Sunday, February 10, 2008

Русский Рок

As a fan of rock music it's interesting to see how rock scenes have evolved in other countries over time, especially a country where free expression was rather limited for a long time. Rock in Russia evolved from an earlier underground tradition commonly referred to as 'bard music', folk-influenced music written by individuals outside the central establishment and performed only to small, cult audiences. With some limited influences from western rock music, the Russian rock scene grew popular during the perestroika era of the 80s; a unique form of music followed, a combination of popular acoustic folk music and 60s-70s rock from outside - the Beatles being a primary influence.

A couple of bands popular during the 80s heyday, which is often referred to as the Russian classic rock period -

Piknik
(they look like a creep new-wave band!)


DDT
(the Russian Barenaked Ladies! At least, they kinda sound like it, and their lead singer looks like a surly Russian version of Steven Page..)


Alisa
(now here we go. This is a little harder.)


Pretty cool, if a little strange musically. I'll have to look into Russian metal next time.

3 comments:

Dr. Michael A. Denner said...

as always, anthony, a great & illuminating post. i only knew DDT. very good.

Dr. Michael A. Denner said...

oh, and i should add, ddt is very much in the барды tradition, while the other two are much more influenced by western music. at least that's my impression.

krishna kashyap av said...

Wow..
Really rocking.
Great videos and amazing
music.
Work from home