[music clips] from russia with love

So, here it is - an attempt to show you some of the modern music from over here. All tracks are around one minute [about 990kb @ 128kps] and there are ten of them.

The small size should make them reasonably accessible but maybe you'll need to listen over a few days.

1 We kick off with a traditional accordion piece, to set the scene:

Accordion

2 Now a more up to date piece by a group called Hi Fi, from the late 90s but still using accordion:

Homeless child

3 One of the most respected musos, Garik Sukachev, a hooligan poet known for his passion, with a Piaf-like French angle on the accordion in this case. Very popular over here but seen as a village boy by some:

Tomba la Neige

4 Leaving the accordion for now, the early 2000s saw experimentation, this time combining children and rock:

With me

5 The next three tracks might be hard to stomach for some. They begin with the reason I don't really like female singers from Moscow. There's something really hard-nosed and wreaking of desired money and lack of talent.

Their backing group is usually top notch to compensate and they wheel the girl in and she sort of sings and looks dollishly pretty while she's gyrating. That's Moscow pop. They're actually singing the words: "These songs are rubbish.":

You were caught

6 Professor Lebedinsky is shunned by most but he is actually talented and original, in the way Rab C. Nesbitt was. It's a clever spoof of Louis Armstrong meets the dance scene.

I saw an interview with this guy and he was intelligent and had a good sense of humour. The song is about bedding girls:

Kalyamba Balyamba

7 Now the dance scene proper, Russian style. Once again, Hi Fi:

Arabica

8 This is the first part of a super-long track, regarded possibly as THE definitive Russian song from the 1990s by DDT, a group regarded by young and old as a cut above the rest for intellect, lyrics and just good music.

The Soviet Union pressurized them to discontinue so they went underground, a brave thing to do in those days. This is unusually folksy for them:

That's all [eto vsyo]

9 The track then cranks up the tempo in stages until near the end when it reaches this clip, then, after that, builds even further to the climax. It's still played today on the radio.

That's all [2]

10 And so it really is all and I thought Lebedinsky's sign off piece was appropriate - he can switch genres at will:

Hello Goodbye

If you'd like to hear some more of these, e-mail me or comment below and I'll do what I can. It was perhaps unusual music but I hope you liked at least some of the clips.