A short course on the history of Russian rock and roll. History of rock music The first domestic rock band

Conventionally, the history of Russian rock consists of periods, at the junction of which there will be events that changed the course of politics and the political system of our country. Changes in the worldview and way of life of millions of people simply could not help but affect the cultural sphere of public life, in which they have played a significant role since the 60s. and still plays a phenomenon called “Russian rock”.

Russian rock has come a long way from imitating Western rock-n-roll to an absolutely original and distinctive culture, going far beyond the definitions of “heavy music” or “protest music.” A distinctive feature of Russian rock music is the special attention paid to the lyrics of the compositions: the semantic and emotional content in the song is primarily valued, which is why their authors, the authors of Russian rock, have every right to be called poets. But let's move on to history.

1960s Origin.

In the Soviet Union, as well as throughout the planet, rock appeared in the 60s. In the middle of the decade, both capitals were flooded with the first Russian beatniks, who performed mainly cover versions of the most popular songs of foreign performers, mainly the legendary and banned at that time in the USSR “The Beatles”. This is precisely what becomes the starting point in the history of Russian rock.

The first original rock songs recorded in our country are considered to be the tracks of the group “Falcon”: “Where is that edge” and recorded in the same year, which for many years became a kind of anthem for the hippies who appeared at the same time, “The Sun is Above Us” .

The VIA “Scythians”, “Argonauts” and “Skomorokhs” by A. Gradsky were also very famous. The new musical direction was gaining fans at a frantic pace; beat groups acted as authors of soundtracks, for example, the music of the ensemble “Falcon” sounds in the cartoon “Film-film-film”, and the Moscow team “Tin Soldiers” appeared in one of the episodes “Well, wait a minute!”, as the group “Dvonyagi” , performing the hit “The Priest Had a Dog.” By the way, it was “Soldiers” who authored the first rock album in the Union, “Reflections” (1972). In addition, according to one version, it was also the first album in the country recorded on tape (according to another version, the author of the first tape album in the USSR was St. Petersburg musician Yuri Morozov (1973)).

It is also extremely noteworthy that back in 1969. “Scythians” were working on an album that never saw the light of day, claiming to be the Union championship. The compositions that were to be included in its composition serve as eloquent proof of the very high level of development of rock music in the USSR at that time: the group, perhaps for the first time in the world (!!!), began to use guitar effects, such as fuzz, through manufactured homemade conditions of guitar “gadgets”. Having learned about this later, the Americans admitted that Soviet rock musicians were several years ahead of them in development, although the history of Russian rock began somewhat later than Western rock. It is important to note that the band members, like the vast majority of their colleagues, did not have a musical education - a trait that has become almost traditional throughout the history of Russian rock.

In the wake of Beatlemania, which was gaining momentum, rock bands appeared everywhere, literally in every college or school, not to mention institutes. This is exactly how teams were created that became icons of the next decade (“Successful Acquisition”, “Ruby Attack”, the legendary “Time Machine”, and others).

The apogee of Russian rock of the 60s was the first Soviet rock festival, held in Yerevan annually from 1968 to 1972. and assembled the most successful teams.

1970s Formation of self-awareness.

Makarevich In the 70s, rock actively penetrated the big stage. Having found no way to further development in the era of stagnation, when the repertoire of each ensemble was checked by the artistic council, the rock stars of the 60s were forced to organize pop ensembles and perform music that only resembled rock. This is how the super-popular “Jolly Guys”, “Singing Guitars” and many others appeared at that time. At concerts, in addition to their usual repertoire, these groups, to everyone’s joy, always performed several killer covers of songs by Western groups. It was not allowed to perform your own songs, because in those days, only people who were members of the Composers' Union could write texts and music for the stage.

But of course, there were brave souls who violated this ban. Some of them were outlawed, others were forbidden to perform in official halls, others were not allowed to release their own albums, being labeled “amateur”, but despite all this, it was precisely these teams that were most popular among progressive youth. But still it was not the best period in the history of Russian rock.

“Amateur” groups were not prohibited from “attaching” to universities and thus obtaining platforms for performances, which is what Russian rockers of the 70s did. In Moscow, the permanent arena for concerts of rock musicians for many years became the Energetik House of Culture of the Moscow Energy Institute, which was “lit up” in no scandalous story; for Leningrad, a more intimate form of performance was characteristic - the “apartment house”.

Since the state prohibited the release of official albums by illegal groups, concert tape recordings passed through the hands of fans, which they copied from each other countless times. From all the tape recorders in the country, “samizdat” recordings of the already mentioned “Time Machine”, “Successful Acquisition”, “Ruby Attack”, as well as new groups were thundering: “Leap Summer”, which by some miracle managed to release the official album “The Shop of Miracles” (1978), “Resurrection”, “Aftograph”, as well as the Leningrad “Aquarium”, “Myths”, “St. Petersburg” and others.

Rock music of that time implied the obligatory presence of a frantic drive, so the most common directions were hard-rock, art-rock and progressive. The more melodic and meaningful songs of the groups “Aquarium”, “Mashina Vremeni” and “Sunday” were rather an exception from the general number.

It was the musicians of the 70s who were the first to discover the main distinctive feature of Russian rock as a movement: only in the Russian language the word “rock” means “fate,” and the self-awareness of those who profess this culture goes beyond simple sympathy for this musical direction. Our rock is, first of all, a special view of the world. The view of a poet, creator, prophet and the eternal search for an answer to the question of his place in the surrounding reality.

1980s Bloom. Classic era

Bravo group In 1983-85, our rockers still had a hard time: K. U. Chernenko, who came to power, again began persecuting musicians: the rights of amateur groups were severely limited, they were constantly accused of “parasitism,” and the organization of unofficial concerts was equated with the then prohibited private entrepreneurship, for which they were sent to prison. The Moscow bands “Corrosion of Metal”, “Bravo” and “Resurrection” “got the worst” at this time: the concerts of these groups were banned, and some of their participants even had to go to jail. With the beginning of the era of glasnost, the persecution of Russian rock was stopped again.

Perestroika opened up many prospects, including the freedom to organize musical groups and performances on a commercial basis. A new page has begun in the history of Russian rock.

By the beginning of the 80s, a full-fledged rock movement had formed in the USSR, which the authorities even supported, not wanting to provoke a protest element. So, on a state initiative in 1881. The first Leningrad Rock Club in the Union was opened, which became a real legend. It included such mastodons of Russian rock as “Aquarium”, “DDT”, “Kino” and “Alice”, as well as Mike Naumenko’s “Zoo”, “TV”, “Picnic”, “Brigadnyy Podrad”, “Zero” ", "Myths", "Automatic Satisfiers", bard-rocker Alexander Bashlachev and many others. The first private audio recording studio also appeared in the Northern Capital. Its creator is Andrei Tropillo.

Andrey Toropillo Four years later, a “rock laboratory” opens in Moscow; with its advent, metropolitan musicians also gain the right to perform without fear of persecution and organize concerts.

Now Russian rockers have the opportunity to officially organize concerts and publish albums. And after the rock festival “Tbilisi-80” and the appearance of the television program “Music Ring” - access to radio and television. Taking advantage of this freedom, rock culture blossomed with hitherto unprecedented force: dozens of new names were born, major festivals were held: “Lituanika” (1985-1989), “Podolsk” (1987), “SyRok” (1988-1992), etc., and experiments were carried out in a variety of styles: hard rock, heavy metal, punk proc and post-punk, but the main discovery of the 80s was the new wave introduced into Russian rock by the Leningraders.

In 1986, while the Soviet Union and America were trying to establish diplomatic relations, an unprecedented event took place in California - the album “Red Wave” was released on two records containing tracks from four Soviet rock bands: “Aquarium”, “Kino”, “Alice” " and "Strange Games". The album was released on the initiative of Joanna Stingray, an American who spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union and knows the Russian rock scene firsthand. The album actually “opened a window” to the West for Russian rock: now our musicians have the right to perform concerts and record albums abroad, as well as collaborate with foreign colleagues. The Kino group did not fail to take advantage of this opportunity, and in 1988-89. tour of Europe (France-Italy-Denmark), “Sounds of Mu”, who recorded an album in England and toured in the UK and the USA, and Boris Grebenshchikov, who created the English-language album “Radio Silence” together with the British duo “Eurythmics” and Chrissie Hynde from “ The Pretenders."

In the history of Russian rock music, the 80s, in fact, are the time of its rebirth: it was then that our rock acquired the features by which we know it today, it was then that for the first time what was now heard was heard from stages, tape recorders and apartment buildings. we call them classics of Russian rock. Groups appeared, many of which still exist today, and journalists who devoted their activities to rock culture (Alexander Zhitinsky, Artemy Troitsky).

Rock capitals

Rubinshteina, 13 It is also worth noting an important part of the history of Russian rock - clubs. Following Leningrad, other cities in our country began to acquire their own rock clubs, but the most notable ones that founded their own “schools” are three: Leningrad (we already talked about it above), as well as the Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg) rock club, and Moscow Rock Laboratory.

The Moscow Rock Laboratory was created in 1985. in the Palace of Culture named after. Gorbunova. The legendary “Gorbushka” united many famous groups under its roof: “Time Machine”, “Bravo”, “Resurrection”, “Crematorium”, “Brigada S” by Garik Sukachev, “Sounds of Mu” by Pyotr Mamonov, and others. It is difficult to define general style criteria for metropolitan rock music; each group strived for individuality, but a characteristic feature of Moscow rock can be called its frivolous, condescending attitude towards reality. This mood was especially developed by such Moscow teams as “Accident”, “Nogu Svelo!” "Dune" and "Time Out". It was in Moscow that the first Russian electronic engineers began to appear (“Bioconstructor”, “Center”, “Night Prospect”) and metal workers (“Aria”, “Black Obelisk”, “Black Coffee”, “Metal Corrosion”, “Master” and others) .

To the Sverdlovsk rock club, in addition to Ural musicians (Nautilus Pompilius, Agatha Christie, Chaif, Urfin Juice, April March, Nastya, Maxim Ilyin Group), whose music is inspired by Western psychedelics 70s and is full of complex arrangements, primarily synthesizer, it is also customary to refer to the rock scene of Siberia, which does not have a single center (“Civil Defense”, “Kalinov Most”, Yanka Diaghileva, “Instructions for Survival”). Its members mostly play punk rock, based on the so-called “garage rock”, post-punk and partly folk rock.

Among the rock centers of the post-Soviet space, it is also worth noting Kharkov - the site of regular rock festivals. The most famous Kharkov group is “Different People”, which for some time included the founder of the popular team “Chizh & Co” Alexander Chigrakov. The “voice” of the city’s rock environment was Radio-50, most likely the first private radio station in the USSR.

1990s - present day

Viktor Tsoi At the turn of the 80s - 90s, Russian rock finally ceased to be underground: films with the participation of cult musicians were released (“Burglar” (1986) with Konstantin Kinchev, “Assa” (1987) and “Needle” (1988) with Viktor Tsoi, “Taxi Blues” (1989) with Pyotr Mamonov, as well as the short documentary film “Ya-ha” (1986) about the life of a Leningrad rock club). The music of Russian rockers (“Nautilus Pompilius”, “Spleen”, “Bi-2”, etc.) became the soundtrack of cult films of the era “Brother” and “Brother-2”.

However, every phenomenon has its downside. Despite the new prospects, the 90s became a difficult time even for Russian rock culture. There was no more persecution, new groups such as “Agatha Christie”, “Semantic Hallucinations”, “Zero”, “Va-Bank” and “Nogu Svelo!” the green light was given, but with the death of the hated system, Russian rock lost its significance as a culture of protest, and over time it increasingly began to turn into, albeit a separate, but still part of show business.

Not all groups managed to survive in the new conditions: the previous topics were no longer relevant, it was necessary to find a new trend; the mass audience had time to get used to rock as a phenomenon, and met new names without much excitement; some of the popular rockers went abroad, some died or died tragically, others simply could not find themselves in the new time. The groups “Kino”, “Nautilus Pompilius”, “Zoo”, “Secret”, “Aftograph”, “Gorky Park” and others ceased their activities. Thus, of the thirty teams participating in the “Legends of Russian Rock” series, about half remained “in service”.

Since the mid-90s, Russian rock music has again come closer to foreign music, fitting quite organically into its genre system without losing its originality and flavor. She quickly adopted trends discovered in the West during the Iron Curtain period: punk and grunge (“The King and the Clown”, “Naive”, “Cockroaches!”, “Pilot”, “Lumen”, “The Sky Is Here”, etc.) , power and symphonic metal (“Epidemic”, “Catharsis”), pagan and black metal (“Arkona”, “Temnozor”, “Butterfly Temple”), atmospheric metal (“Mental Home”, “Stonehenge” ) and many other types of metal.

Also, the history of the Russian alternative began its countdown in the mid-90s. The first steps on this path were taken by Dolphin (as part of the group “Oak Gaai”), the groups “Bricks” and “Gaza Strip”, and in the 2000s the direction was enriched by such names as “Psyche”, “Amatory”, “Jane Air” ", "##### (5diez)", Noize MC and many others. Since 2005, the A-One TV channel has established a special RAMP award for alternative rock performers.

A new object of confrontation also appeared: Russian rock more clearly opposed itself than ever to the pop scene into which the pop scene was reborn.

Many groups in the early nineties reissued their albums, releasing things that under the Soviet system would never have seen the light of day in an official publication, and the Moroz Records company from 1996 to 2000 published a series of retrospective albums “Legends of Russian Rock”, which includes selected songs from the most recognized bands in the history of Russian rock music.

Nashe Radio Now the leading role in the development of rock music is played by the media (“Our Radio” and “Radio Maximum”, TV channels “A-one” and “O2TV”, “Fuzz” magazine, and of course the Internet). And also rock producers, the first of whom was Yuri Aizenshpis (“Kino”), and those who followed his example were Alexander Ponomarev (“Splin” and “Bi-2”), Dmitry Groysman (“Chaif”, Mara), Alexander Elin (“ Aria"), Alexander Kushnir, and others.

Since 1999, Russia has hosted the largest festival of Russian rock, “Invasion,” established by “Our Radio.” Dozens of different rock festivals are held throughout the country every year.

Recently, there have been trends towards convergence between Russian rock and folk-rock music (originating in Russia in the so-called “Minstrel Song”): Russian rock includes such folk ensembles as “Melnitsa”, “The Dartz”, “Troll Bends Spruce” , and etc.

So we traced the fifty-year history of the development of Rock music in Russia. Once arose as an imitation of Western musical fashion, Russian rock turned into a noticeable and significant cultural phenomenon with its own morality, its own philosophy. Russian rock has come a long and difficult way, now all paths are open to it for further development and improvement, and how we will see it in the future is unknown, but we would like to hope that it will not lose its most characteristic qualities: relevance, atmosphere, great semantic and emotional load, variety of forms and poetry. As you know, a poet in Russia is more than a poet. And a rocker is more than just a musician.

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.

Rock is believed to be derived from rock and roll, which emerged in the United States in the mid-1950s. Rock and roll, in turn, was a mixture of black blues and white rural country music. The distinctive features of rock and roll were rhythm, danceability and the possibility of improvisation.

In the 1960s, the Beatles added European melodicism to North American rock and roll and away we go. In addition, it was the Beatles who popularized the group performance format - before that there were usually solo performers such as Frank Sinatra, etc.

It is also important to note that, using the example of the Beatles, it became clear that music can be written without a classical musical education. This was also a kind of psychological turning point in the music industry. Thus, it is believed that the birth of rock in the West occurred in the 60s.

In the USSR, things were somewhat different. For a long time, rock was considered in the USSR as an ideologically alien phenomenon of the “decaying West.” Even the classic “Beatles” were awarded the title of “dung beetles” in Soviet newspapers, what about the rest! Perhaps the only echo of rock and roll that leaked into the USSR on a legal basis was the twist dance, the training of which was even captured in “Prisoner of the Caucasus.”

But officialdom and real life in the USSR were different from each other. The first rock bands appeared in the USSR back in the 60s. According to the well-known music critic Artemy Troitsky, the first Soviet rock band was the Riga "Revengers", which began playing back in 1961.

In general, the Soviet Baltic states were a pioneer in the field of combining fate and the conditions of socialism. During these same years, the “Juniors” ensemble was created in Estonia under the direction of Thomas Kõrvits. By the way, according to the recollections of Kärvits himself, the idea of creating a group was inspired by watching Finnish television, which residents of the Estonian SSR somehow managed to watch.

It is widely known that X-rays were used as semi-legal records in the USSR. In turn, bass guitars were made from ordinary Czech electric guitars by installing piano strings on them. (due to the rigidity of such strings, the fingers had to be wrapped in electrical tape).

Often connoisseurs of Western "muson" did not even know the authors of the music "on the bones" since there were no labels on them. True, there were also civilized “Western records” brought to the USSR by citizens working abroad, although the cost of these records varied from 30 to 80 rubles. (despite the fact that the engineer’s monthly salary was around 140 rubles, the stipend was 30-40 rubles) It was especially chic to receive sheet music of rock hits from abroad.

It was precisely this foreign origin that pushed the first rock bands to simply copy the West. Some time will pass before it becomes fashionable and relevant to write texts in Russian. Moreover, over time, it is the sharpness of the lyrics that will become the hallmark of Russian rock.

It is in Soviet, and later Russian rock, that words are more important than rhythm. What is the reason for this? - the question is quite complex and multifaceted. On the one hand, this is, of course, the legacy of bard songwriters - Vladimir Vysotsky “wheezed” from every Soviet window in the 60s and 70s.

On the other hand, the music was also influenced by a certain backwardness of the USSR in the musical and technical sphere. There was some truth in all the jokes about the super-heavy electric guitar "Ural" and the Soviet diesel synthesizer. But one way or another, Russian rock is original and this cannot be taken away from it.

Until the remaining, non-Baltic part of the USSR, rock culture became get there already in the late 60s - early 70s, when the first rock bands began to appear (in the underground, of course): “Time Machine” (since 1969), “Aquarium” (1972), “Leap Summer” (1972), “Auction” (1978), "Picnic" (1978), "Zoo" (1980) and other lesser known ones.

The seventies were the time of the formation of Soviet rock culture, the time of underground recording and re-recording studios, night "sessions" in small Moscow and Leningrad recreation centers.

In 1978, Chernogolovka even managed to hold a kind of rock festival, which was attended by groups from all over the country, with the exception of Leningrad. However, the attempt to organize “Chernogolovka-2” ended in failure, but still the impromptu concert, held as if in place of the failed festival, became the first high-profile appearance of “Aquarium”

A harbinger of the turbulent events of the end of the decade, at its beginning, was the All-Union rock festival in Tbilisi in March 1980. In essence, of course, it was something unthinkable. And although the name of the festival was innocent in Soviet style, “Spring Rhythms,” it had colossal significance. The festival was even compared to the American Woodstock.

The jury awarded first place to the Moscow “Time Machine” and the Estonian “Magnetic Band”. It's funny that "Aquarium" was disqualified at that festival for "inappropriate behavior on stage." (BG thought of lying down on stage with his guitar, which was interpreted ambiguously). Based on the results of the festival, the Melodiya company even released a record with some songs.

Of course, the question arises about the reasons for such unprecedented ideological generosity of the Soviet regime? There are different points of view on this matter. Some believe that such liberalization is justified by the upcoming Olympics - 80, while others believe that this was a cunning move by the KGB, which thus decided to create something like a database containing all the more or less famous rockers and those close to them. In any case, it was an important milestone in the history of Soviet rock.

Although, of course, the rock underground of the 80s also had its own levels. There were also such unformatted groups that even the barely opened opportunity to perform on stage did not promise them any changes. They existed semi-mythically, from apartment building to apartment building. For example, there was a group “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”, which, according to legend, consisted of four people who were labeled as the leader of the world proletariat.

Of course, the concerts of such groups were only for their own, and in the case of recording on tape, the names of the authors were not made public. By the way, it was in the 80s that the so-called “magizdat” (re-recording of cassettes) expanded the audience of rock listeners purely technically, since rewriting cassettes was much easier than copying previously existing films.

And of course, the rock history of the 80s is unthinkable without the opening of the Leningrad rock club. This significant event took place in March 1981. It was here, on Rubinstein Street, 13, that the stars of perestroika rock would form. This is where the KINO group took its first steps...

Perestroika actually legalized rock in the USSR. Everything that was formed in the previous described years simply became a reality. Officials and Komsomol workers, who until recently were at odds with the rockers, have now become co-organizers of official concerts and festivals. For example, the city committee of the Komsomol of Moscow organized a four-day festival "Rock Panorama - 86". Co-operative studios are appearing in place of underground recording studios.

Further, in 1987, youth cultural centers (MCCs) appeared in Leningrad, which, like LRK (Leningrad Rock Club), became platforms for young groups. The legalization of rock increased the audience of listeners, which in turn greatly affected the appearance of rockers. Groups began to look for their own style in clothing and hairstyles. A system of stage movements was developed, a common language was established with light, music and smoke machines.

Speaking about perestroika rock, it is necessary to take into account changed rules of operation of the Soviet media, and especially television.Perestroika television provided musicians with access to an audience of millions and made 80s rock recognizable. Appearance in the programs “Musical Ring” and “Program A” essentially meant recognition.

During perestroika, unprecedented foreign tours began, and not only to the countries of the socialist camp. Although sometimes the opportunity to tour had a negative impact on the work of rock bands. Endless performances reduced studio work to a minimum, which made the repertoire practically unrenewable.

Perestroika rock is no longer apartment houses with port wine and dimly lit night houses; perestroika rock is already a mass stage performance. The pinnacle of this can be called the last concert of the KINO group in Luzhniki on June 24, 1990, on the occasion of which the cauldron of the fire of the 80th Olympics was even lit. By the mid-90s, that same perestroika rock movement died out.

Of course, some rock bands remained, some new ones appeared, and of course they played new pages of Russian rock, but the atmosphere of forbidden apartment dwellers, the romance of electric trains and sentimental protest against the existing reality remained in perestroika forever...

Books by Artemy Troitsky:

"Rock in the Union: 60s, 70s, 80s", M.: Art, 1991 - book is unique because it was written by a direct participant in those events and in relative temporal proximity to the events described - 1991. As fate would have it, Troitsky was indeed personally acquainted with many musicians of those years, so reading his memoirs is quite interesting despite the fact that the book is written in understandable language, divided into logical chapters and in general is not just a chronicle of the history of rock, but an attempt to comprehend the processes themselves and the reasons that gave rise to them.

"Rock music in the USSR: the experience of a popular encyclopedia", M.: Book, 1990 - alphabetical directory of Soviet rock bands. The book presents the creative paths of both well-known and now unknown groups, which existed not only in Leningrad, Moscow and Sverdlovsk, but throughout the entire territory of the USSR. So for die-hard fans of the Magadan “Eastern Syndrome” that existed in the 80s, this publication is a must-have. In addition to descriptions of bands, this directory contains interpretations of rock-related concepts, such as, for example, “bard rock,” “underground,” etc.

Book by Alexey Kozlov "Rock: origins and development". Just like Artemy Troitsky, Alexey Kozlov is directly related to music. In the late 70s he created the jazz-rock ensemble "Arsenal". The book well describes the cause-and-effect relationships of the emergence of certain musical phenomena, including even economic and political aspects.

Documentary film "Rock", 1987 dir. Alexey Uchitel (not to be confused with Alexander Shkolnik). The film is a little drawn out, but overall it quite vividly conveys the atmosphere of those years. In the film you will see Tsoi working in Kamchatka, Grebenshchikov's stories about life, Nevsky in the 80s, and a trash concert in the zone.

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Russian rock

Russian rock is rock music from Russia and/or in Russian. Russian rock originated in the USSR in the second half of the 20th century under the influence of Western music, and to this day exists in Russia and the CIS countries

Story. Origin

The first Soviet rock bands appeared in the mid-60s in the wake of Beatlemania, but until the mid-70s, Russian rock and pop rock music was mainly an imitation of the music of foreign performers, which was what numerous VIA (vocal and instrumental ensembles) did ). One of the first rock groups that began to sing in Russian was the group “Tin Soldiers” (they can be heard, for example, in the cartoon “Well, wait a minute” - in the form of the group “Mongrels” performing “The Priest Had a Dog”) . In addition, the group recorded the first full-fledged tape recorder album in the USSR, “Reflections” (1972) (according to another version - which is adhered to by Alexander Kushnir, compiler of the encyclopedia “100 tape recorder albums of Soviet rock” - the countdown of Soviet tape recorder rock culture begins with the albums of Yuri Morozov (1973)). However, in certain circles, Alexander Gradsky is considered one of the first rock musicians in the USSR, who founded the group “Slavs” in 1964.

Although many Soviet VIA performed music close to rock (for example, “Pesnyary”, “Flowers”, “Earthlings”), they most often did not call themselves rock groups, since rock and roll was considered a bourgeois Western style. The VIA's repertoire was approved by artistic councils consisting of conservative elderly political workers, which limited creative freedom. Groups that were not happy with this preferred to be considered amateur. However, this made it impossible to release official records and severely limited opportunities for concerts. The recordings of these groups were distributed among fans by samizdat on magnetic tapes, and performances most often took place at apartment buildings - spontaneous home concerts. The most significant “tape recorder” groups of the Soviet underground of the 70s and early 80s were the Moscow “Time Machine” and the Leningrad “Aquarium”. Other early groups included “Leap Summer”, “Autograph”, “Resurrection”, “Myths”, “Russians”, “St. Petersburg”. These groups did not have a single style; they performed a mixture of Western rock and purely acoustic, “bardic” songs. During this period in the USSR it was difficult to draw a line between rock, VIA and art songs.

Heyday, 80s

By the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s, a full-fledged rock movement had formed in the USSR, which began to self-organize with the help of the authorities. To streamline the spontaneous movement, the Leningrad Rock Club, the first rock club in the USSR, was opened in 1981 (under the quiet supervision of the KGB). Thanks to rock clubs, rock bands for the first time had the opportunity to legally record and give concerts, and the authorities had the opportunity to keep rockers under surveillance. At this time, the first rock festival “Tbilisi-80” was held. Some groups gained access to radio and television broadcasts thanks to the Music Ring program. This “thaw” gave impetus to the second wave of Russian rock, especially to the Leningrad groups in the “new wave” style - “Kino”, “Alice”, “Obermaneken”, “Strange Games”, etc.

Russian rock went through a difficult period in 1983-85, when, on the initiative of K.U. Chernenko, persecution of amateur groups began, and the organization of concerts without the participation of a state monopolist was equated to private entrepreneurship and threatened with prison. During this period, Moscow groups especially suffered from such measures: “Resurrection”, “Bravo”, “Corrosion of Metal”; their concerts were stopped by the police, and some of their participants were even arrested.

Only in 1985 was the Moscow Rock Laboratory opened, which allowed the capital's bands to legalize their activities. And with the beginning of perestroika and glasnost in 1985, musicians had the opportunity to perform concerts without fear of criminal prosecution for entrepreneurship and parasitism.

The 80s in the history of Russian rock can be compared with the late 60s in Western rock music. In the cities of the USSR, rock clubs were created, well-known, and partly still active, rock groups were formed (see: Russian Rock Groups), people appeared who consistently wrote about rock music (Artemy Troitsky, Alexander Zhitinsky), major rock events took place. festivals (“Lituanika” - 1985-89, “Podolsk” - 1987), “SyRok”, etc. The prototype of Russian rock music of the 80s was Anglo-American rock music, namely, such directions as hard rock, heavy metal, “new wave”, as well as punk rock and partly post-punk.

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 80s 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.

Regional scenes

Despite the fact that the passion for rock music in the USSR was widespread, by the end of the 80s a number of centers of the Soviet rock movement had formed, noticeably different from each other both in style and in organizational features. First of all, the three largest centers of Russian rock stand out - Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg).

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” , “Brigade contract” (Nikolai Mikhailov). The groups “Kino” (Viktor Tsoi), “Alisa” (Moscow-Leningrad group, Konstantin Kinchev) and “DDT” (formed in 1980 in Ufa, Yuri Shevchuk) received cult status among fans. Among other significant groups were “Television” (Mikhail Borzykin), “Obermanken” (Anzhey Zakharischev von Brausch), “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, were 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 60s. At the same time, the Leningrad rock crowd was characterized by a great interest in other forms of art - literature, theater and cinema.

Moscow, where in 1985 a “rock laboratory” was created at the House of Culture named after. Gorbunova. The most famous Moscow groups: “Time Machine” (Andrey Makarevich), “Resurrection” (Alexey Romanov), “Sounds of Mu” (Peter Mamonov), “Brigade S” (Garik Sukachev), “Crematorium” (Armen Grigoryan), “Bravo” (Evgeniy Khavtan). The first electronic rock groups, such as “Center” (Vasily Shumov), “Nochnoy Prospekt”, “Bioconstructor” and others, also began to appear at the Moscow Rock Laboratory. 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 style, unlike anything else, 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! and etc.

In addition to groups performing “classic” rock, in the 80s a number of groups playing “metal” appeared in Moscow: “Aria”, “Master”, “Black Coffee” (Dmitry Varshavsky), “Cruise” (Valery Gaina), “Black Obelisk” (Anatoly Krupnov) and “Corrosion of Metal” (Sergei Troitsky).

Murmansk Rock band Ptitsa Volnaya leader Andrey Gorshkov. Two CDs released<"Там, где ты", «Птица Вольная»

Ural and Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg). In 1986, the Sverdlovsk rock club was founded. Famous groups from the region: “Urfin Djus” (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 70s (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 80s was Nautilus Pompilius, whose lyrics were more social and aimed at mass audiences.

Siberia: “Civil Defense” (Egor Letov), “Survival Instructions”, (Roman Neumoev), “Kalinov Bridge” (Dmitry Revyakin), Yanka Dyagileva. Peripheral and without a single center, the Siberian rock community in the 80s was represented mainly by a movement that its participants called punk rock. Soviet Siberian punk rock relied not only on Anglo-American punk rock, but also on post-punk, garage rock, psychedelia and even partly on folk rock, and was a separate cultural phenomenon that continued to exist in the underground in the 1990s. e years and had a great influence on the youth subculture.

Kharkov, where rock festivals have been held since the late 80s. The most famous rock band from Kharkov is “Different People” (Alexander Chernetsky), in 1989-1994 the second soloist and songwriter of which was also Sergei Chigrakov (Chizh). Some Kharkov rock groups performed their songs in Ukrainian or English (like the rock group “Dozhd”). The most famous music critic in the Kharkov rock environment was Sergei Korotkov. The development of the city's rock scene was also facilitated by Radio 50, perhaps the first private radio station in the USSR.

Voronezh, where the Voronezh rock club opened in the late 80s. One of the brightest local rock bands was the Gaza Strip, whose vocalist and songwriter was Yuri Klinskikh (Yuri Khoy).

"Red Wave"

In 1986, the double album “Red Wave” (“Red Wave”) was released in the USA with recordings of the Leningrad groups “Aquarium”, “Strange Games”, “Alice” and “Kino”, which contributed to the development of Russian rock and interest in Soviet rock culture beyond 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 even married the guitarist of the Kino group, Yuri Kasparyan).

After the release of this album, Soviet rock bands got the opportunity to give concerts, record and release albums in other countries, and collaborate with Western musicians. The Kino group toured France, Italy and Denmark in 1988-89, Zvuki Mu released the album Zvuki mu in the UK (produced by 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 80s - early 90s

The end of the 80s was marked by the final emergence of Russian rock from the underground. Several films were shot 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, as well as the short film "Ya-hha" with the participation of the above rock musicians.

From that moment on, numerous new groups were created, the road for which was already open. In Russia, they first heard about the Agatha Christie group, which played psychedelic post-punk; in the early 1990s it was the most popular rock band in Russia. Punk projects also appeared, such as “Semantic Hallucinations”, “Va-Bank”, the instrumental ensemble “Zero” and the rock and roll group “Nogu Svelo!”, whose song “Haru Mamburu” reflected the culture of the 90s and became a megahit and even a hit.

As a protest subculture, Russian rock has lost its significance since the late 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 the mass listener in other domestic rock performers began to decline, many of them ceased their activities due to the death of the founders, leaving abroad or unwillingness to work together. This is how “Autograph”, “Kino”, “Nautilus Pompilius”, “Gorky Park”, “Zoo”, “Secret”, “Cruise”, “Dialogue” disbanded.

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

90s and modern times

In terms of sound, Russian rock by the mid-90s (from about 1993) again approached Western music, actually joining its various directions without the lag that was inevitable during the Iron Curtain. The music of some Russian-language rock bands of the 90s and 2000s is sometimes characterized as “rockapop” and “not pop”.

In the 90s, many bands officially reissued old albums that had previously been released unofficially as 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.

Mass media began to play a large role in the development of rock music. Although most TV channels and radio stations almost ignore modern Russian rock bands, in the 90s and 2000s media outlets specializing in this music appeared. These are “Our Radio”, TV channels “A-One” and “O2TV”, “Radio Maximum”, “Fuzz” magazine and others.

Following Yuri Aizenshpis (“Kino”), many influential rock producers appeared: Alexander Ponomarev (“Splin”, “BI-2”), Dmitry Groysman (“Chaif”, Mara), Leonid Burlakov (“Mumiy Troll”, Zemfira , “Brothers Grim”), Alexander Kushnir, Alexander Elin and others.

In Russian rock music, the development of genres popular in the West continued, with the gradual division of a single movement into them. A large number of bands appeared performing punk and grunge (“King and Jester”, “Lumen”, “Pilot”, “Naive”, “Cockroaches!”, “7race”, “Sky Here”). The “heavy” scene has expanded with the emergence of modern performers of power and symphonic metal (“Epidemic”, “Catharsis”, “Mechanical Poet”), black and pagan metal (“Nokturnal Mortum”, “Gods Tower”, “Temnozor” , “Arkona”), doom and atmospheric metal (“Mental Home”, “Dreaming Soul”, “Stonehenge”) and other types of metal music.

Russian alternative rock appeared in the mid-1990s and remains popular to this day. Initially, it was rapcore and trip-hop, which quickly became ingrained into the culture of Russian rock. A serious push towards alternatives was made by the groups “Dubovy Gaay” (Dolphin), “Bricks”, as well as the group “Gaza Strip”, where “Khoy” used rapcore in the 1990s. In the 2000s, a wide alternative scene appeared, performers of indie rock, nu metal, rapcore, emo, metalcore - such as “Amatory”, “Jane Air”, “Psyche”, “Apshell”, “Slot”, “Moi” Rockets Up", "Stigmata", "Rashamba" and many others. The A-One TV channel is actively promoting this scene by establishing the RAMP Award.

Folk rock received a new development, drawing closer, on the one hand, to minstrel song (“The Mill,” “The Dartz,” “Theodor Bastard”), and on the other hand, to the so-called Scandinavian folk rock (“Legacy of the Vagants” , “The Troll Bends the Spruce”, “White Owl”, “Tintal”). Some groups are focused on the folklore traditions of the peoples of Russia: “Yaros” (Slavic folk rock), “H-Ural” (Khanty electrofolk), “Bugotak” (Buryat ethno-rock), etc.

Russian rock outside Russia

rock russian origin development

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. For example, one of these rock groups is “Adaptation”, which, despite being in Kazakhstan (Aktyubinsk), has every right to be called Russian rock. In this regard, the name “Soviet rock” arose, since, for the most part, the bands of the former USSR sound exactly what is called Russian rock. There are groups created by Russian-speaking emigrants in Israel, Germany, the USA and Canada, most of them amateur and practically unknown

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