“No one can sing instead of Alla” – Kommersant

Shortly before the recent birthday of Alla Pugacheva, Ivan Urgant, who records music under the pseudonym Grisha Urgant, released his version of Yuri Chernavsky’s song from Alla Pugacheva’s repertoire “I can’t live without you.” Igor Gavrilov met with Ivan Urgant at the festival “Holidays with” Bi-2 “” and talked about how music from the past stimulates his pop incarnation.

– Do I understand correctly that “I can’t live without you” is the result of your many years of passion for the 1980s?

– When the Evening Urgant team and I did the Blue Urgant New Year show, I stopped collecting guitars for many years (and to be honest, buying up) guitars and bought a lot of synthesizers. They came in handy when we began to select songs and decided to turn not to “RAM”, but, relatively speaking, to a “hard disk”. When you hear these non-obvious songs, they give rise to an amazing range of feelings. You could forget them or never hear them, but it seems that you have known all your life. So it was with the song “Don’t Say Anything” by the Rock Islands group or with “At Dawn” by the Alliance. So in the repertoire of Grisha Urgant appeared the song “Moral Code” “Night Caprice”. I experienced the same emotions when I came up with a cover version of the song “Secret” “My love is on the fifth floor.” I was approached with a proposal to make the song “Don’t be afraid, I’m with you” for the musical of the same name. This period of The Secret is not very close to me. But I really love The Secret as a whole and did not refuse. The result was “My Love is on the Fifth Floor”, solved in a completely different style than the original, and with exactly the sound that my collection of synthesizers allowed me to achieve. As for the track “I can’t live without you”, it’s not a cover, it’s more of a remix.

– “I can’t live without you” is not the most famous song of Yuri Chernavsky.

– Yuri Chernavsky is one of my two heroes who are related to two underestimated, in my opinion, cultural phenomena. The first is Alexander Zatsepin’s music for the film “June 31”. The second is the music of Yuri Chernavsky in the 1980s. They have two things in common. Firstly, both the soundtrack for June 31 and many of Chernavsky’s songs were made in home studios. And the second is, of course, the voice of Pugacheva. It’s amazing how she felt “their” authors. Indeed, Chernavsky has songs that are on the surface, like the soundtrack to the film “Above the Rainbow”, for example, but there are those that go like a second layer. I rejoice when I find something from him that I, perhaps, have never heard before.

– I have never heard this song.

– She is the last on the disc “Alla Pugacheva sings songs by Yuri Chernavsky.” And in front of her – “White Door”, “Robinson”, “White Panama”, “Cafe of Dancing Lights” … This year I dug a lot into various archival television products and suddenly realized once again how important Alla is to me Borisovna and the period of her work with Yuri Chernavsky. I found the clip “I can’t live without you”. On YouTube, he lies along with an interview that Chernavsky’s partner Matvey Anichkin takes from Pugacheva and in which she talks about how she likes working with Chernavsky. Then the clip starts. A very strange clip in which Chernavsky and his son drive an American SUV to the river and sing. And then the voice of Pugacheva appears. Chernavsky still remains such an “unspoken” character in our music, he deserves much more. I have a few ideas about working with his music, and he seems to be favorable to these ideas.

– Did you work with Pugacheva’s original films?

– Now, thanks to computer technology, a voice track can be isolated from a phonogram accessible to everyone. The way Pugacheva sings these four words – “I can’t live without you” – disarms me. Initially, the idea was just to get the rights to the song and record a duet with some singer. I didn’t care about the male vocals on this song. Singing is not Chernavsky’s main talent, and Grisha Urgant coped with this part. But I realized that no one could sing instead of Alla. When you hear her voice, goosebumps run down your spine. This is not only my feeling, just read the comments under the clip.

Was it difficult to get along with them?

I had absolutely no idea what kind of reaction to expect. I didn’t know if Chernavsky would agree. I didn’t know if Alla wanted this, if she needed it. But they both behaved phenomenally. Yura said: “I trust you, do it.” I called Pugacheva and said an idiotic phrase: “Alla Borisovna, I want to surprise you tomorrow and I want to warn you about it.” She did not delve into the essence, but said that she loved this song very much. After all, anything happens. She could stop loving this music, she could be at odds with Chernavsky. But it turned out that they are in a great relationship. I would never record this song if one of them was against it. Fortunately, we managed to release the song right on her birthday.

– Do I understand correctly that the cover for the single was made by a neural network?

— Yes, precisely because it is a remix with elements of a mashup. On the one hand, this is Alla, which never existed, and on the other, this is Alla, which is deep in our heart and soul.