This letter for a contest on the Zvuki.Ru website won first place in 2003. Thanks to the editors for their understanding.
We live in an era of change. There's probably no need to even mention the ancient Chinese proverb that has long since turned into either a hackneyed cliché, or a Russian national idea, or even materialized into our modern reality: "May you live in an era of change!". Whether it's a curse or a wish for happiness, everyone in the post-Soviet space decides for themselves. While the "golden billion" enjoys the senseless and mindless lightness of its existence, we are trying to build our lives on the ruins of a great empire, opportunely using the rolled-up wheel of progress and the friendly hand of the West, although sometimes it's unclear what exactly this hand is doing in our pocket. Along with the much-desired prosperity, Western philosophy and culture are pouring into us in a wide river, sadly killing off our own achievements, and blocking the path for the "rational, good, and eternal" made in ex-USSR. The tendency to replace reason and feelings with technology and information, respectively, has reached absurdity in its modern incarnation, where pedophilic (Michael Jackson) or lesbian (Tatu) motifs are used for the PR of new albums, and nobody even cares anymore about the fresh rumor that Britney Spears got married for 2 hours, and immediately divorced. Teenagers with brains washed by music TV have long since swept the albums of all the aforementioned "heroes of our time" from peer-to-peer networks or pirate stalls and underpasses. Are you still boiling? Then we're coming to you! - has become more of a mass-media motto than one for washing powder. Beliefs instilled overnight by ubiquitous overt and hidden advertising have become a cheap commodity, and freedom has turned into degradation. Why have your own opinion when there's a ready-made one?
By analogy with the Zvuki nomination for "Disappointment of the Year", one could award a prize for "Disappointment of the Century", and it would go to technology. Humans put their hopes in technical means time after time, and it always turns out to be a bummer for us. Yes, now anyone has the means to compose and record their own music, but recording and communication equipment has found a far greater application in the assembly-line churning out of half-baked "stars" for making bank, and, as has often happened in the history of Russia, here this idea has taken on particularly ugly and degenerate forms. If the products of the English pop-culture incubator "Girls Aloud" don't provoke any particular negative emotions, but are simply solidly slapped-together fast food with ketchup in the form of little guitars and passable voices, then our domestic "Fabrikas" and "Kornis", created solely by the grace of producers for the further brainwashing of the population, sometimes induce a gag reflex even in that very population. And while technocrats talk about the possibility of post-humanistic evolution, techno-pessimists in the person of the cold and gloomy Swedes Covenant warn us of the danger of enslavement by our own creation.
"We are slaves of our servants
In the shadow of our ambitions"
Covenant - Hardware Requiem
It's telling that when I quoted just this line to my friend Vladimir Kotov, and asked what it was about, the answer was instantaneous:
"Hard drives!".
Fortunately, it's not all that bad. A tool is indeed capable of bringing benefit in skilled hands, and there will always be enthusiasts who aren't stopped by such trifles as being broke, rampant piracy, and the lack of taste in the majority of the population of our vast homeland. (By the way, someone should come up with a good term, because I'm sick of saying the CIS and the Baltic states). Punks, nonconformists and alternative kids, talents from the outskirts and the forges of Russian rock, even rappers nowadays express the rebellious spirit of freedom. Psychea, AnimalJazZ, 5'NIZZA, Kirpichi. We have them, these names. Yes, there are few of them (Or rather, we just don't know about the others?), yes, it's hard for them to record and get released, but you can't stop them that easily as long as they are in demand, and I believe that real, live music, in every sense of the word, will always be in demand. This past year, the mainstream rock old-new "supergroup" U-Piter easily "owned" pop music in the charts. The classics of Russian rock, even though they have already turned into an order-bearing cross between a giraffe and a hippo, also do not wish to rest on their laurels. They continue doing what they love, and although they are sometimes subjected to harsh criticism for commercialization and selling out, let's leave the truthfulness of all this dirt on the conscience of amateur "music journalists" , who belong in the yellow press, and those comrades about whom Kirpichi sing: "Smarter people don't write in guestbooks." Besides, is it worth it for us to play on someone else's turf in a game with no winners? It's just a pity that, playing Don Quixote, the rockers collectively cobbled together a tasteless cookie-cutter track in the spirit of the very pop music they hate so much, and even titled it appropriately. (The song by "Rok-Gruppa" - "Popsa"). Truly, the greatest irony — when as a result of a prank you end up the fool yourself.
As for electronic musicians, even if they can't yet release several albums a year like Klaus Schulze, thanks to the efforts of the "Exotica" label, we, at least, have an idea of this kind of music. We have a capital of the electronic scene — Izhevsk, just as Sverdlovsk has been and remains a source of original music, and St. Petersburg of the garage (or rather, basement) underground. In Russia, there is pop-ethno Ivan Kupala and rock-ethno Iva Nova. Even the wretched pop-rock, worn out to the state of crap-rock, is capable of throwing some amazing curveballs in the form of Torba-na-Krutche or even Polyusa. (I agree, I'm cheating, these are last year's heroes, but it's still awesome!).
Perhaps people will argue with me, but we even have glimpses of pop music with a human face in the form of Glukoza. True, she's no Dido , but as a competitor to Gorillaz — why not? For Dido, with her expectedly superb album Life For Rent, which is decidedly close to the mysterious Russian soul, we have an equally sincere and outwardly open girl, Zemfira. Despite their different styles, there's an elusive similarity in their music — perhaps it's all about the performer's honesty with the audience and the lack of desire to show off unnecessary tricks where innate elegance and simplicity will yield a far more impressive result?
Western pop music proved a long, long time ago that you can and should make fun, light, and even carefree music, provided that this fun is not feigned or vulgar, and that the music itself is subtle and beautiful. You don't have to look far for examples — here are some such albums from 2003 featured on Zvuki:
- Texas - Careful What You Wish For
- April March - Triggers
- Ursula 1000 - Kinda' kinky
- Blondie - Curse Of Blondie
For the sake of completeness, I will mention Sophie Ellis Bextor - Shoot From The Hip, Rockets - Don't Stop and Paul Van Dyk - Reflections, although this is not my choice.
In the West, which is now going to be our role model for many years to come, whether we want it or not, the market would seem to have long since settled down under the force of musical gravity. Artists have been shoved into genre and style boundaries, turned into commodities, slapped with tags (which in bourgeois speak are called labels — ring a bell?), and are seamlessly sold on supermarket shelves for 9.99 standard bucks. It seems everyone is happy, except for the musicians themselves, who simply refuse to fit into this Procrustean bed. One such band is the Scots Mogwai, who get terribly angry when they're called post-rock. Their album "Happy Songs For Happy People" and this style itself have probably become my discovery of the year. Therefore, I won't rabidly deny the usefulness of classifications — otherwise, how would I have found out about the wonderful post-rock bands Dirty Three and Sigur Ros? (Dreamily - And I still have an introduction to Godspeed You Black Emperor! ahead of me).
As for heavy music, alternative rock is in a weird state where it seems to be neither alternative nor rock anymore, and its latest child, nu-metal, with rare exceptions, turned out to be somewhat stillborn. It was ruined by that same showbiz, which, following the standard formula, spawned strains with a juicy sound, listing which seems redundant. I'll just mention Linkin Park, who failed to live up to expectations with the release of their second album (and I did have them), and Evanescence, trendy due to their lightness and radio-friendliness, with their album Fallen. Listen to it, if you still want to. That leaves only System Of A Down, but they didn't treat us to anything this year. A heavier Metallica with their record St.Anger isn't too bad, at least it retains the conceptualism characteristic of rock music and some vaguely palpable quirk. Fortunately, the tormented heart of an alternative fan still has something to rejoice at — if you know/have heard/love the virtuosos Guano Apes, go download their 2003 live album Guano Apes Live immediately. You won't be disappointed. As for classic hard rock, I'll modestly keep quiet — it's not my domain, but the story of the Japanese guitarist hide, his appearance and his music make a strong impression. Do you still consider the use of cosmetics and makeup by men to be reprehensible or excessively extravagant? And do you hold rigid views, conservatism, and intolerance in high esteem? Beauty does not depend on conventions.
Trip-hop, which has now expanded to unimaginable proportions, has become trendy. Now everything sad and electronic is lumped into it, and sometimes even things that aren't all that sad, like the decent new album by the exquisite Lamb - Darkness And Wonder, or things that aren't all that electronic, like some songs from the album "Freedom" by St. Petersburg alternative rockers Jan Coo — whom I heard, to my shame, quite recently. In connection with these trendy winds, the following needs to be said — it's important not to fall into the opposite extreme and become a music snob who recognizes only the absolute underground, and obscurities recorded down a silo with an intercontinental missile in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Yes, one can make quite interesting music even living in a village, like the cult figure Pyotr Mamonov and his one-man band Zvuki Mu, but that is by no means an end in itself. You won't become smarter, taller, or better than others just because you avoid mass culture. Thinking like that is self-deception and an evil greater than that culture itself. It's not for nothing that pride, personified by Lucifer, according to apocrypha, is the most terrible sin. I hope you won't bash the new album by the modern shaman Tricky just because it has become accessible to broader music-loving masses? Really, you shouldn't, better listen to it one more time. And if heavy and slightly gloomy rhythms are still not to your liking, try Spacek with the album Vintage Hi-Tech — what if this kind-hearted oddball from the sky-high soul-trip-hop heavens touches some strings in your soul that craves the bizarre?
All these are the sounds of a new era, when man is already becoming something more. What awaits us? Genetic engineering, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence? It seems like sci-fi, but didn't personal computers in every home, connected by a planet-wide network for communication and access to information, mobile phones (soon with video transmission), and portable music players with memory for a thousand albums seem like just as much sci-fi?
Despite the pessimistic beginning of my thoughts, there is a way out. "There is no silver bullet," there is no royal road, but in principle — there is a road, says Frederick Brooks in his bestseller "The Mythical Man-Month", on a completely different subject, but very fittingly in our case. They say there's no accounting for taste. Maybe that's true, but for that, taste has to exist. At least some kind! Passions, interests. Your own. Not imposed. Let it even be the chanson I despise, but if it's your personal conscious choice — and you had a choice to make — so be it! Strength isn't in money, as the Brother's brother from "Brother" used to say, and not even in truth, as the Brother from "Brother" believed. Strength is in diversity. Evolution is possible only with a huge number of species — and this applies to everything, from the progress of civilization to progress in music. Music should be good — that's subjective, music should be diverse — that's objective. A lack of diversity, of a changing of ideas and generations — that is stagnation and extinction. Create, compose, listen!
May you live in an era of change!