Russian Pop music

I discovered Russian pop music in 2003 in the middle of Siberia in Novosibirsk. It was pouring out from the private busses, from the markets and from weekend parties. I could not avoid it. I obtained a CD. Since then until recently, my exposure to Russian pop were limited to two CDs. I can’t really understand Russian. Perhaps this helped to enjoy the songs all the more.

Then came You Tube. Russian pop music has exploded into the living rooms with access to the internet for those who would bother to search for Russian pop. Apart from the music being Russian, is there much of a difference to such music compared to EuroAmerican pop (shortened to Europop) in English, except the obvious linguistic difference? I don’t know. Contemporary Russian pop music seems to have learned everything from its Western counterpart and there is not much stylistic difference in instruments or tunes generally – this music is basically Russia’s answer to your standard poptastic hit parade. But I certainly prefer to think that this music forms its own genre – best dubbed Russian Pop for absolute simplicity. Unfortunately, whereas there are some excellent Russian male artists I have only researched if that is the word, the female ones. What makes Russian pop music so absorbing?

OK, I’ll be frank. The women on Russian pop videos are often more attractive, more feminine, more traditional and more everything compared to the Europop selection. Their videos are stunning. Generally women in Russia (that I met) were more cultured, more educated and seemed to respect the respectable – they were extremely hospitable. There are more of them as pop artists, there is more variety and it is more irrepressible. Finally, my enjoyment is perhaps all the greater as they just sound like lovely women, but I don’t have to bother to or can’t understand what they say. They say that music can be more relaxing if the brain does not have to interpret the music, so classical can be more relaxing. Perhaps foreign language pop has the same effect.

Little bits of Russian we can pick up like “Na Pravda” in Natalya Baleskava (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHDOHp1yZmo) - a girl in trouble about her boyfriend. Russian pop is a sure way to sharpen your Russian language skills if you are interested. Sometimes Russian songs are just plain silly and fun as well as colourful. Just watch Krasky in Oranzovaye Soltsne (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxAgdk-2FHA) - a woman who is bundles of energy, but may be no ballerina. The above two artists are not easy to find if you want to download their hits. Two pop groups have become reasonably known so you can download their music. I refer to T.A. T. U. and Via Gra. TATU are famously lesbian though this may be just for show. My Russian hostess in 2003 was shocked by them. The Russian version of “Not gonna get us” by T.A.T.U. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPPm4y3s_58) features them driving along a snowy scene in a gigantic truck. T.A.T.U. are not quite my favourite, I think Via Gra have more pleasant music. Check out their answer to “diamonds are a girl’s best friend” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4vqHatFlkw) or “Brilliantly”, also the name of an album. For shoes, bums and a fairy tale ending, their Poptyka 5 is quite fun (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdR4ur5VqpE) to watch. These hits can now be downloaded and I’ll explain how (at least for people in the UK). Much as these videos are good, some of the best ones are taken down as have their equivalents with Europop. However, if you or they thought YouTube would kill the ability for any of these songs to make royalties, you’d be dead wrong. The latest music download sites are having their playlists explode thanks to the YouTube exposure. You can now download Russian, Brazilian, Japanese or anything else or you will soon be able to. YouTube is manna and some of these Russian groups now have YouTube channels. Take the group Fabrika. Their channel is: http://www.youtube.com/user/fabrikaband. I recommend a song that seems to have the refrain Die Die Die! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9Goxfb-8w4&feature=channel) - though this actually means give, give, give as lovers would say in Russian – so the mermaids sing. Fabrika have been around for quite a while. One of the most famous solo singers is Tatyana Bulanova, quite a song bird with tens of hits to her name. She is featured in Wikipedia. Some of her best stuff has since been taken down. Her song Angel is accompanied by a sci fi video that would credit any Hollywood space based CGI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krWC3dzFveQ). Russian songs often sound very traditional and innocent. Try Natali (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pxl-W645-I) - though I can’t say much about this singer. Another solo talent has the unusual appellation Unnesenie Vetrom. Her song Kakao had one of the most brilliant videos I had seen until it was taken down. The next best video featuring this is tacky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H6IgIrmTjc) and fails to reveal her talent. Someone could use this theme to help sell drinking chocolate. In Blestyashie, an ex girl band (there are so many Russian girl bands – Fabrika, Via gra, Tatu, Krasky, Non Stop) was featured the current solo star Shana Friske. You may see her in A ya … May I mention one further solo star with a good voice: Sveta in A mosh niet, A mosh da (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44C7MX7uI3w). (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25YxZ9x2A4E). Finally in the context of videos indicating a certain amount of blatant sexism and female liberation, try Pod Zapretom by Non Stop (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHur0yHNr88).

So how can you actually buy some of this music. Well I found the solution today though it is a partial solution via the downloadable application called Spotify. Try their website. Spotify are collecting all the world’s music in a listenable format and if you find the albums and songs, you are directed to sites you can download this stuff legally. Unfortunately, the majority of stars or groups listed above are not on it, but maybe, they will want to join given that it is not just Russians who want Russian pop music. I have always enjoyed foreign music including Abba – so much more exotic, exciting and yes, the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

My favourite classical composer is Tchaikovsky, a genius and a saint from Russia. Amongst nations representing Western Culture, Russia is probably number one for culture with all the nuances and history that the word represents. Music, science, painting, novels, short stories, plays – you can find it with Tchaikovsky, Chekov, Pushkin, Tolstoy and Mendelev. Of course, others have caught on, and now the Russian’s are in the vanguard of a new explosion of music, dance and fashion. With regards to Europop, they are unrivalled in my opinion except by the USA, the UK and possibly Sweden. They are on the threshold of making an explosive takeover – but hold on.

Ironically, when I tuned to Russian radio channels to get the latest pop, I noticed that they were playing English pop instead. Obviously, many Russians look up to the Western World for their music, while I, preferring something totally other though vaguely familiar go for the Russian pop. Enjoy, but no need to get addicted I hope. There’s so much beauty, dance and vitality with male and female stars from the Russian pop scene. In Russian culture as one lady explained to me: we don’t want to be like English women, they want to be men! Soviet Lady is back with a vengeance and she still retains her femininity – quite a challenge in these apparently politically correct times. I have put together some Russian song playlists on You Tube and you are welcome to contact me with an email if you want me to share my playlists.

Review:Hypatia of Alexandria (Revealing Antiquity) (Hardcover)

Review: Hypatia of Alexandria (Revealing Antiquity) (Hardcover)

by Maria Dzielska  F. Lyra - translator

176 pages

Publisher: Harvard University Press (27 Jun 1995)

 

“The last scientist who worked in the Library was a mathematician, astronomer, physicist and the head of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy – an extraordinary range of accomplishments for any individual in any age.  Her name was Hypatia. …. Cyril, the Archbishop of Alexandria, despised her because of her close friendship with the Roman governor, and because she was a symbol of learning and science, which were largely identified by the early Church with paganism. …. On her way to work she was set upon by a fanatical mob of Cyril’s parishioners.  They dragged her from her chariot … flayed her flesh from her bones.  Her remains were burned, her works obliterated, her name forgotten.  Cyril was made a saint.  The glory of the Alexandrian Library is a dim memory.  Its last remnants were destroyed soon after Hypatia’s death.  It was as if the entire civilization had undergone some self-inflicted brain surgery, and most of its memories, discoveries, ideas and passions were extinguished irrevocably.”

 

– Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980, Macdonald Futura Publishers.

 

Socrates was executed by the state of Athens as a scapegoat for its defeat by the Spartans. His crime was being a free thinker in a short age of turmoil. He was however fondly remembered and documented.  I first heard about Hypatia from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.

 

She has often been represented as a pillar of wisdom in an age of growing dogma. Unlike with Socrates we know much less about her life and teachings. She is remembered precisely as a martyr who was sacrificed rather than executed by a literalist Christian mob inspired by "St" Cyril, apparently as she was regarded as a threat to Christendom and theology by certain regio-political figures. Enough material on her survived not least owing to the strong memories evoked at the manner of her despatch which turned her into a historical icon.

 

This excellent, short, well sourced book is a biographic scenography in the best sense of the word. It does not sadly cover the destruction of the great library or go into great length about the history and politics of 4th century Alexandria but it blows the cobwebs and embelishments that are associated with this enigmatic figure leaving a strong, uncompromising educated presence who would have been of extreme high standing to have obtained the death she received at the hands of bigots.

 

As head of the Platonist school in Alexandria from 400, Hypatia was a teacher in philosophy and mathematics and she remained a Pagan despite rumors to the contrary.  Her pupils did include Christians, Pagans and foreigners and she represented a stark, uncommon, female presences among men, as a scholar and teacher.

 

Hypatia remained a virgin and spurned a romantic suitor by showing him some menstrual rags indicating that there was “nothing beautiful” about carnal desires.

 

Dzielska’s scholarly contribution uses the best sources, teasing through the myth, as she begins her book.  These include the novel “Hypatia” by Charles Kingsley from the 1850s (a clergyman who admired Darwin and wrote the Water Babies) among numerous fictitious and semi fictitious accounts and eulogies that have appeared since the 18^th century from the Enlightenment phase of European history.

 

The principal sources include the letters of Hypatia’s pupil, Synesius of Cyrene with further references by Damascius, another pupil.  Other sources include Socrates Scholasticus.  A great deal of Hypatia’s work was linked with her father Theon Alexandricus, with whom she produced joint publications, particularly concerned with mathematics such as an edited version of a commentary to Euclid’s Elements.

 

The importance of Hypatia is that she represents a phase in history where Greek religion was being destroyed by the then politicised Roman state religion. Hypatia represents a tragic victim of this dark phase when a great deal of knowledge was irrevocably lost (e.g.Gandy and Freke, the Jesus Mysteries etc.,). At the time of Roman Emperor Atallus, when Hypatia was killed, Egypt’s classical civilization with its traditions of gods and mysteries was being erased.  Greek temples like  the Seraphium dedicated to the god Seraph, also celebrated in the library of Alexandria, were being turned into churches.  It was a time of turmoil and the Western Roman Empire was in sharp decline – indeed 415AD marks the fall of Western Rome.  It was effectively then that Egypt also fell from one of a classical civilization to a weakened, Christian polity, ripe for Islam a few centuries later.  Edward Gibbon in his fall of the Roman Empire had much to say on this.

 

Dzielska’s is probably the most scholarly account on Hypatia and one of the best places to begin an understanding of Hypatia as legend and history.

 

The publishers are probably going to come out with a new edition given the upcoming film Agora.  Here is yet another fictionalized account with Rachel Weisz playing Hypatia.  Weisz seems made for the role after her Egyptian capers in the film Mummy and its sequel.  In the upcoming Agora, romantic interest is provided by her Christian slave.  I shall be content enough to admire the sets that are supposed to bring ancient Alexandria back to life in loving detail.

(NB: the illustration above is a Roman woman from the period evocative of Hypatia)

Accidental Encounters - strange ways that couples meet

By accidental encounter, I mean the way that men and women meet in the most unexpected circumstances.  I think we all know about this, but this is a first formal list I’ve created.  By accidental I mean, not meeting by introductions, dating sites, through friends, at parties, at social gatherings in particular or by meeting at work.  The definition is lose but I’m looking for contrived “when Harry met Sally” scenarios.  Sadly most of my examples are fictional, but where the story is true, I’ve sort of stated it as such.  Do you know if a couple have met by having a car accident?  Or how about going to your neighbour given you’ve run out of sugar?  What about milk men falling in love with women on their rounds?  I think we all love accidental and contrived encounters, I certainly wish them but they seem rare in real life.  In the film Hitch starring Will Smith (2005) he’s always aiming to create the perfect accident to get couples to meet, though it is a disguised accident.

 

In the film Notting Hill, the character played by Hugh Grant spills orange juice on the character played by Julie Walters.  Eventually they marry.

 

In the film Rebecca and possibly the book by Daphne Du Maurier, Mr De Winter is about to jump off a cliff and is stopped by the future Mrs De Winter played by Joan Fontaine.

 

True story about a car mechanic working for a road rescue service.  He found his wife as the victim of a breakdown.

 

Some people have met by dialling a wrong number and entering into a conversation.

 

In the film Brief Encounter written by Noel Coward, the Dr meets his brief encounter with the housewife played by Ceila Johnson, when she gets something in her eye, and he helps her to get rid of it.

 

A number of men have fallen for nurses while at hospital (I know this is not too unusual).

 

In 101 dalmations, (I can’t remember the actors), a male and female dog walker meet and they get interested with each other, given their dogs are (again not too unusual) as well.

 

In the film Back to the Future, Michael J. Fox’s character falls off a tree in front of a car.  The car driver takes him to his house where his daughter, Marty’s mother falls in love with him.  It was supposed to be Marty’s father who falls for his mother this way, when he falls off the tree while being a peeping tom and watching his theoretical fiancé.

 

One millionaire found his wife while being in church and following a woman’s red hat.  That drew him and they met.  (again not too unusual)

 

In the film Maid in Manhattan, she meets him as a cleaner (I’ve not seen this film in full, sorry I’m guessing).  I get some attractive cleaners myself and we play music while they clean, but they’re all married.

 

Monks and nuns in Buddhist monasteries have fallen in love, disrobed and married.  We have a related example in the film Sound of Music where Maria the nun falls in love with Mr Von Trapp.

 

In the film Back to the Future III, Doc Brown meets Miss Clayton by rescuing her while she is just about to go over a cliff.  They get married (another “my hero” get together).

 

In an ancient Indian Buddhist story, the king watches a fat woman urinating, and noting how delicately she does it, decides to marry her (Jataka stories, translated by Cowell).

 

In another, the king hears a girl singing with happiness and asks why.  This is the king Pasenadi who meets Mallika.  She makes Mallika his chief consort.  (Dhammapada commentary)

 

In another Buddhist story, two Brahmin parents figured the Buddha would be a good match for their daughter after reading his footprints (without seeing him first – the Dhammapada commentary).

 

I know another Buddhist story where a woman’s skin is so soft that every man who touches her starts to desire her (Jataka Stories translated by Cowell).

 

In a Russian fairy story, the king lost when hunting, knocks at a country cottage.  He is overwhelmed by the beauty of the woman who opens the door and remains frozen – I don’t know if they lived happily ever after.