The musical results of the year reflected a new reality

Streaming of the Year

In the streaming statistics, the entire champion army clearly reflects the modern demands of those who listen to music on gadgets. Anna Asti can admire the main singer of the year in the mirror, and Artic & Asti – a duet in which a piece of her name remained on the memorial plaque – were very successful as a group even without her. Macan, AVG “Caspian Cargo”, Miyagi & Endgame very accurately described modern commercial hip-hop, which combined hookah pop doctrine, boyish prowess and chanson. All this has a very distant relation to canonical and homespun hip-hop, about the same as the notorious Code of the Builder of Communism of the Soviet era to the Sermon on the Mount, but this is its sovereign incarnation.

Disease of the Year

The Three Days of Rain group persistently promoted the rock idea, at least in some of its manifestations. Thus, the social story about the placement of the group leader Gleb Viktorov in a rehabilitation clinic seriously excited fan publics and some telegram channels. Sometimes this kind of excitement seemed more vivid than the emotions from listening to the band’s music, but the group also made significant progress in streaming. True, it’s impossible to call this a novel, since back in 2010, the “psychiatric examination” of Philip Kirkorov in an Israeli clinic (if anyone remembers this trash show) after his comical fight with his assistant Yablokova was already the “event of the year” and also worked to increase stock prices music exchange, although the risks were much higher. Then they once again called for Filya to be deprived of all honors, regalia and titles and even threatened with criminal prosecution, which at that time looked extraordinary, not like it does now.

Coins of the year

The results summed up by the industry can probably be considered the most objective, but the industry does not talk about talent, although it should. Probably, both Anna Asti and her former colleague Artic confidently grabbed fashion by the tail and gave out exactly what the public needs now. However, this does not cancel the feeling of fast food, which will turn out to be completely inedible as soon as it cools down slightly. From which we can conclude that relying on fast food is accepted not only in the food industry, but also in the music industry as the main survival strategy. Not up to haute cuisine, as they say, and all sorts of Michelins. These funs are mostly and predominantly in the past. Although, of course, even in this sad paradigm, individual exceptions are possible.

Intrigues of the year

Against this background, the new release from Zivert, entitled “In the World of Merry,” is very reminiscent of the intention to move where the singer has not yet been, and to make an album that, in the context of her past hits, does not sound very logical. But it is the desire to follow instinct, rather than industrial interests, that supplies the music with intrigue. And an intrigue of this quality makes one smack and savor with obvious pleasure, if not the general masses of fans, then certainly musical gourmets and aesthetes.

Eva Polna also lives by instincts. Her new album “Open Space” was written and recorded as if without any regard for the charts and musical mores. But Eva is recognizable in these songs from the first sound and word. Having started in “Guests from the Future” and continuing solo, the singer came up with a genre named after herself, and very few of her colleagues have such luxury.

Challenges of the year

Things are very confusing in the rock ‘n’ roll jungle right now. However, when was it simple? There has always been some ideological content in this music; a rocker, by definition, cannot be just a creeping creature and voice other people’s slogans. When Diana Arbenina stood in front of a packed stadium and sang everything that made her a real rock heroine, there was no doubt about the purity of her conscience, at least before herself as an author and a person. At the same time, the purity of this definition by Roma the Beast, which previously seemed to raise no doubts, can now probably become a reason for a discussion in which the opinion of the artist himself would be interesting. This opinion, however, has not yet been made public and, most likely, will not be made public in the foreseeable future. But the Ogonyok magazine also revealed the truth in the 80s of the last century about past fateful events decades after they raged. So there is time.

Meanwhile, Yuri Shevchuk expressed his own opinion about time, love and morals in his joint album with Dmitry Emelyanov “Wolves in Tire”. And in these songs there is a modern Shevchuk. A people’s poet confident in his words, whose voice will sound longer than the life of the person who wrote these songs. “Wolves in Tire” is not quite a “DDT” album, as fans are accustomed to listening to the numbered discs of local rock giants; but the damp retro sound, combined with the lines, gives everything that is now needed from rock songs, and makes the release one of the most significant for both Shevchuk and his entire flock.

Musicians who are usually labeled as alternative artists do not always use rock methods in their approach to sound, but are close to rockers when it comes to the importance of words. Dolphin in the album “Farewell to Arms” clearly hints that his battle is lost, and learns to live with it. In the long musical career of Andrei Lysikov, there is much evidence of the musician’s ability to turn both active citizenship and humility into art. On A Farewell to Arms he does this with methods he knows very well, mixing noise, synth and pop into a fairly predictable sound. But his knack for adding a fair bit of mystery to everything is still an enviable skill.

Shortparis’s ability to turn songs into scary soundtracks of our time evokes no less emotion. In the past year, the group did not have a big album, but the singles, frankly, were exciting, like the recent EP “The Grapes of Wrath”. Hysterical punk rock with a rhythm that can give you a heart attack is reminiscent of the sound experiments of some of the stars of the Leningrad rock club of the 80s, but technical capabilities now allow these performances to be brought to stunning emotionality. The video for the title track visualized many of the paranoias of the modern business city dweller, and if you have to single out the video of the year, then “The Grapes of Wrath” doesn’t have many competitors.

Concerts of the year

The concerts were not very rich, but sometimes quite crowded. Leonid Agutin’s appearance at the 35,000-seat stadium turned out to be quite grand – to the noisy delight of the ladies who intended to arrange languid dances. Basta staged an orchestral rap sabbath at the House of Music with the Russian Philharmonic orchestra, and some time later he took another academic peak by writing music for a play about Mayakovsky.

Polina Gagarina pretty much stirred up the whole “Megasport” at a big solo show, and “Aria” said goodbye to the “Guest from the Kingdom of Shadows” tour with a concert that was conducive to a fan’s vocal cord breakdown. They also sang loudly at the elegant anniversary soiree of the Crematorium group in Gorbushka; Lolita and the already mentioned Eva Polna gave real divas in Crocus. The Hatters were sold out in quite large halls; Gleb Samoilov and “Bricks” inspired people to forget about all decency during their concerts.

In general, something, of course, was happening, although real fans of live sound, most likely, did not lose the feeling that they were put on a diet and were simply underfed with what they had long been accustomed to. But in the current situation there are only two options: either get out of the habit, or study European posters…

Throwing of the Year

Last year, rappers (not the hookah ones discussed above, but those claiming the status of authenticity) could feel like something like prisoners of conscience. They were called to the carpets, threatened, called words that seemed far from the rhetoric of the official lexicon, and tried in every possible way to reason, although the meaning of this verb has recently been blurred beyond recognition. Scally Milano, after public repentance, even recorded a post-cover album, in which, of course, the results of the bureaucratic suggestions appeared. It can hardly be said that the lively rapper has forgotten all the words; he still uses some of them, but the very feeling of “filtering the market” performed by people who don’t seem to need instructions on how to formulate thoughts is very consistent with the general vibe.

At the same time, fans of the genre hardly felt deprived. Scriptonite poured out releases like a cornucopia and generally held its own. Although, of course, it’s easier for him, he’s a foreigner. Guf released a very personal album “Forbidden Place”, turning his own dramatic experience into tracks that spare no one. “Waste Paper” comeback with the album “Nowhere!” became an event for fans of old-fashioned literary-centric rap. In the youth sector, passions were in full swing around Toxi$ and his release Hotshot, and in the discussion of whether the aspiring rapper had become a serious artist, there was more truth in the assumptions that he had become, fortunately, he had not yet been called into ideological conversations.

Jackpots of the year

Hookah rappers, already mentioned in passing, meanwhile are experiencing a period of chocolate stability. Their music, filled with dancing and brutal lisps, continues to do well on streaming and at corporate events. The clinking of coins is also a very hip-hop theme, although in current conditions the process clearly lacks sparkle. And against this backdrop, rapper Vacio’s fashion show with a Balenciaga sock looks like one of the hip-hop events of the season, at least in terms of the weight of the arguments.

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Making plans for the future, on the one hand, is not easy, but on the other hand, it is not so difficult. In the proposed musical coordinates, you can think almost in five-year terms, and for inspiration you can return to the seventies – this is ideal, but you can also go to the eighties and nineties, and even to the zeros. But, of course, not now…