the journalist Boyarinov draws attention in a conversation from Novo-Europe, there is an opinion that Asti in the Russian musical field replaced Svetlana Loboda-a Ukrainian singer, who was “surgically cut out of the Russian market due to its origin and attitude to war in Ukraine”.

Loboda also performed in the genre of a strong, self -confident luxurious woman who has suffered a lot from men, but does not show. Loboda on the day of the beginning of the war wrote an anti -war post and performs in Europe with a charitable tour. Asti announces additional concerts to accommodate everyone who wants to get to her performances in Russia and Belarus.

It can be called “Our Taylor Swift” only in the context of the fact that Swift is the main pop singer in the USA, and Asti is the main pop singer in Russia, Boyarinov believes.

I would like to say: what a country, such and Taylor Swift.

But what to measure the "mainness"? “Yes, in 2022–2023, she earned so well. But there are many other singers in Russia, quite popular. Why not Polina Gagarina? Why not Lolita? ”Says Boyarinov. He emphasizes that Swift himself writes his songs, while Asti has a Songraiter Dmitry Lauren, who is largely owed to her popularity. Like Allegrova - Igor Nikolaev, adds Khomyakov.

"Panic from the crowd"

As Sobchak said in an interview with Artem and Anna in 2021, the media extended information that Asti allegedly never went to the polls in her life (including in 2019, when the president was chosen in Ukraine), as he was experiencing a “panic from the crowd”. Anna laughed, but did not deny it.

She said that she did not think to receive Russian citizenship, since before the war she often went to visit her relatives in Ukraine, and with the Ukrainian passport this was much easier than with Russian. However, when asked, she would like to return to Kyiv and live there, she answered negatively, explaining that she had already built her life in Moscow.

The singer never returned to her homeland. I did not publicly talk about the war in my native country. По информации украинских блогеров и СМИ , 24 февраля 2022 года — в день вторжения — она была в Украине, но потом вернулась в Москву ( сама певица это не подтверждала. — Прим. ред. ). При этом Асти говорила, что хотела бы записать украиноязычную композицию.

В октябре 2023 года стало известно, что она получила российское гражданство (впрочем, сейчас, по сообщениям телеграм-каналов, она может остаться без него из-за выступления на «голой вечеринке» у Насти Ивлеевой).

В России у Асти также есть свой собственный салон красоты и бар. А Артем Умрихин — ее экс-партнер по Artik & Asti — в январе 2023 года эмигрировал из России в Объединенные Арабские Эмираты.

Российские СМИ писали , что Асти «натурализовала российское гражданство» и что на этот шаг она пошла из-за проблем с налоговой.

Украинские же СМИ назвали певицу «предательницей» и « поклонницей путинского режима »: «Получить паспорт РФ для скандальной певицы было несложно, ведь с 2020 года она состоит в браке с российским бизнесменом Станиславом Юркиным. К слову, получение российского гражданства поможет предательнице зарабатывать больше кровавых рублей и упростит процедуру уплаты налогов, за счет которых Россия ведет войну в Украине, ежедневно обстреливает украинские города и убивает невинных людей», — писал TCH.

«Новая-Европа» направила запрос в PR-службу певицы, но не получила ответа.