We will survive

A coin in the new album supports its listeners with might and main. “Prayers. Toasts. Jokes "sound as a potentially best recording of the year

Six years ago, Elizaveta Girdimova (aka Monetochka) became a pop star thanks to the bestseller of “coloring for adults”, a set of ironic hymns of modernity and man against its background. Two years ago, Monetochka condemned the war in Ukraine and moved from Russia to Lithuania, and on May 24, 2024 released her third album-“Prayers. Jokes. Toasts ".

Nikolai Ovchinnikov (Telegram channel "Vois") discusses why this record looks like an instant classic and pop-recording of the season, or maybe a year in Russian. Or maybe not only a year.

Listen to the notes of the musicians who clearly spoke about the war and left Russia is always a little scary. Everything can turn into Nabokov’s longing - too elevated to treat her seriously. Or political agitation - too angry to listen to it to the end. Or something strange and slurred . In general, I turned on the album of the Coins “Prayer. Jokes. Toasts ”, which began with the song“ It was in Russia ”, not with prejudice, but with caution . Especially because it is a coin.

Elizaveta Girdimova - both alone and in the company with her husband Vitya Isaev - always managed to walk along a very thin line. Simper a little - you will fall into vulgarity. And somehow she managed to splash a cloud of tags on notes, remember Russia and the nineties with irony, but without a big idea, with neat longing, but without whining. The coin was equally good in the company Antihape, and on the same stage with Noize MC, and on the air of Channel One, and in the headliners of the pain festival. She has always been - and, fortunately, remains - very alive, real.

Its “coloring for adults” became a large album and part of the pop revolution of the end of the tenths, because they were such a sincere Diary of Zumer about the world around, with its memes and nostalgia, and at the same time filigree recorded. This plate, with a laconic glass, gutta-paws electronics, adherent melodies on three chords and post-irony under the piano, took the best from all-from moby to noize MC, from electric sex to Zemfira-and bending for itself. Six years ago, the album “Coloring” seemed to me slightly pretentious, but at a distance it is much more honest and livelier than other bestsellers of the era.

In general, it was all the strips of the bar. And Gyrdimova refused to jump over her. Her "decorative and applied art" was more relaxed, neat. It was more from Pugacheva than from Zemfira. Dancing with winks was also present, but I would “survive” the main track: recorded in the middle of the pandemic, she really turned out to be tenacious against the background of any events. If the album “Coloring” ended with a parody of a girlish diary with dreams of little bourgeois happiness, then “I will survive”-this is already dreams about something more.

Well, "Prayers. Jokes. Toasts ”ends with the song“ Above the roofs ” - with a dream of a world without a war, where planes fly from Moscow to Paris and from St. Petersburg to Kyiv. Everything is clear. And then I will return to my original fears. The album written against the backdrop of war can always be ringing vulgarity, like any statements on the agenda. Thank God there was.

“Prayers. Jokes. Toasts "can be called" Coloring for adults, Vol. 2 ". Gyrdimova seems to be repeating the path of six years ago. The similarities begin with the cover on a bright red background. It seems that the icon with a light bulb instead of a halo of the authorship of Nikita Zizhanov seemed to turn into a dilapidated sculpture from Dmitry Cockloft . Like “Coloring”, “Prayers” also starts with a retro-beevik about Russia. Only six years later, Gyrdimova seemed to leave the Russian ark. More precisely, she was removed. And not only her.

At all,

“It was in Russia” I would like to first call an emigrant anthem - such a piercing composition on the topic of how we lived our lives, and then lost it, and it remains only to yearn. But you can look at “It was in Russia” and from a different angle - as a farewell to the past for everyone.

We had a wonderful era with a saleswoman funny in the sausage department and with drizzling rain - but now it is not. This song is not about space, but about time. And therefore, it can equally respond to who has not left the territory of the Russian Federation in the last two years. I like how Gyrdimova plays not only with images in the text, but also with sound beacons. Starting as a traditional Monetochkin Pop, at some point it develops into perestroika dance music-the phenomenon is exclusively post-Soviet and mainly Russian.

But do not expect from the whole album “Prayer. Jokes. Toasts »sincere conversation about the homeland. The value of Girdymova’s work has always been that she knew how to stop in time and not write an album-column. This is still not about Russia, but about the coin. And about people like her.

There is a piercing song about love (“again”) and a dashing dance anthem to motherhood (“stopped”) - as a continuation of the Instagram of the singer, who promotes family values ​​better than any Mizulin. There is also a playful conversation about the economy, wealth and corruption-a terrible, in general, a thing that has buried Russia, here it turns into a Saltykovo-Shchedrinal comedy for jumping bass-and rightly.

And there are two piercing philosophical tracks. Firstly, the “bug” is a fleeting thoughtful post-punk about pitch darkness and people who have become animals: “It is good, like in your mother’s stomach: you’ll take a step-now the limit.” The peak of the album, one of the most adhesive songs, which is easy to transfer to acoustics and sing in the company of friends. Secondly, the “bird” is a concise and laconic ballad about death.

A coin describes itself in Spotify as Strong Girl from Russia. And in "Prayers" there is a conversation about female power and strong women. Firstly, this is a swing dance number “Mom has a secret” -about a woman as a fighter for the best world. Secondly, it is a “Kis-kis”, caustic rap, in which women and men changed places and all those stereotypes and claims that men often express to girls are sent back

. “Why are you furious? Nature decided so, well, you are not dead, like these, be wise, look deeper. It is time to connect the brains and become a father and husband. ”

Comment - only spoil.

The coin took a lot of intonationally from Noize MC, and this is felt just at the Kis-Chis. Firstly, the same rhythm that often jumps in civilian lyrics by Ivan Alekseev. Secondly, the same technique that he used, for example, in “black/white” -an ironic shift about racism. Noize MC is also heard in Selfharma-self-powerful and self-rational rap rock that someone is needed to "endlessly love." Otherwise, you can go crazy. Along with the "bug" - the peak of the album.

“Prayers. Jokes. Toasts, ”like“ coloring for adults, ”is not a big concept, not agitation, but a short (only half an hour!) Diary about a person against a background of great troubles and with a strong feeling inside. This person yearns for the past, selflessly loves a partner and child, asks questions to the world that will not go into the past, realizes his strength and at the same time recognizes his weakness. The coolness of “prayers” is that anyone can subscribe to these lines.

The lyrical context goes by the arm with musical. Monetochka and Isaev take the best from pop music in Russian. From an electropol for a penny synthesizer-to a sharp and dirty hip-hop, from delicate retro-bald-to a post-punk. But these styles do not fall into the fair kaleidoscope: no matter what “prayers” sounds, this is still a coin.

I was afraid for a new album of coins because he could drown on a conditional facebook. Because they will be more willing to write about him in socio-political publications than in specialized, musical. I think I was afraid in vain. This is not an emigrant album, not a column, not a manifesto. Even in the conditions of censorship and taking into account the “foreign agency”, I am sure that these prayers and toasts will find their listener or listener in Russia. The reason for this is optimism.

The obvious fact: the Russian independent scene, including the one that has become a feed base for pop music, has always been distinguished by a minor and htonya. In 2024, one who offers a positive agenda is needed, and this person will not be called Yuri Shevchuk.

The main advantage of the coin throughout her work

- She finds hope even where the rest were desperate. She promises to survive - and we are with her. She believes in herself - and in other girls, she even speaks about emptiness and weakness with tenderness,

And not with anger or despair, and even the most gloomy thoughts puts it into the format of an exclamation pop chita.

And the crown of this trip of the Poptimist is the song "Above the roofs." At the beginning of the “prayers”, the coin was yearning for the country and era lost by it, and in the end says that you can still do everything if you do not turn, then correct, fix, improve. “Above the roofs” is an enthusiastic anthem after the war, without war. Not a dream, but a forecast. Because everything will certainly be. Because "the girl has already been born that will make us tickets for inspection."

I am also sure that I was born.