Pop Music in USSR

Modern Russian pop music owes much to city romance, as well as to Russian people’s song in general. However, when Soviet power came to rule, overall extermination of everything “bourgeois” started in music along with all other spheres. For a few decades a specific genre was established in culture: it was the song bright and cheerful, called to help “live and build”. However, this genre also saw creation of many remarkable songs, in particular those by composers Isaak Dunayevsky, Oscar Feltsman, Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy, and others.

Thanks to singers like Klavdiya Shulzhenko, Mark Bernes, and Nina Dorda intimate and lyrical intonations were kept alive in Soviet song.

As compared to American pop-music, that of the Soviet country was peculiar for being more lyrical, renouncing marked sexual implications, having taboo on foul language, being subject to censorship and at the same time boasting vivid and expressive lyrics. The latter was in a way due to the non-commercial character of art in the USSR and lesser usage (sometimes simply absence) of advanced music technology for the same reason.

Soviet pop music turned to be closer to traditional pop music widespread in Romanic countries, such as Italy and France.

In the 1950-60s, the heyday of lyrical variety genre, there sprang up a great number of popular singers, namely Joseph Kobzon, Eduard Khil, Valery Obodzinsky, Lev Leshenko, Muslim Magomaev, Maya Kristalinskaya, Lidiya Klement, Anna German, Edita Piekha, and Margarita Suvorova.

In the 1970s official Soviet variety art was undergoing the epoch of the so-called vocal and instrumental ensembles (or pop groups). Especially popular were folk stylizations and “ethnic bias”: Byelorussian ensembles Pesnyary, Syabry, Verasy, Russian Ariel, Uzbek Yalla, and Azerbaijani Gunesh, as well as Samotsvety, Tsvety, Plamya, and many others.

Alla Pugacheva became one of the most popular singers in the country of that time. Her cooperation with Lettish composer Raimond Pauls turned very successful. His songs performed by Alla Pugacheva present an excellent example of high-level pop music.

Soviet and Russian Pop Music in 1980-1990s

In the 1980s Soviet pop music was embellished with names of Yury Antonov, Valery Leontiev, Anne Veski, Yak Yola, Evgeny Martynov, Valentina Legkostupova, Aleksander Malinin, Aleksander Serov, Vladimir Kuzmin, Laima Vaikule, Irina Ponarovskaya, and Larisa Dolina.

Pop group Zemlyane gained love of the people with their hit Trava u doma (Grass Near My Home). Somewhat in the same period a new music term set in: popsa (i.e. pops) stands for low-grade, shallow, trite and vulgar sort of pop music. Another term got widely spread, namely fanera derived from “phonogram” and prompted by unscrupulous lip-synching at concerts of pops stars who were apt to fool the audience this way.

Perestroika of the late 1980s brought changes to pop music as well. It was heyday for Igor Talkov, Oleg Gazmanov, Igor Nikolaev, groups Lube, and Car-men. The end of the 1980s saw the appearance of Laskovy Mai project – the boys band won extreme love of unpretentious teenagers; it is now notorious for the fact that “clones” of the band toured simultaneously in different places and gathered fees all over the huge country.

In the early 1990s another boys band, Malchishnik (from which the now famous Delfin emerged later) scored a scandalous success. Bogdan Titomir after leaving Kar-men also became one of the marked figures of Russian pop music of the early 1990s. Extremely popular was also the ultra-pops Na-Na boys band under direction of Barry Alibasov, formerly a member of the Integral band.

The second half of the 1990s saw the appearance of such popular groups as Ivanushki International, Ruki Vverkh, Chai Vdvoem, etc. Philipp Kirkorov still gathers full concerts halls several thousand strong and enjoys big time in spite of his spoiled reputation (in particular, personal insult of a female journalist in public).

Pop Music of the 2000s

By the 21st century Russian show business has become quite a powerful structure, with a great many recording companies, two large-scale music TV channels (MTV and Mus-TV), and established system of promotion and distribution. The number of performers, who show up on TV screens for a little, is permanently growing, just like the level of the surface quality of musical production, whereas the substance of it remains rather poor.

A few Russian pop projects have gained international popularity; for example, T.A.T.U band or singer Vitas are in great demand in Eastern countries.

Among the projects currently considered most commercially successful there are the bands Diskoteka Avariya and VIA Gra along with performers Dima Bilan, Valeriya, and Alsu.

TV-projects of the so-called Star Factory that are spread in other countries as well go a long way with refreshing the ranks of Russian-language pops singers.

Look also: Russian Music

Sources:
 popmusic.in
 krugosvet.ru
  Russian Wiki