Music

Essential to Russian culture. People love to sing and they love to listen to it everywhere: you can’t go into a store or ride a bus without getting a plentiful dose of (mostly English) pop music. It’s a given, a constant soundtrack; I can’t imagine that the irritable, hungover busdrivers actually want to hear this music. Typically, no cheesy piece of modern pop refuse gets piped into our morning busride unless it’s been exhaustively remixed by some flashy Moscow DJ. Though sometimes there's room for the oldies that you never knew disappeared. Within the space of two days, I heard on the radio White Town’s “Your Woman” and another song whose lyrics I could never understand except for “cherry cola” (you know the song), sending me back to my bedroom in the late 90s; otherwise it’s a lot of western songs that I’ve never heard and cell phone ringtones. There’s a wealth of great Russian singer-songwriters, but even if I knew the names I couldn’t remember them amidst the loud U2 and the Backstreet Boys and Killers videos at this café. Some of my favorite music so far (invariably rock is the only interesting modern stuff) is by Mummiy Troll, Tatiana Bulyonov, Masha y Medvedi, Pyotr Butisov….On the other side, the other night we squeezed ourselves (as is common when getting through the doors of events) into the opera house to see “Baikal,” a cultural extravaganza featuring two different Buryat artistic groups, one traditional and one from the future, full of pan-asian influences, not to mention Salsa and American pop. Amazing dancing, hammered dulcimers and chimes, cheesy lights and fog, sexy singers. The most colorful orchestra I’ve ever seen. Weird, great, and exciting.