Boris Moiseev’s posthumous album released

The first associations are with Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson, showmen as passionate as Borya. As it turned out after their death, there were deposits of unpublished verses in the archives. Then the public listened to these treasures with bated breath, although during their lifetime many things were rejected by corrosive masters. Jackson generally accumulated tracks on as many as two posthumous albums – Michael and Xscape. At the latter, much was exhibited not only in the original, but also in revised, “modern” versions. A similar thing happened to the creative heritage of Moiseev.

Borya, however, did not reject anything. On the contrary, if you didn’t like something, you didn’t leave it to the mercy of fate, but tried to refine it, improve it. What remained unfinished – due to a serious illness after strokes, and then death – was now completed by close friends and associates. They even conceived the Boris Moiseev Memorial Foundation and are going to release about 50 more songs in the coming years, previously not known to the general public.

Album VOGUE21. Start with yourself” thus became the first trial balloon. It is interesting because it was approved for publication by Boris himself back in May 2010, before the tragic illness that knocked the bright extraordinary artist out of his usual and hectic life, including creative life, for a whole decade. But the release was subsequently delayed. Now it can be called a “creative testament”. Moiseev not only selected songs for the album, but also took part in a photo shoot with a glamorous haute couture look. Hence the name, since the philosophy of the then still very bright, bright and open world was seen by Bor in the colors and style of Vogue, life is infinitely free, carefree and carnival. The cover design, as well as the contents of the album, were invented by Boris himself.

But what does carefree mean? “Start with yourself” as part of the “testament” refers to the title song, written by Victoria Schmidt and Nikita Malinin, with a clearly stated life position: “Start with yourself to love the whole world.” It seems to be so simple, but also so difficult. Borya himself considered this song almost his manifesto of late creativity. What would he say now, seeing how his main testament was destroyed by cruel time under the roar of cannonades?

The album was supposed to be the 12th number in the artist’s creative biography. Accordingly, it contains songs that were completely new by that time, as well as those that sounded in concerts or on television, but were not widely promoted. With the exception of the song “Asterisk” – an imperishable hit by the authors Kim Breitburg, Sergey Sashin and Boris Moiseev himself, who had a hand in writing it. I wrote “incorruptible” – and I literally remembered a scattering of incorruptibles under the brand name “Boris Moiseev” during the years of his brilliant and brilliant cruise in the stormy waters of show business … In the album, the song acquired a new sound in the Balkan style – the fantasy of the former musician of the group “Prime Minister » Vyacheslav Bodolik, who produced this version. Then it was a super-demanded trend, to which many stars were attached. One can recall the same Kirkorov with the sensational “Balkan” saga “Disco Partisans”.

The undoubted hero of history, in addition to the artist himself, is the famous “Pugachev” sound producer, composer and musician Anatoly Lopatin. He not only painted the verses with expressive colors of intricate arrangements and a dense sound, but extremely carefully and professionally extended Borin’s modest vocals to the level of a rich and well-staged performance, thanks to which he managed to successfully accentuate the sensual and characteristic intonations of the artist’s emotional recitations. Realizing that it was not Chaliapin (not Prokhor, of course, but Fedor), Moiseev did not so much sing his songs, avoiding possible embarrassment, as he lived, and created in this way, like his great mentor and “dear mother” Alla Pugacheva, his own theater songs. Borino’s worldview and Lopatin’s taste, experience and skill turned the album into an entertaining musical adventure, where the dramatic and deep melodies of the authors who composed for Moiseev multiplied into the flavor of a stylistic feast of R’n’B, lounge and even jazz-rock.

The album, if not flawless, is very good in the musical, arranging, meaningful, performing sense. When listening to the artist’s recitations, emotional and carefully articulated, in some places there was not only annoyance, but an irresistible desire to star with a pointer on the cumpol of other current pompous rappers-stars with their nasally indistinct readings and exclaim morally: “That’s who you should learn from, cardboard fools !”

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Album VOGUE21. Start with Yourself ”well deserves a brief digest of songs, each of which has its own unusual story. However, when did Borya usually have something?

The intro to the track “Behind the Pack” is performed in the style of orchestration for the Hollywood blockbusters “Agent 007” – epic and disturbing. The song-masterpiece was written by the legendary tandem of composer Raimonds Pauls and poet Ilya Reznik. The penetrating nature of the text, the capacity of the image, the multi-layered meanings. “I fell behind the pack, I won’t catch up with it.” The song was played in the Moiseev show only a few times, rarely performed and almost never broadcast. How did the artist feel while recording the song? Avoiding cospirology, we will not claim that he knew something, but, apparently, he clearly had a presentiment …

“This pain” was responsible for the “fashionable sound” in the manner characteristic of Moiseev and was written by a pool of fashionable authors in the genre – Lopatin, Bodylevich, Merce. Recognizable by timbre, filled with meaning, loved by fans. Not published, sounded in the show, got into radio rotation. However, after an illness, this composition practically did not sound at the rare concerts that Boris tried to give, although it was her artist who considered it a hit.

“Suffocating from the pain inside” is exquisite melodically, evokes distant allusions to the performing style of Amanda Lear, which, by the way, has always been a very comfortable format for Borya. “There is no strength left for tears,” the artist tears his soul with lines, skillfully intoning and emphasizing the meanings, which turns the opus into that very unique theater of song. The title “Start with yourself” in addition to what has been said, has also acquired an exquisite jazz flair due to the elegant parts of the saxophone. “Queen-winter”, written by Toff Mammadov, is beautiful and lyrical. Borya was so fired up with the allusion to the Snow Queen that he spent a lot of money buying the rights to use fragments of the cult Soviet cartoon in the video clip. “Night Comes” is another “delicacy” from the pen of mastodons, composer Kim Breitburg and poet Mikhail Tanich. Moiseev cherished it, since these were the last poems of Tanich, which formed the basis of the song. The composition “Balance (Expression)” contains one more, if not the main pain of Borin: “We maintain balance, even if the whole world turns away.” Then there was still a time when the topics of human diversity and the right to personal self-determination were possible both to discuss and defend…

“Chao, Bambina!” – a musical song, a burlesque song composed by Anatoly Lopatin and Dmitry Mers. With this song, Boris was seriously going to go to Eurovision 2010 in Oslo, where the Eurovision Song Contest moved after the phenomenal victory of the “Norwegian-Belarusian” Alexander Rybak with the song Fairytale at Eurovision 2009 in Moscow, which, in turn, happened after no less phenomenal victory of Dima Bilan in 2008 in Belgrade. Yes, there were times…

At first, just the idea was born to go to the competition, then many were eager to go there – to convulsive colic, and then a song was composed under the idea. The authors recall that Boris always and everywhere appeared as a holiday person: “So the song appeared. It would be strange to write sad for the contest. But even in this song-carnival I wanted to put something personal – the expectation of a meeting. All his life, Boris lived in some kind of expectation … The main thing is to wait and always hope. Therefore, the song is festive, optimistic. “I will turn half the world!” – such was the motto of Boris. He immediately said that he wanted a song in Russian, but at the same time a few phrases had to be read in all languages. Ciao Bambina is understood all over the world. After recording, he said: “How easy this song is to sing!” – and the melody went to him, and the recognizable refrain, and the BM chips fit very well – his unique low timbre … “

Eurovision, of course, was the place of power that was waiting for Borya. But, according to popular legend, the artist withdrew the application for the competition at the last moment, deciding to nobly give way to young musicians. In fact, everything has already been decided there without Borya’s sentiments, withdraw – do not withdraw. The “gypsy choir” of Peter Nalich, whose “Guitar” blew up the hit parades at that time, acted as “young musicians”. However, at Eurovision, the frontman and his band chose, unlike the cheerful Moiseev and even their own bangle “Guitar”, a sad and incredibly boring song with the hopeless name Lost and Forgotten (“Lost and Forgotten”), as a result they were lost in the competition for 11 -th place and were soon safely forgotten …

A separate topic is Borya’s duets. With whom he just did not quail – from Joseph Kobzon and Nikolai Trubach to Lyudmila Gurchenko and all “his ladies”! VOGUE21 included two duet compositions: “Two Shadows” with Anzhelika Agurbash to lyrics by Ilya Reznik and “Glass of Love” composed by Andrey Danilko.

Initially, Borya drained this “Glass” precisely in pair with Verka Serduchka (the stage incarnation of Danilko) – at the anniversary show “Dessert” in 2009 on the occasion of his 55th birthday, but the composition was included in the album as a solo performance. Sunny and very musical, with languid catchphrases, like “pour love into my glass, I’ll drink it to the bottom”, a reference to the author’s favorite style of Modern Talking and, of course, Borya’s invariable provocations like: “A sad sommelier will pour Chablis into a glass / You offered to play pranks without getting out of the car / But I’ll tell you – no drugs … ”And again he is drawn to sigh in hopeless sadness:“ Hmm, there were times ”…

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The legendary “boy Borya”, kind, vulnerable, sympathetic, and in public – “Child of vice.” The child seems to be his own, seething with freedom of expression, time, and at the same time there is none. The opposite is often said about such people – he was ahead of his time. I tried to make him kinder, more humane, more tolerant, and therefore better. I left with that hope. Not wait. But he left all the same when this hope had not yet completely died out. Therefore, no matter how harsh it may sound – and thank God …

These days, after his birthday on March 4, Borya, overcoming weakness and illness, still dreamed of going on an anniversary tour that was almost a year long in order to celebrate his 70th birthday in 2024 in a festive and bright way, as he loved. . As a person and an artist always obligatory and scrupulous, he liked to do and plan everything in advance, in detail. I even drew a grandiose route for myself: from Moscow to the outskirts, as well as half the world where Borya’s fans live – post-Soviet countries, America, Europe, Israel, Australia.

The plans were not destined to come true. Boris Moiseev died on September 27, 2022. But his recordings remained, wonderful songs, published and unreleased. Some of them are collected in the album “VOGUE21. Begin with yourself”. Surprisingly, they are now heard even more piercingly, often more topical, and they still delight, sadden, amuse, excite, immerse in a magical and vibrant world that a great master and artist painted for all of us with sweeping and picturesque strokes, quivering, vulnerable, but very persistent.