Bike path directly to hell

Everyone discusses the performance of the Komsomolsk group in Melitopol. We tell you what kind of group it is and why this event became a significant for the musical industry in Russia

The performance of the Komsomolsk group in occupied Melitopol caused a lot of disputes on the Internet, including the responsibility of journalists. Musical journalist Nikolai Ovchinnikov (“Vois”) tells why these disputes arose at all, as the Komsomolsk group described our reality with you better than others - and how this reality devoured it.

Indie group Komsomolsk-to which there used to be questions about flirting with the right, and which at the same time wrote surprisingly accurate songs about our life, -performed in the city of Melitopol, that is, in the occupied territories of Ukraine. The girls sang first in front of the children, then in front of the teenagers - and went home. Upon arrival in Moscow, they posted a post where they talked about the trip and about the fact that they “made a choice” to work on “their land”. The style of fasting wildly resembles other apologetic messages from the musicians who pressed the authorities.

The problem is that we do not know whether we put pressure on Komsomolsk or not. Some promoters and musicians accuse the Medusa publication of publishing a list of prohibited artists - and now everyone, including local officials and private businessmen, began to check with him (there is no evidence of concerts with reference to publication, because it is dangerous to provide evidence to journalists). Alexander Filimonov from Medusa replied that he knew the facts of the cancellation of concerts from the artists from the list to his publication.

This dispute highlighted several important problems of the musical industry within Russia and the relations of journalists with it. Should the media take into account possible harm from publications for artists? How are officials act: first they are waiting for lists from the authorities or act on the principle of “they write on the Internet, so you need to prohibit”? At all

Banning prohibitions and the exchange of the right to act on loyalty and trips to the Donbass - this is an initiative in the field or systematic work controlled from the conditional up

( Medusa claims that the “repentance” of media persons is really supervised by the Presidential Administration. As far as the “Novaya Gazeta Europe” is known, this information corresponds to reality. - Approx. Ed. )? So how to be the remaining artists? Can speakers in the "left" media make condemnations?

Personally, it is difficult for me to answer definitely: I am in a more privileged position than people who continue to work within Russia. It seems to me wrong and in some way even to advise what to do and what to do. I can only talk about my emotions. And the main emotions are confusion, rage, surprise.

I am at a loss that the musicians who have released an amazing track with the most well-aimed and accurate description of life in Russia-2022 made an unpleasant and incorrect, from my point of view, an act. I personally can’t tell me for a kind of community - it seems to me a betrayal of me as a listener.

I am surprised that the media and the industry cannot agree on the rules of the game, and the whole discussion comes down literally to sending each other. And I am no less surprised that the main guilty in the case of Komsomolsky was elected independent media - and because they were actively promoted , and because they wrote about this list. This dispute is literally an illustration of the meme "You are fighting the wrong way."

Musicians - and not only musicians - put in a position where they have a choice: to disappear or play according to dishonest and obscure rules. And many agree to such a game - both listeners and artists.

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It is interesting that it was the Komsomolsk group that has sharply brought to all these problems. Not Roma Beast in the Donbass , not the landing of Vacío and an apology after the “naked party”, but a small indie diet with songs about Moscow. And that's why.

Neither the beast nor the participants of the “naked party” to the public, O (b) the judging “Komsomolsk”, are not socially close - they did not expect statements from them. And Komsomolsk is another, they are “their own”.

Why did this happen? Komsomolsk remained until the last moment a very topical group. They recorded life in Moscow at the end of the tenths better than others. And above all, the main Soncreter of the group Ivan Ryabov (however, officially the group about the authorship of their songs said : “Everything that we will say next will be untruth or truth, no one knows, in the end. We will not even recognize the truth”). “Komsomolsk” sang about the demolition of the stalls near the metro, about the “E” center , about the meme “I pressed something-and everything disappeared”, about the practice of apologies in Chechnya.

All this was served in the company with a frivolous, air guitar priest. Listen to their hit “everything disappeared” - in it the world dissolves and disappears under the solemn rock in the spirit of Arcade Fire. This was heard in the post-irony, like a coin. This was heard in this post-optimism, like many indie groups that appeared then, like “wooden whales” or “shark tears”. Escapism in the sound is found with abrasiveness ( interaction with the external environment. - approx. Ed. ) In the syllable. A naive voice under a weightless sound is told about terrible things, in general, things-and they seem to go in a non-existent bubble somewhere to the clouds. To disappear.

The nuance of Komsomolsk was that this group went along a thin blade and often flirted with the right agenda. The song "Russian School of Smoking" with the references to Zig and Ferdinand Selin - how seriously? The song "Sonya" with the mention of Africans in CSKA is whose diary? Speech in the “foliage” ( Ultra Pravate of Literature. - Approx. Ed. ) - what was it at all?

One of the members of the group Daria Deryugin, however, called the same “Russian School School” “stupid song”: “What will a person who want to deal with references in this song will take about fifteen wikipedia about fifteen. This was the point that any person who does not condemn in the topic of nationalism or fascism will simply shout out some obscure slogans that are completely not related to the topic, and there will still be bubbles in the head. ” And in another interview, she explained the interpretation of the songs of “Komsomolsk” “metamodernism”:

“There is a freedom of interpretation - you could think one thing, and it is perceived by the listener in several contexts. I personally think that the stars just agreed. ”

The same problem of interpretations is born in many critics when listening to the last album, which the group recorded without Ryabov (although he wrote them). It seems to me that everything here is much more unambiguous. The line “this in the spring did not resurrect”, and the line “for happiness is a rotting, flowering hole”, and “past the park, the bike path leads us directly to hell” - as if all the memes of 2017 turned into an ugly and invincible new reality. The album "Komsomolsk-0" and especially the songs "Ave Maria" and "From our window" -it is like the awakening of a millennial, which was too carried away by a cloud of tags at the end of the tenths and missed how the tag cloud strangled it.

But in the end, this cloud strangled the Komsomolsk group itself. I don’t know what caused their trip to Melitopol, but the invisible bike path really brought them to where I would not want to see them. There are no conclusions, there is a hope that other good musicians who remained in Russia - and, no matter what anyone said, they would not go after them.