The USSR did its best to control culture and make it serve the needs of the state. However, culture, like life itself, finds a way of spreading, evolving, and surviving, often against all odds. Rock music had, by the 60s and 70s, become a cultural phenomenon in Europe and America and its spread to the […]
The Soviet-era bards were singer-songwriters who combined poetic lyricism with simple, guitar-accompanied melodies. The artform emerged in the 1950s shortly after the death of Stalin. Although it remained underground for nearly all of the Soviet period, it became a soundtrack for the lives of many Soviet citizens throughout the 1960s and 70s and beyond. Bardic […]
Russian composers contributed greatly to the genre of programmatic symphonic works. Although many were initially attracted to it by Spanish inspirations, one reason for the genre’s eventual massive popularity was that it gave the composers a popular musical form to incorporate not only native Russian tunes and harmonic structures, but also to focus on other […]
Russian music has long permeated American popular culture even despite a backdrop of long-time political tension. Russian musical themes from poignant folk melodies to complex classical pieces have become tunes that nearly everyone who grew up in America can recognize as having heard before. Often, they are specifically associated with popular cartoons, video games, or […]
The twentieth century was a dynamic period for Soviet composers who often had to work around censorship to create their great contributions to world music. Under the USSR, artists were expected to produce works that glorified the Communist Revolution and the new lives of the new Soviet masses, often while criticizing the capitalistic West. Soviet […]
Отава Ё is a folk music group founded in St. Petersburg, Russia. This popular folk fusion group started in 2003 as the side project of two bands – Reelroad and Tales of the Forest. The two members of Reelroad, Alexey Belkin and Alexei Skosyrev, paired up with two members of Tales of the Forest, Dmitry […]
In the past decade, no other musician has been able to so rapidly capture and hold the attention of Russian youths like Morgenshtern. Similar to controversial American rappers such as 6ix9ine, Lil Pump, and XXXtentacion, Morgenshtern got face tattoos early in his career and made his appearance outlandish, was overly hedonistic, and purposely sought out […]
The Hatters are a gypsy-folk rock band that was started in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2016. The five main members of the band include: Yuri Muzychenko, Pavel Lichadeev, Alexander “Kikir” Anisimov, Dmitry Vecherinin, and Anna Muzychenko. The group of musicians officially formed their band in 2016 when they released their first song, “Russian Style” online. […]
HammAli & Navai is a popular Russian rap group created by Alexander Aliev and Navai Bakirov. The two Moscow native, ethnically Azerbaijani musicians formed their rap duo in 2016, when they released their first song “День в календаре” (A Day in The Calendar). Both members studied music from their early years, which led to individual […]
