Soviet Punk & New Wave in the 1980s: A Pivotal Decade (History of Soviet Rock Part 2) 

this really need part 3 exploring the 90s russian music

It's a pity that you paid so little attention to Yegor Letov and Siberian punk rock. Their unique dirty sound and complex lyrics are simply incredible, and Letov himself has become a cult figure among modern Russian youth. Thank you very much for your efforts!

I am surprised the video didn't mention Nautilus Pompilius who were probably the second most popular band after Kino. They became huge even earlier with their 1986 album "Разлука" which had a pack of bangers that you can hear on the radio till this day. But ill recommend you to listen to their more prog stuff from albums "Человек без имени" and "Наугад". Songs like Музыка на песке, Чёрные птицы, Падший ангел, Боксёр, Тихие игры

GROB means coffin in russian. That`s why they called it that.

You could have mentioned Yanka Dyagileva, a noise punk folkie who didn't last very long but has some evocative songs in her discography, from the one minute lo-fi My Sorrow Is Luminous to the epic 8 minute Priyot Voda.

11:00 Sudakov wasn't Letov's manager. "Manager" was Oleg's stage name. He played with Letov not only in Gr.Ob (which by the way is not pronounced like G.R.O.B. but like "Grob" - "Гроб", which in Russian stands for "coffin"), but also in many side projects like Коммунизм, Анархия, Армия Власова, Цыганята и Я с Ильича. Letov also had a great psychedelic garage rock band "Егор и Опизденевшие".

Victor Tsoi was extremely introverted individual and mostly sang about deep universal sadness (not his personal) especially in his latest songs. He was extremely sensitive man and would not sing much about external conditions including politics. "pack of cigarettes" has a similar mood as "song with unhappy end" or "sadness".

Thank you for this really well-researched and well-presented video on an era of music that is very dear to me (in spite of me having been born a little later). Just a few random nitpicks and comments: -The abbreviation GrOb is pronounced as one word, since that also happens to be the Russian word for "coffin". -Using the song Leto to represent Mike Naumenko and his band Zoopark might be a little misleading, since he specifically wrote that song as a friendly parody of Viktor Tsoi's early songs. The movie Leto adds to the confusion by implying that he wrote the song before getting introduced to Tsoi, even though the full title of the song has always been "Leto (a Song for Tsoi)". -Mashina Vremeni and DDT also still exist and perform, and both of their leaders are well known for being politically outspoken. As for Aquarium, it has long been largely viewed as a Grebenshchikov solo project, whether fairly or not.

Interesting fact: Vova Blue means Vova Drunk. Blue is an euphemism of drunk in Russian

Excellent work. Thank you for sharing.

I think a 3rd part would be really interesting since Russia in the 90's was a chaotic time, to say the least, and many musicians who were underground went through a lot of changes in the 90's (like Yegor Letov, who made a lot of his best known songs during the 90's and who also joined the National Bolshevik Party). A lot the time the story about Russia stops in 1991 when that couldn't be further from the truth.

This is the only channel where I can ask for some review on 60's, 70's and 80's argentinian rock scene, one of the most underated high quality music out there...

To me personally, Pack of cigarettes is not the most depressing song of Tsoi, Good Night (Spokionaya Noch) is. Maybe not in the lyrics, but sound design.

Well, as a non russian speaker, I like this video and it's really helpful to me. But.. yeah, even so many comments already told about that, I hope you should put more about "Grazhdanskaya Oborona". That's my favorite Russian(soviet) rock band and I think they are important to Russian rock history. But also, Thank you to making these series!

you should do a video on the Cambodian psychedelic rock scene during the late 60s and early 70s.

Yegor letovs voice is absolutely beautiful

All your stuff is so high quality, it's clear you have a real passion for it. Thanks for making it!

you really spoke not enough about Grazdanskaya Oborona, they was and still are the icon of russian punk and rock scene

i came across a spotify playlist called russian post-punk like a year ago and have been obsessed since. i like to listen to music in languages i dont know while i do homework. it never occurred to me what a deep history this music id been mindlessly listening to had and what a privilege it was to be able to listen to it. great vid!

АукцЫон is my favorite band that came out of ссср ussia, they are still playing and have evolved to much higher level since their beginning

Yanka was the Sylvia Plath of the Siberian scene.

Very well done piece of documentary of a scene that is mostly obscure for westerners, I was really looking forward for this vid since I came across the Part 1. I would relly love to see a continuation of this video up until the 2010's or even better a deep dive into the origins of this Russian/Bielorussian/soviet post punk/dark wave scene that is becoming so increasingly popular with bands such as Molchat Doma, Human Tetris, Motorama etc.

Also, Kino's Перемен! (15:15) for the last two months or so has been an unofficial hymn of Belarusian protests against Lukashenko (the guy, who's - totally fairly and legitimately - been the country's president for the past 26 years). There's quite a spike on Google trends and lastfm. If you search for it, you'll find videos of the song being sung by crowds of thousands protesters. People have literally been arrested for playing it.

Made my day, I was waiting for this.

как же я рад) обожаю наших Легенд и как же хорошо что их не забывают

It is truly amazing and a bit sad, that I uncovered so much of my country bands history on this channel. Great story, exceptional work. I had goosebumps though out the whole video. Thank you

Thanks man, was about time for an update 😄👍🥳😍

Never been so excited for a new RU-vid video

The saddest song of KINO is a "Легенда" (the legend). Of course "saddest" is not the word

Thanks a lot for your videos on the Soviet Rock Scene. I was working in Russian in mid 90's and at that time purchased loads of music on CD. There are other great bands not mentioned like Nautilus Pompilius, Igor Talkov, Tschizj&Co and ChaiF to mention a few. What is mentioned in the video is something that is very unique to many Soviet/Russian bands, the lyrics. Sometimes political messages had to be wrapped in lyrics, which makes Viktor Tsoy's and Jura Schevchuk's songs very hard to decipher. However in late 80's came Igor Talkov and sang out loud what he thought of his country, its politics and life in Soviet Union. Many bands continue to this day like Time Machine, ChaiF and DDT, though the latter has been banned as its leader said the famous words - "Russia is a poor old woman selling potatoes at a railway station, not the president's @ss that you have to kiss and lick ...". And Maksim Pokrovskiy of the band Nogu Svelo! (Leg cramp) is more active than ever singing out his support for Ukraine. Soviet/Russian rock isn't for anyone but I love it a lot. Maybe it's the mix of the Russian culture that sort of adopts Western culture, spice it with DNA from Pushkin, Griboedov, Akhmatova, Gorkij and many others. That's why, in my mind, many bands don't bother to do a career in the West - "the music is for Russians only". But to add to the list - have a go at Agata Kristie, Little Tragedies, Sunchild, and the Ukrainian band Okean Elzi that is on the barrikades today supporting the heroes of Ukraine. Finally, two notes; the book I mentioned in my comment to part 1 is actually written by Artjem Troitski and I recently got hold of a 3CD-box with Strange Games. I was actively looking for them as the singer Nastya Poleva made a cover of one of their songs on her album Dance On The Toetips and found this album on Discogs.

I can't wait for the next stop. Thanks for this amazing journey!

Very interesting overview of the topic. Thank you!

Damn, that's a really well-researched and compiled video! It was nice to hear the overview of Russian rock movement from the outsider perspective. But for me,the biggest omission is the lack of mention of another big rock band in the 80s-90s Russian scene-Nautilus Pompilius. They had different lineups throughout the years,so the music was very different from period to period and their lyrics were among the best in Russian rock. Although they became extremely popular in the 90s,their 80s output was really popular too,so in my opinion their mention would be appropriate.

Please upload more! you're without a doubt my favourite channel and I always check to see if you've uploaded. If you're taking any requests, I think exploring what lead to the sudden massive interest in American blues music over in the UK during the early '60s, which lead to the Stones, Cream, The Beatles, etc. Some people mention that soldiers stationed over there in the war left over some records, which then made their way into the hands of the youth. Anyway, should make for a good topic.

Thank you! Interesting and well researched video! Great job, man

Fantastic video. I'd been waiting for it and was not disappointed. I love your videos. I'm looking forward to more.

Awesome documentary! It would be great to continue this topic by comparing and contrasting the Soviet Rock scene with the other countries of the "Eastern Block", like DDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia or Hungary.

I love the list of music used, could you also add a list of citations and references. It'd be useful for reading more on the topics mentioned.

This was really good! Thank you for your work.

Amazing subject and footage. Much preciate it! Thnx a lot

Good one, many thanks. I would encourage you to take a look at other eastern block scenes. There were awesome bands in Poland ( including only alternative/punk festival ), Yugoslavia and other countries.

Some of the best rock/metal music is done under pressure. Be it political, societal, mental or whatever. Estonia's punk scene was absolutely legendary before collapse of soviet union. After that they kind of didn't had any material to rebel against :) Thank you for this video. oh, and TSOI ZHIV! :D

Outstanding work, thank you so much for doing and sharing this.

Such a nice visual line and the narration's very informative and correct! Thank you!

Great words of respect and admiration from me and, i hope, all Russians for sharing the history of our country, its culture, its logic and life!✊🌝 From Russia with love.❤️🇷🇺 Thank you!

Nice! Part 2 is great! I wonder if there is a better translation of "Братья по разуму". Like-minded brothers? Although 'Brothers of the Mind' sounds more interesting in this case :) 7:00 Гражданская оборона, ГРОБ for short. FYI гроб means coffin. The "zh" sound in Brezhnev, Grazhdanskaya, Zhenya is pronounced more like "genre" or "vision". 9:15 Joanna Stingray! Haha, I'm currently reading her book. She's from Cali. USA+CCCP=BFF =)

You have my deepest gratitude for introducing me to this bands and their history. Please, keep it up!

Fascinating videos, thanks for making these!

Nice ! Цой жив !

Yegor Letov and his music sounds so awesome (especially song "Ophelia")

These are fantastic Documentaries!! Keep it up. 😎

Gotta say you have some of the best music history content of all time! So professional so educational, keep up the incredible work

Would be cool, if you at least mentioned the Soviet heavy metal legends, bands like Aria (Ария), Master (Мастер) and most importantly Kruiz (Круиз), which even became famous in Europe at the end of 80-s, when they were signed by WEA. These bands paved the way for really heavy music in the USSR and post-soviet countries.

"Posledniy geroy" is the greatest song I have ever heard Wow

I love finding channels like this, always such interesting subjects, and going so in-depth about things I never even thought existed. Great work man keep it up!

Totally underrated channel! Always awesome videos!

A lot of people don’t realize that The Soviet Union had an illegal underground rock music scene long before the 70s and 80s with some of the earliest examples going all the way back to 1959 and probably even earlier than that. There’s actually a fun little movie about it that came out in the early 90s, it was a historical comedy drama called “Red Hot” ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dLdn5azlNB0.html Here’s the trailer

Damn I just finished watching the first part and didn’t realize until the end of this video that it was posted only 20 minutes ago

Thank you for always shining light on great music that is not often known to the public. Always able to find gems in your videos

this, with part 1, is excellent. Many thanks!

Excellent video. I hope your next one is about New Russian Group (NRG) and/or Alliance, or Bioconstructor. I don't know if there's enough to make a video about them, but they're pretty great.

I’ll add my voice to those below who suggested the 3rd part of this series - for the most of those who’s familiar with the scene of ‘80-‘91 it would be a logical summary to finish this story with what the 90s has brought to the table eventually after the total freedom of expression truly came - from ‘91 to ‘00. some of the most definitive names from that time are: Zamfira, Bi-2, Splean, Pilot, Okean Elzy, etc; many of them are still performing to this day, but it really would make more sense to cover their output up until ‘00 in the framework of the particular subject of these 2 videos - as in general sense as well as considering further shift in songwriting approach and overall vibe for the most of the artists. up until 2000s the scene was by large still experiencing the transition period but not yet gone far enough from the Rock Club to make direct connections and, really, this resulted in a very distinctive and authentic high quality rock music (importantly - with a familiar modern level of sound recording and production), which is hard to characterise in words. so my strong suggestion is to dive a bit deeper into the subject for the host of the channel to have the full picture of the impact that the Rock Club has laid foundation for by the fact of its existence. (pop and electronic scenes were a fucking wiiiiild acid trip by their own rights btw as well loool) anyway - a great job on these two, man 👏🏼 appreciated!

Thanks! Excellent. Brings it all back, with much I never knew.

I w atched both Part 1 one and part 2 , I grew up in Moscow and was involved very heavily in punk rock scene since 1984. I think I can see myself in the audience at one of the shows )))). Good job, pretty accurate account of the scene, although there was more to it . Thanks !!

great video. I'd love seeing on this with the Polish rock/punk scene of the 80's, it has very similar lines with the soviet scene

Be quite! By Vova Blue reminds me "Blue Monday" so much

This is a great video. Grate job. thank you!

The content of this documentary is amazing. Thanks for bringing us this. A good idea would be to set up a spotfy playlist with the soundtrack of episodes! Keep on rocking

Господи, я так рад что, кто-то на западе рассказывает о нашей музыке!

Please, do a video on the punk scene in eastern Germany. There's an amazing book called Burning down the haus.

Giving like even before watching it because I know for sure that the video is pure gold, thanks to all your research and efforts giving us all these amazing content from your channel. Kudos to you and please keep it up!

Amazing video, great writing, great editing, this is what I go on youtube for

7:56 - Leonoid Breznev ...ahahaha y, he really looked like Leonoid ))

Oh man, I had been waiting for this! But where the hell is Alisa and Kostya Kinchev????

Dude. I just finished part 1. And I am so excited to watch part 2. Thank you very much for the amazing effort and quality I'm your work. Top shelf

insane content, thank you soo much for your work

Pronounciation of all the names and places is so funny))

Viktor Tsoi of Kino was really the Cobain of russian rock. Even on the peak of his stardom and fame he was as raw and honest as ever, and died young as a bright star. I think his legacy would've been tampered by the producers and pop scene of the late 90's and 00's if he remained alive.

Thanks so much for all this amazing footage and so many new bands to track down. I loved part one, was thrilled to see part two posted tonight even though it meant staying up too late, and eagerly await part three! :D This is just wonderful. Спасибо большое!

Thank you very much for this video. It feels like the author has a deep understanding of what was going on and what's still going on indeed, which is a rare case and highly appreciated.

Please do one on "Ноль" ("nol" - "zero"). I really like the band and few know of them even in Russia atm (even though everyone here knows their song "Человек и кошка" (Man and cat)).

There's a lot of really exciting music coming out of modern Russia as well. Check out IC3PEAK, Shortparis, Husky, Utro, Dolphin, Ploho, etc. If you're willing to expand to the wider former Soviet Union, Molchat Doma out of Belarus is probably one of the most successful in the West

Fantastic insight and very appreciated. Respect.

Your content is gold! Keep them coming.

Thank you for making these videos, this period of russian music deserves to get more attention from the west

Dromenf S. would like this lol Dude posts almost all of these old new wave slavic music

I love this channel for so many reasons. The amount of research you do on the topics, the genuine excitement you have for the different cultures, the love of artists just being cool and out there as well as the artists with important messages in their music, and the pride you obviously have for the videos you make. This channel will for sure continue to grow in views and followers for a long time and I am happy I found it when you had only uploaded a few videos and get to watch it grow. Also, I will continue to ask that you consider doing a video on Kaizers Orchestra on every video you make 😁 It is such an undefineable band and genre, and it is baffling how it could sell out concerts in countries that did not know or understand the language and dialect they sang in. I'm sure it would be possible to ask them directly about most things and get good, open and humble answers. It think it might be hard to find out what you should narrow in on or focus the video around. I think the best way to find that out would be to listen to the first three albums enough that you start to fall in love with the band and the atmosphere in their oilbarrel gypsi ompa world war resistance mental institution inspired music, but that is obviously a lot to ask someone to do "just for a video". I highly recommend that you check them out just as something to listen to regardless of if you want to do a video on them or not. They are really something special that I can't compare to anything else. The closest might be Pink Floyd in how atmospheric their soundscapes are, but they are still very different. If you like how they sound you should definitively check out the lyrics and what they are singing about as you are listening. 170, Dieter Meyers inst., and Jævel av ein tango are three incredibly powerful and somber songs. If you at any time decide to check them out and need something translated or explained in a way you can't find I'd be more than happy to help you out. (Though it should be easy to find it whatever it might be. Almost all videos related to them have people commenting they are learning norwegian because of Kaizers Orchestra. And because they are loved by so many who don't speak norwegian and norwegians get off to foreigners recognising anything related to Norway there are tonnes of helpful information about the band, their lyrics and everything else in english.)

Been waitinggg🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

don't use «GULAG» abbreviature as a synonim for jail. GULAG is the Main Administration of Camps. It's analogue for Federal Bureau of Prisons, for example. You can say «anoger trip to camps of GULAG», or maybe «another trip to camps»

I love КИНО, Это не любовь is my favorite album

This is my favorite musical channel now, there is no going back

Amazing documentary man!!! Do more punk!!🖤🖤

Классный ролик, жаль, что ничего, кроме песен, не понял

"Time machine" (Машина времени) was not underground at all. "Time machine" was officially the member of the Soviet music organisation.

Part two!! Yesss!!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻

Great video! Thank you so much!!!

А где упоминание Сергея Курёхина? Он же один из тех, кто действительно стоял у истоков...

Why would you not even mention Yanka? Yanka Lives.

Amazing stuff, amazing work

That's a very informative video so thank you :)