Russian Pop Music

I know we are not in Russia anymore, but this was a blog I was thinking about writing in Russia and never did. We had a conversation at dinner the other night that inspired me to finally sit down and write it.

While in Russia we didn't have any English TV (although for some reason the last two weeks we were there Animal Planet changed to the UK version), so if we watched TV at all it was usually the music video channel, which often played American bands. In case you are interested, the most popular American artists in Russia (at least based on how often the videos were played) seemed to be Jennifer Lopez, 50 Cent/Eminem, Fall Out Boy, Akon, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and the Pussycat Dolls. The channel also played a lot music from other European artists. We didn't really think about what music was being played until one day it dawned on us that we only saw videos in Russian about one third of the time. Jeff and I could really only identify a handful of artists by then end of our stay. If you don't believe us you can check out the top video chart from Russian MTV and see how many of the artists Russian, American or European.

While we could only remember a few artists, our favorite by far was a "rapper" named Timati. We constantly saw a video with him and another artist named DJ Dlee that was rather amusing. If you watch the video I am willing to bet that the song will get stuck in your head!

Another artist that caught our eye was Dmitriy (Dima for short) Bilan. We could not help but remember Dima based on his unforgettable hairdo. Though it has waned in popularity in the US, the mullet is all the rage for stylish Russians (a fact that Jeff and I didn't realize until we walked around the metropolitan streets of Moscow). As you can see from pictures, Dima sports an excellent mullet. We also remembered him because this video reminded us of Rico Suave for some reason (who knows why). He has an official site in English located here if you are interested.

The other night we were at dinner with the couple here from Russia. The subject of pop music came up and Jeff and I mentioned that we could only remember a few artists. They both laughed and confirmed that Russia was lacking in the pop music area. The direct quote was "Pop music is the shame of Russia." I don't know if I would go that far, but it confirmed why Jeff and I didn't see quite so much Russian music on MTV Russia!