The origin of rock in the USSR - rock library - catalog of articles - Russian rock. How rock music penetrated into the USSR Rock movement in the USSR

Russian rock is a collective designation for Russian-language rock music, created first in the USSR, then in Russia and the CIS countries by various musicians and groups.

Russian rock bands were greatly influenced by Western rock music, as well as Russian art songs (most notably Vladimir Vysotsky), usually performed with an acoustic guitar

The first Soviet rock groups appeared in the mid-1960s in the wake of Beatlemania, but until the mid-1970s they were mainly imitations of the music of foreign performers, which were formed by numerous VIA (vocal and instrumental ensembles).

The heyday of Russian rock came in the 1980s, and with the beginning of perestroika and glasnost, musicians had the opportunity to perform at concerts without fear of criminal prosecution, for example, for parasitism, as was the case before. This period of Russian rock can be compared to the late 1960s in Western rock music. In the USSR, rock clubs were created, well-known, and partly still active, rock groups were formed (see: Russian rock groups), journalists appeared who wrote about rock music (Artemy Troitsky, Alexander Zhitinsky). The prototype of Russian rock music of the 1980s was Anglo-American rock music, including one of its newest trends at that time - the “new wave”.

Many songs of classic Russian rock bands were written and sometimes performed with an acoustic guitar, as an art song. This happened primarily at unofficial concerts and “apartment events”. Thus, many bands of the 1980s were, in a sense, the songwriter's accompaniment group. Often groups were formed around a lyricist (and sometimes music writer), who was usually considered the “leader” and, like the group, became widely known. Such personalities are indicated below in parentheses after the group names.

Despite the fact that the passion for rock music in the USSR was widespread, by the end of the 1980s a number of centers of the Soviet rock movement had emerged, noticeably different from each other both in style and in organizational features.

The centers of rock music in the USSR were:

Leningrad (St. Petersburg). In 1981, the Leningrad Rock Club was formed in Leningrad, which included such groups as Aquarium (Boris Grebenshchikov), Automatic Satisfiers (Andrey “Pig” Panov), Zoo (Mike Naumenko), Myths. The groups Kino (Viktor Tsoi), Alisa (Moscow-Leningrad group, Konstantin Kinchev) and DDT (Yuri Shevchuk) received cult status among fans. Among other significant groups were TV (Mikhail Borzykin), Zero (Fyodor Chistyakov), as well as rock bard Alexander Bashlachev. Leningrad rock was a well-organized community, the center of which was a rock club, most of whose active members knew each other well. A special role in the club was played by Andrei Tropillo, who actually created the first private recording studio in the USSR, and Boris Grebenshchikov, who was the central figure of the St. Petersburg rock party. The music of most groups, as a rule, consisted of arrangements of songs performed acoustically, which made it possible to perform them at apartment buildings without any problems and brought the St. Petersburg groups closer to the “traditional” rock of the 1960s. At the same time, the Leningrad rock scene was characterized by great interest in other forms of art - literature, theater and cinema.
Moscow, where a “rock laboratory” was created at the Gorbunov House of Culture. The most famous Moscow groups: Time Machine (Andrey Makarevich), Resurrection (Alexey Romanov), Zvuki Mu (Pyotr Mamonov), Brigada S (Garik Sukachev), Crematorium (Armen Grigoryan), Center (Vasily Shumov), Bravo (Evgeniy Khavtan). The capital's rock music (especially its first wave) was characterized by early commercialization, which partly explained the fact that Gorbushka was more a center of informal rock culture than a core organization for musicians. Most Moscow rock bands existed on their own and formed their own, unique style, usually distinguished by emphatic frivolity and a condescending attitude towards reality. These qualities flourished in the 1990s and contributed to the popularity of such groups as Time Out, Accident, Dune, Nogu Svelo, etc.
Ural and Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg). In the 1980s, the Sverdlovsk rock club was founded. Famous groups from the region: Oorfene Deuce (Alexander Pantykin), Nautilus Pompilius (Vyacheslav Butusov), Chaif ​​(Vladimir Shakhrin), Nastya, Agatha Christie, April March. The Sverdlovsk rock scene was relatively narrow, and songwriters Ilya and Evgeny Kormiltsev played a special role in it. Ural rock was strongly influenced by Western bands of the 1970s (including psychedelic rock), keyboards played a large role, the music was not intended for acoustic performance, and was distinguished by the complexity of its arrangements. The only Sverdlovsk rock band that achieved all-Union popularity in the 1980s was Nautilus Pompilius, whose lyrics were aimed at the mass audience.
Siberia: Civil Defense (Egor Letov), ​​Kalinov Bridge (Dmitry Revyakin), Yanka Dyagileva. The Siberian rock community, peripheral and without a single center, in the 1980s was represented almost exclusively by the movement that its participants called punk rock. Soviet Siberian punk rock had a much less imitative character than the work of St. Petersburg and Moscow musicians and is a separate cultural phenomenon that continued to exist in the underground into the 1990s and had a great influence on the youth subculture of this decade.
In addition to groups performing more or less “traditional” rock, in the 1980s a number of bands appeared in Moscow playing “metal”: Aria, Master, Black Coffee (Dmitry Varshavsky), Black Obelisk (Anatoly Krupnov) and Corrosion of Metal (Sergey Troitsky).

"Red Wave"
In 1986, the double album “Red Wave” was released in the United States with recordings by the Leningrad groups Aquarium, Strange Games, Alisa and Kino, which contributed to the development of Russian rock and interest in Soviet rock culture outside the USSR. The release of the album became possible largely thanks to Joanna Stingray, an American who visited the USSR a lot and was actively interested in Soviet rock (she was even married to musicians from famous Russian rock groups). After the release of this album, Soviet rock bands got the opportunity to give concerts, record and release albums in Western countries, and collaborate with Western musicians. Kino toured France and Japan in 1988-1989, Zvuki Mu released the album “Zvuki mu” in the UK (producer: Brian Eno) and toured England and the USA. Aquarium leader Boris Grebenshchikov recorded the English-language album “Radio Silence” in the USA together with Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) with the participation of Annie Lennox (Eurythmics) and Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders).

Late 1980s - early 1990s
The end of the 1980s was the emergence of Soviet rock from the underground. Several films were made that became an integral part of Russian rock culture: “Burglar” (1986) with Konstantin Kinchev, “Needle” (1988) with Viktor Tsoi, “Assa” (1987) with Aquarium and others, “Taxi Blues” ( 1989) with Pyotr Mamonov.

From that moment on, numerous new groups were created, the road for which was already open.

As a protest subculture, Russian rock ceased to exist in the second half of the 80s, when, after the legalization of rock music, it began to become part of the emerging domestic show business. This led to the emergence from the rock environment of a limited number of “star” bands capable of gathering large venues. The interest of mass listeners in other domestic rock performers began to decline; many of them ceased their activities in Russia due to the death of the founders, departure abroad, or unwillingness to work together.

Among the thirty performers included in the first five issues of “Legends of Russian Rock,” only about half were active by the mid-2000s.

1990s and modern times
In terms of sound, Russian rock by the mid-1990s (from about 1993) came closer to Western music, actually merging into its various directions. The music of some Russian-language rock bands of the 1990s and 2000s is sometimes characterized as "rockapop" and "non-pop".

In the 1990s, many bands officially reissued old albums that had previously been released by samizdat. The company "Moroz Records" has released a large series of collections called "Legends of Russian Rock", in which retrospective compilation albums of most famous Soviet rock bands and musicians were released.

Russian rock outside Russia
Sometimes some Russian-speaking groups outside Russia, as well as various groups in the countries of the former USSR, which were influenced by Russian rock, consider themselves to be Russian rock. There are groups created by Russian-speaking immigrants in Israel, Germany, the USA and Canada, most of them amateur and practically unknown.

Rock bands of Ukraine
There have been many rock bands in Ukraine since the times of the USSR, the most famous of which are “Okean Elzy” (Ukrainian “Okean Elzy”), “Vopli Vidoplyasova” (Ukrainian “Vopli Vidoplyasova”), “Gadyukin Brothers” (Ukrainian “Vopli Vidoplyasova”) Brothers Vipers").

Israeli Russian-speaking rock bands
The immigration wave that swept Israel in the early 90s (a million people) created a fairly strong rock movement of immigrants from the Soviet Union, who created and are still creating a large number of rock bands. Only a few of them became successful, for example, the Bi-2 group

Russian rock is an integral and unique phenomenon of Russian culture. There are a sufficient number of options for defining this concept, but most of them are based on erroneous or insufficiently precise statements, among which the following are the most common:

— “Russian rock is the same rock music, just with Russian-language lyrics.”

As a rule, it includes groups that, in addition to rock music itself, represent a fairly wide range of musical styles - reggae, rap core, bard and art songs, etc.

— “Russian rock – live guitar music.”

But, in addition to traditional guitar music, performers often use electronic elements of sound or even use them as the basis of the band's sound.

— “Russian rock is the music of protest.”

Domestic rock is not limited to protest motives - the songs contain love or philosophical lyrics, textual absurdity or something else.

The presence of a singer-songwriter is not mandatory - musicians often perform songs with words or music from other people. In the end, even the presence of Russian in the text is not important. Some rock musicians, in their creative experiments, turned to other languages, including non-existent ones.

In this regard, the most correct definition will be the following: “Russian rock” is a musical direction that began to take shape in the USSR in the 60s under the influence of Western rock and roll culture, which became a kind of alternative to the Soviet pop tradition, developing on the basis of external borrowings , combined with domestic cultural models.

The origins of our rock - the 1960s

Interest in rock music in the USSR began to appear in the 60s. Among the reasons, one should note the “Beatlemania” that began in the West in 1963. The enormous popularity of The Beatles led to the penetration into the Soviet Union, first of Beatles audio recordings, and then of other rock bands.

In the 1960s, the first Soviet amateur groups began to appear (“Falcon”, “Scythians”, “Slavs”), which tried to play rock music. The following characteristic features of their work during this period can be identified:

• at first their repertoire consisted only of cover versions of Western compositions;
• his own creativity was initially based primarily on compositions with English text (it was believed that the Russian language, due to its linguistic properties, was not suitable for rock music);
• low sound quality due to the lack of appropriate equipment.

In general, it can be argued that in the 60s, rock culture in the USSR was just beginning to take shape, the creativity of musicians was reduced to copying Western creative standards, and there was no original Russian rock tradition at that time.

VIA and “amateur” groups - 1970s

The appearance of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin in the West led to the growing popularity of art rock and hard rock among Soviet groups in the 70s. Inheriting the new style, the groups, however, were increasingly inclined to create and perform their own material.
All groups of this period can be divided into two large groups in accordance with the specifics of their musical decisions and relations with official authorities:

• vocal and instrumental ensembles (VIA) (“Ariel”, “Blue Guitars”, “Jolly Fellows”, “Flowers”). Official groups that performed only the repertoire approved by the artistic councils, and had the opportunity to publish material in recording studios and perform at large venues. Since at that time, among other things, musicians were required to “moderate sound on stage,” many restrictions were imposed on VIA’s music. For example, the use of guitar “gadgets” and overly expressive guitar and drum parts were not encouraged, and vocal style and behavior on stage had to be as consistent as possible with academic ones. Thus, the VIA repertoire was rock music only from the standpoint of musical harmony and the composition of instruments on stage, but otherwise it was subject to Soviet pop traditions.

• underground, or amateur, groups (“Autograph”, “Russians”, “Myths”). Groups that gave unofficial concerts, whose songs reached the listener through tape recordings. In the 70s, the practice of creating magnetic albums - semi-professional studio recordings with band materials - began to spread in the USSR. Freed from censorship restrictions, amateur musicians created material that was conceptually closer to Western rock traditions.

In fact, it was underground rock music that served as the forerunner of the formation of a large-scale rock movement in the 80s.

The growth of the rock movement. Apartment dwellers. The emergence of rock clubs - 1980s

An impressive number of underground groups that formed by the early 1980s, as before, did not have the opportunity to perform at large venues. Moreover, information about most attempts to organize such a concert, even at small venues of local recreation centers, immediately reached the administration, and these attempts were suppressed.

This marked the beginning of apartment concerts, or “kvartirniks,” a mass phenomenon in the USSR in the 1980s. They gave listeners the opportunity to get acquainted with the songs of groups, and musicians - a source of minimal income. The list of invitees to these events was strictly controlled to avoid information leakage.
The 1980s were also marked by the emergence of rock clubs.

The creation of these institutions was the result of a coincidence of initiatives between musicians and the Soviet government:

• The Soviet leadership was dissatisfied with the fact that many performances (including the apartments) were organized illegally and bypassing the State Concert of the USSR. Recognizing the impossibility of getting rid of this trend, it decided to create rock clubs in order to carry out a kind of registration of amateur groups and make the growing spontaneous rock movement under control.
• Many musicians, who had long been looking for an opportunity to realize their concerts, found a way to hold relatively regular performances and communicate with the public, despite the fact that this did not bring them financial resources.

As a result of this process, the Moscow Rock Laboratory and rock clubs were created in Leningrad, Sverdlovsk and other cities. The practice of holding regular rock festivals was established.
At the same time, a number of restrictions were imposed on the “approved for performance” repertoire. Texts had to undergo a process of “litching,” that is, approval, which significantly constrained creative initiative. The creation of rock clubs coincided with the tightening of measures against illegal performances - for such a violation the group was simply banned.

In the 80s, domestic rock inherited new Western styles - post-punk and new wave.

In addition, with the beginning of the perestroika processes, protest motives occupied a significant place in the work of musicians. This circumstance was the reason that Russian rock began to enjoy unprecedented popularity not only in its homeland, but also in the countries of the capitalist camp.

Moreover, being subject to constant restrictions from the authorities, rock became a kind of “forbidden fruit” for the public, which only fueled interest in it as something new and unlike the official musical culture. It was in this decade that such legendary groups as “Kino”, “Alice”, “AuktYon”, “DDT”, “Zoo” and many others were created or reached the peak of popularity.

Regional trends in Soviet rock music

By the end of the 80s, independent rock movements with their own specificity were formed in several large cities and regions.

• Leningrad

Under the auspices of the Leningrad Rock Club, it was possible to create the most powerful movement. These include the groups “Kino”, “Alice”, “Aquarium”, “Automatic Satisfiers”, etc. These groups were most popular in the USSR, and Leningrad was rightfully considered the center of Soviet rock culture.

• Moscow

Among the “wards” of the Moscow Rock Laboratory are the groups “Center”, “Time Machine”, “Sunday”, “Bravo”. Since the Laboratory was not a core organization, unlike rock clubs, Moscow groups were characterized by greater independence and the subsequent commercialization of creativity, which began to develop at the end of the described decade.

The creative development of many groups (“Urfin Juice”, “Nautilus Pompilius”, “April March”) of the Sverdlovsk rock club was associated with the name of the poet Ilya Kormiltsev, who was the author of most of the texts of these groups. The Ural direction was characterized by a relative small number of people, the influence of Western groups of the 70s, the predominance of keyboard arrangements, as well as the original stage image of the groups (the retro-militarism of the Nautilus Pompilius group, the operetta style of the early Agatha Christie).

• Siberia.

A massive rock movement was formed here, which, however, did not have a single center. In Novosibirsk, the Kalinov Most group, a landmark for Russian folk rock, was formed. In addition, a galaxy of groups was created here that represented the so-called “Siberian punk” (Omsk “Civil Defense”, Tyumen “Instructions for Survival”) and were characterized by extreme presentation of material, the most acute political orientation and “dirty” sound.

By 1991, Russian rock was a massive, self-sufficient phenomenon with its own cultural specificity. This served as the basis for its further development and transformation in post-Soviet times.

Rock music owes its appearance to the genre rock and roll, which combines many features of blues, country and jazz. The development of early rock and roll is associated mainly with American performers, however, it is almost impossible to establish which song or record can be considered the first in the genre. But for the youth of the 50s of the 20th century, rock and roll became a revolution in their entire way of life, but most importantly - in a person’s views on the world, on power, on parents.

In our country, the starting point in the history of Soviet rock, according to most music critics, is the early 60s of the 20th century, largely with the advent of the Liverpool four, the Beatles. This group from the UK managed to combine unusual musical ideas and a new image in their work, performing as a team of four full-fledged musicians, where each performs and composes songs. The popularity of The Beatles, which swept almost the entire world, gave impetus to a phenomenon unprecedented at that time - “Beatlemania”, which also unfolded in the Soviet Union.

The famous music critic Artemy Troitsky writes: “The role of the Beatles in the birth of Soviet rock cannot be overestimated: it was the main and decisive one. ...The happy and completely natural voices of the Beatles, merging in a harmonic choir, turned out to be exactly that “our” voice that our restless new generation was waiting for, but could not come up with on its own... The answer came from Liverpool.”

Thus, the first musicians picked up electric guitars as a result of the “culture shock” from the English big beat. Many years have passed under the sign of widespread and diligent copying of favorite foreign groups. Rock was first heard in the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR and accompanied by original music at the very end of the 60s, and the next decade was spent establishing the principle of independent creativity. The doctrine of “Soviet rock” was gradually formed - and it was noticeably different from the Anglo-American version. If there the core of the genre was Rhythm, then in our country the Word became such.

In domestic rock, the content of songs and the quality of lyrics are given more importance than in Western rock. Most likely, this is due to the special role of literature, in particular poetry, in the life of Russia. According to Troitsky, the mentality of Russians predisposes them to a philosophical perception of the world around them and a sensitive perception of the Idea and the Word.

In the article “The Cultural Myth of Our Generation,” D. Danilov says that if we compare Russian rock with what happened to the Western rock mainstream in the second half of the 70s and the first half of the 80s, we will see completely different trends. By the end of the 70s, Western rock music had already overcome the threshold of its complexity, which was most clearly embodied in hard rock and psychedelic music, and took the path of simplifying the musical system. But, if Western rock has already undergone evolution and formed its own subculture among young people, then in the USSR rock in the “Western sense” of the word arose and until the 86-87s did not go beyond the bohemian subculture.

There were no major rock concerts in the country, and rock music was not played on the radio. The era of total stagnation literally strangled a huge number of young talents in its clutches, and at the same time they remained persona non grata for the media.

“In a socialist state full of prohibitions, rock music was a means of expression for youth, a kind of life-giving outlet in the gray routine. Government bodies tried with all their might to protect the younger generation from the “foreign infection” and did not disdain the most sophisticated techniques and methods. Then the majority wanted all the prohibitions to be lifted, and everyone could choose for themselves what to listen to and love.”

Rock belonged to that layer of culture that was deprived of any hope at that time for official recognition. I. Chudotvortsev writes about this in his research work “On the metahistory of the era of stagnation (does history repeat itself)”: “They talked about him in a low voice, in secluded corners, but with sincere curiosity, and sometimes with quiet admiration. There were then banned poets and banned artists, but a special place was occupied by new musical movements and styles that penetrated from the West. First - jazz and twist, even under Khrushchev, forever connected in the mind with the Khrushchev Thaw. Afterwards - individual splashes, splashes and drops of that colossal phenomenon, which we designate as the New Wave. These surges reached the Soviet Union already in the mid-seventies, when the New Wave had time to decline in the West. Of course, there could be no question of any adequate understanding of these youth trends in those years. In general, everything Western was viewed with great distrust. Officially, serious changes in the Western way of life were attributed to the “decay” of bourgeois society and remained illegal in the USSR. However, people intuitively sensed something more in this and were drawn to this new, incomprehensible phenomenon. First, guys with guitars appeared in doorways and in groups of friends, then small groups, illegal and semi-legal - with mysterious names - rock musicians began to appear. And they were not singing about the construction of socialism and everyday work. From the very beginning, topics were raised that were very unpleasant for the authorities. It was rock musicians who started the protest against the Vietnam War. In Russia, with the beginning of glasnost, rock musicians began singing about the tragedy of the Afghan War.”

Of course, during times of stagnation this was done in a low voice. But, nevertheless, as I. Chudotvortsev notes, “the influence of these quiet voices sometimes exceeded the influence of the official press. Born in freer conditions than Soviet ones, the New Wave took on a special flavor in the Union. She became tougher, but deeper and more meaningful . If in the West, in the absence of resistance from the authorities (or more precisely, with very mild resistance), the New Wave began to decline in just three years, then in the Soviet Union, under conditions of tough struggle, it only hardened and gained strength. With the beginning of perestroika it reached its peak. The best songs of rock musicians came precisely in the first years of perestroika. Then it became possible to convey to millions what had previously been said to hundreds.”

It was only in 1980, when the enormous popularity of rock and its creative achievements became completely obvious, that cultural authorities paid attention to the genre. Some leading rock groups (Dynamik, Carnival) were invited to state concert organizations, where they came under the influence of artistic councils. Most rock performers remained in the “underground”, preferring lack of money to the encroachments of censorship. Without the slightest access to the Melodiya company, TV and radio, rock groups created an illegal recording industry unique in scale. It was then, during the years of “late stagnation,” that the socio-cultural role of rock was especially great and positive: it gave millions of young people such rare and necessary words of truth and spirituality. The departments of science and culture of the CPSU Central Committee, with the support of the KGB, tirelessly waged an administrative offensive against rock, which culminated in 1984, when the entire genre was effectively banned.

The Soviet authorities almost always perceived all entertainment music as a pro-Western phenomenon, and therefore harmful (jazz, rock, disco), trying to stop its natural development and minimize its influence on the broad masses of people. It was during Andropov’s reign that the first truly large campaign against rock music, which had already become a property of world culture throughout the civilized world, was launched in the USSR.

According to Troitsky, the decree of the Ministry of Culture adopted on October 17, 1983 was one of the most serious problems that stood in the way of rock musicians. Its main point was: from now on, the repertoire of every professional ensemble must contain at least eighty percent of songs written by members of the Union of Composers, and all professional registered rock groups must undergo verification by ministerial commissions, in which the Union of Composers itself, the music press and organizers must participate concerts. During the same period, there was increased control over the repertoire and over recording organizations, especially when it came to foreign music (recording it required joint permission from the All-Union Copyright Agency and the Melodiya company).

In the winter of 1984, as a result of the punitive measures described above, most of the rock bands known at that time, such as “Aquarium”, “Time Machine”, “Aftograph”, were on the verge of collapse.

During this period, tension grows not only at the level of musical ensembles. The word “rock” itself disappears from articles in print media for a long time. They are trying to replace it with euphemisms - “modern electronic music”, “youth music”.

In the spring of 1984, the second wave of bans on rock music began in the USSR, affecting mostly amateur rock bands rather than official ones. The KGB authorities are seriously beginning to pay attention to underground, “semi-basement” ensembles, since it was during this period that there was a significant increase in the number of amateur rock and roll performances.

According to the memoirs of Vladimir Marochkin, underground recording studios appeared in every major city, located mainly in factory premises and specializing in the recording and further distribution of magnetic albums throughout the country.

Homemade tape recordings, which rapidly spread throughout the USSR, receive the status of “dangerous” and “harmful” for Soviet society - by analogy with dissident literary and rock samizdat. Beginning in 1982, tape albums in the capitals began to be replicated through underground distributors, who were popularly called “bugs” or “writers.” “I gave albums to the “writers” for free,” recalls A. Kushnir, who always supported the rock idea. - In order for information to be disseminated, it was necessary to create optimal economic conditions in the country. But then the speed of movement of the albums resembled the algebra of Fibonacci numbers - not a single factory can compare with it. With the help of similar mathematics, we finally broke through the wall of the scoop. We hit it in literally three seconds.”

Kushnir recalls that the KGB created special “black lists” that included all famous English- and Russian-speaking groups and performers. On July 12, 1984, an official decree of the USSR Ministry of Culture was issued on the activities of vocal and instrumental ensembles and improving the ideological and artistic level of their repertoire. On October 1, 1984, a list compiled by the Ministry was sent to all cultural centers, discos and recording studios, listing 68 Western and 38 Soviet rock groups and performers whose recordings are prohibited.

After the report of Konstantin Chernenko - “Current issues of ideological and mass-political work of the party”, read by him in 1983 (in which an important role was given to the fight against the harmful influence of rock music and the inadmissibility of such a phenomenon on the Soviet stage, since the lyrics had “ of dubious value" and caused "ideological harm"), a wave of repression hit Soviet rock. For several years, trials of members of the groups “Resurrection”, “Trumpet Call”, “Bravo”, “Bad Boys” alternated with the persecution of Yuri Shevchuk, Yuri Naumov, “Mukhomorov”, “Brothers in Mind”, Evgeniy Morozov and others.

“At a closed meeting at the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR, the following formulations were heard: “Currently in the Soviet Union there are about 30,000 professional and non-professional ensembles. Our duty is to reduce this number to zero."

Police raids on so-called “crowds” (“clouds” or “beams”), where music lovers exchanged records and reels of recordings of domestic and Western rock music and various rock paraphernalia, became regular. Such exchanges took place, as a rule, in the near Moscow region, not far from railway platforms - in the forest or right in an open field.

Thus, young people were deprived of the right to choose, musicians were deprived of their “legal prospects,” and music was deprived of its future. “We’re fine with rock music - we don’t have it!” - the head of one of the provincial city departments of culture proudly reported to the correspondent of the capital’s newspaper.”

Summing up a brief overview of censorship during the Andropov (and later Chernenko) period in relation to rock music and culture in general, we note that its management model was formed on the principles of the KGB. These are attempts to improve the existing order and introduce stricter discipline. But this is also the confidence that achieving them both in the economy, the administrative apparatus, and in the field of literature, theater, music and in the formation of a new people's worldview and attitude towards work can only be achieved through firm pressure from above with the active use of repressive influences.

As Troitsky notes, it was a time of very stupid decisions. However, the destructive effect was not so great: the demands of the cultural bureaucrats and their advisers turned out to be so absurd that there was no way to control their implementation.

It is also significant that the party press itself, since the end of 1984, began to reflect more and more reformist sentiments. In December 1984, Yu. Voronov published an article in the Pravda newspaper about the need for radical changes in existing literary norms. According to him, society needs naturalness and closeness to real life instead of the presentation of ready-made solutions and an unambiguous party author’s position, and artistic creativity today should depict modern life. He called the main task of literature and art the study of society and the identification of those problems that were still falsely considered solved.

Significant changes in the USSR between 1986 and 1990. occur with the coming to power of Mikhail Gorbachev. The policy of glasnost begins to develop in the country, which became a serious impetus in youth rock culture and literally legalized it.

In February, the XXVII Congress of the CPSU took place, calling for increased transparency in the media. However, according to A. Blum, the matter practically did not move beyond the proclamation of the slogan: the foundations and principles of the communist system should not be subject to any doubt. The level of “glasnost” in 1986 can be judged by the deafening impression made on the intelligentsia by the April, so-called “Leninist” issue of Ogonyok, which published a selection of Gumilyov’s poems dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the poet’s birth. However, the tragic event that happened literally four days later - the Chernobyl disaster - was hushed up by the authorities, information about it was allowed with a great delay, it was ordered to minimize its size in every possible way, which led to irreparable tragic consequences.

During the Gorbachev period, changes in the field of censorship policy were gradually taking place, very slowly, but they were happening. Mainly, we are talking about the past; previous prohibitions regarding the coverage of ancient events are being lifted. Soon a revision of the forbidden begins, a gradual opening of “zones” closed to criticism. Gradually, a wave of permissions for previously banned novels by A.N. begins. Rybakova “Children of Arbat”, V.D. Dudintseva “White clothes”, A.A. Beck "New appointment". Many books are confiscated from special storage and transferred to general use funds. By order of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a special commission is created from representatives of the Ministry of Culture and State Committee for Publishing to revise the lists of banned books. In January 1987, the commission completed its work and reported on it. Glavlit asks the same commission to continue its activities, to make a decision on the transfer from special to general departments of the works of emigrant authors who went abroad from 1918 to 1988. Among them are a number of famous writers: I. Bunin, V. Nabokov, L. Gumilev, E. Zamyatin, I. Brodsky; philosophers N. Berdyaev, M. Khodasevich.

As A. Blum notes, an unprecedented magazine boom began: editors competed with each other in courage, announcing the publication in the next issues of texts that were more and more tempting for the hungry Russian reader. Magazine circulation increased three to four, or even ten times.

Numerous articles devoted to rock music and interviews with the musicians themselves begin to appear in the Leningrad newspapers “Smena” and “Leningradskaya Pravda”: “Alice with side bangs” in the newspaper “Smena”; “They want to make us part of the pop music” in Komsomolskaya Pravda; “Rivers of Time” in the magazine “Ogonyok”, etc. Now the word “rock” is receiving wide publicity, making itself known to the broadest masses of Soviet people.

According to A. Troitsky, since 1988, the bans on the rock genre have become a thing of the past: music censorship, zero royalties and “lists not allowed to travel.” The last two years of the 1980s were marked by the rapid progress of two new processes: the transfer of Soviet rock to a market basis and its involvement in the international scene. The monopoly of the State Concert on organizing foreign tours is becoming a thing of the past, and a huge number of Soviet rock bands are beginning to actively tour Europe and the USA. Major rock concerts are held in stadiums and sports palaces. And in 1989, the USSR hosted the “Music and Peace” festival, which was attended by such Western hard rock stars as Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Bon Jovi. Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev himself was noticed among the honored guests of this event.

New trends in society have radically changed the situation in rock. All groups received the right to perform concerts with an uncut repertoire, rock sounded from records and television screens, dozens of groups went on tours abroad. And although many painful problems remain - both technical and creative - we can say that in the second half of the 80s, Soviet rock finally gained a real right to exist.

So in the early 80s, a full-fledged rock movement was formed in the USSR with centers in Moscow and Leningrad. In 1981, the Leningrad rock club was opened, and many young musicians received an excellent opportunity to reveal their talent to the public, and the authorities were given a chance to keep the situation under control.

The second half of the 80s brought noticeable changes to public life. After many years of total spiritual devastation, the country again began to embark on a natural path of development. “After 1987, almost every town had its own rock club, and every major city in the country began to hold its own rock festival. Now rock fans could travel from city to city, from festival to festival, from concert to concert, and the road was endless. There was a kind of competition among the rock bands of the Moscow rock laboratory at that time: who would go further?

The end of the 80s was the period when Soviet rock came out of the underground. During this period, a huge number of new rock bands were founded (“NOM”, “Zero”, “Brigade Contract”, “Gaza Strip”, “Corpse Poison”), the path to fame was now open to them. As a movement of protest and counter-culture, Russian rock ceased to exist in the late 80s, when, after legalization, rock music became part of show business. This led to the emergence from the rock environment of a limited number of especially popular bands capable of gathering large venues. The interest of mass listeners in other domestic rock performers has declined. Many famous Russian rock bands ceased their activities due to the death of the founders, leaving abroad or unwillingness to work together. This is how “Zoo”, “Kino”, “Gorky Park”, “Civil Defense” disbanded. Among the twenty-eight performers included in the first volumes of the famous musical series “Legends of Russian Rock,” less than half of the musicians were engaged in full-fledged creative activity by the beginning of the 2000s.

“After Makarevich sang on the barricades of the White House in 1991, and Grebenshchikov dubbed “bald herds” those who came to the defense of the Supreme Council in 1993, Russian rock finally ended as a popular phenomenon. The passion for business conditions in the 1990s and the open disregard by the leaders of Russian rock of everything that was sacred to them a decade ago created all the prerequisites for the creation and commercialization of a genuine underground, which flourishes as a parallel culture to this day. Russian rock is certainly to blame for creating a “culture against” rather than a “culture in the name of.”

Not everything that happens in the current round of rock history evokes an unconditional feeling of delight. In particular, the growing influence of commercial and other market factors is very noticeable. Rock lyrics in the era of glasnost and democracy have lost their touch of sensationalism and no longer sound like audacity or revelation. It is quite natural that, having embarked on the path of “normal” development, our rock has moved somewhat closer to the Western model. Nevertheless, the USSR, and today its successor Russia, remain perhaps the only place in the world where rock is still taken very seriously.

“But Russian rock returned to Russia the Word, which was not only talented, but also acquired a full-fledged musical Rhythm, which Russian poetry never had. Unfortunately, this word could only reach us as part of a hybrid and rather poisonous tincture, which slowly corroded a huge totalitarian organism.”

So, rock as a musical phenomenon is a cultural layer of the period called in our country, the period of stagnation, since rock gained particular popularity in our country precisely in the late sixties, and did not lose it in the seventies and early eighties.

Let's see how rock was treated on the pages of the socio-political and specialized youth press.

Russian rock- this is the interweaving of the threads of the soul and the wind of freedom, music that makes you believe and burn in one impulse with a dream. Its history goes back more than half a century; this style can be compared in significance and influence on public culture with classical music.

History of Russian rock

The date of its birth in our country is officially considered to be the 60s. Then Sokol, Slavs, and Integral appeared. Initially, it was just an imitation of Western rock bands, rehashing their songs.

It was only in the 1970s that independent authorship and the emergence of underground rock groups began. Then Sunday, Aquarium and Time Machine appeared. This is what gave rise to the formation of a large-scale rock movement in the 80s.

The authorities tried to stop the emergence of rock groups, but the “craze” of youth for rock could no longer be stopped. Rock groups arose chaotically and on a large scale, and although the administration suppressed all attempts to organize concerts in the cultural center or any events, the musicians did not despair. These bans marked the beginning of “apartment shows”; entry to such apartment concerts was strictly limited; all invitees were carefully checked to avoid information leakage. It also developed heavily in the USSR and is one of the branches of the Russian rock scene.

Attempts by the Soviet government to take control of the spontaneous organization of rock concerts did not yield results. And then an important decision was made in the history of Russian rock - to create rock clubs in order to somehow control the musicians. The authorities organized rock festivals, the repertoire was carefully selected, subject to strict censorship and restrictions. Illegal performances outside festivals were prohibited, and the group could be banned for this.

But, as you know, the forbidden fruit is sweet. Restrictions from the authorities only fueled interest in this movement, and more and more protest motives were heard in the music. Russian rock enjoyed unprecedented popularity during these decades. Such groups as “Alice”, “Kino”, “Nautilus Pompilius”, “DDT” and many others arose.

By the 90s, Russian rock already had its own specifics and a clear vector of a direction unlike any other. During these years, such groups as “Spleen” and “Agatha Christie” gained popularity.

History of Russian rock interesting, but it is worth mentioning the main musical instruments used in it. After all, rock music like it was made not only by people, but also by musical instruments. These include the soul-grabbing sounds of acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitars, all kinds of amplifiers and synthesizers, and drum sets.

Their story is no less interesting, and they deserve a separate article. But for now, I would like to add that in Soviet times it was difficult to get high-quality instruments from leading manufacturers - Fender, Gibson, and every available instrument was very much appreciated. But now in the 21st century you can easily purchase guitars or drum cymbals by purchasing them at any music store. And then form a band and feel like a real rocker.

So, rock is alive and will live!

If Western rock began with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, then Soviet rock began with the Slavs and Skomorokhov. The first rock musicians of the Union tore the strings out of the piano and put them on the bass, recorded music on “bones” - everything in order to make a “beat”.

“Come on let’s twist again”

In 1957, the Festival of Youth and Students was held in Moscow, which attracted foreigners from all over the world. Foreign students danced dances unprecedented in the USSR, and ours immediately took up the dance. After the festival, Soviet youth attempted to bring twist and shake onto the stage, but faced rejection by Komsomol leaders. And yet the festival became a serious step for Soviet culture; from that time on, students exchanged musical novelties, books and clothes.

« I remember how on bright nights there were groups of people standing on the pavement of Gorky Street, in the center of each of them several people were heatedly discussing something. The rest, surrounding them in a tight ring, listened attentively, gaining their wits, getting used to this very process - the free exchange of opinions"(jazzman Alexey Kozlov).

Beatlemania

By the mid-60s, the Beatles' music had leaked into the Soviet Union. The Beatles captivated Soviet youth with their sincerity; they became the voice of a generation. The Beatles had it all: clear rhythm, beautiful melody, happy and open voices. Soviet fans felt the right to free expression, they wanted to speak out.

« I was in shock and hysterical. These guys came and immediately put everything in place. Before this there was only foreplay"(Alexander Gradsky)

The first rock bands began to exist in the Baltic states - in 1962 the Melody Makers appeared, led by Pete Andersen, in 1964 the Juniors with Thomas Kõrvits were formed in Estonia.

All three Baltic republics hosted music festivals in the mid-60s. Hippies from all over the country and rock musicians in the front rows came to the center of old Tallinn "Gorka". But despite this, Baltic rock bands have always kept themselves apart.

Sing "from under your hair"

For big beat fans it was considered wild to perform songs in Russian; a real group had to be like the Beatles or the Beach Boys; nothing could be better than Western. All the drive was in the music; many did not always understand what their idols were singing about. In the early 60s, there was the concept of “Singing from under the hair”, it was the same as singing: “Clozh er ai”, but no one cared what it could mean. The main thing is that it sounds sincere and over “electric” guitars.

Homemade tools

The drums were not so easy to get, they were banging on the pots. The rest of the instruments were made by ourselves, the neck and soundboard were made from any suitable piece of wood, the strings were taken from a piano - they were so hard that the fingers had to be wrapped in electrical tape.

The famous “Gibson” appeared only in the early 60s and its owner for 3 rubles only gave it to listen and touch.

"Plates on Bones"

The main musical medium until the 70s were “records on bones” - recordings on x-rays. In underground recording studios, a player was installed with the original record, and a recorder, the cutter of which caught sound vibrations, cut a sound track in the picture.

With the advent of recordings, a “black market” was formed - “bones” cost from 5 to 10 rubles.

Sharing photographs of favorite bands was also very popular - they were “rented” for several days.

Sessions

Since it was not possible to perform songs in English on the Soviet stage, groups began to organize sessions - meetings for friends. The first sessions took place at the Kauchuk cultural center, tickets cost 10 rubles. At that time, an underground pop federation was formed in Leningrad under the leadership of Sergei Artemyev.

By the beginning of 1965, two significant groups appeared in Moscow - “Slavs”, led by Alexander Gradsky, and “Falcons”, led by Yuri Ermakov. The former were guided by the work of the Rolling Stones, the latter by the Beatles.

First persecutions

The entire “Beat scene” existed separately from public life, and it was not even an opposition “underground”, Soviet rock was not on the agenda, and the police preferred to ignore strange parties.

In 1968, student protests took place in different countries of the world. The ideals of the protesting youth were expressed by rock music, which was experiencing its heyday.

In the USSR, concerts began to be dispersed, and participants were detained “For participation in an illegal vocal and instrumental ensemble, for the loss of Komsomol vigilance and integrity.”

The Pop Federation was closed - Yuri Aizenshpis and Sergei Artemyev were arrested.

Nikolai Vasin, who attempted to create the first rock association, learned about the arrests and ran to bury the Beatles record.

Before that, he sent a telegram to John Lennon with congratulations on his birthday and the record arrived. John responded by sending an autographed “Live peace in Toronto” record.

“Shizgara” and “Hop-hey-hop” ended before they could flare up.

Rock ideology

Meanwhile, in the West there is a real musical flurry - Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Elton John. In 1969, the Woodstock music festival took place in America, which became a symbol of freedom and the hippie era. In 1970, the musical Jesus Christ Superstar was released in England. In 1973, Pink Floyd released the album "Dark Side of the Moon". Rock music in the West is becoming an ideology.