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Vintazh (Left to right: Aleksei Romanov, Anna Pletneva, Sveta Ivanova)
Vintazh and Leningrad would, on the surface, appear to have little in common. The former is a polished trio, known nationally for their sexually playful, catchy interpretations of a mainstream pop tradition. The members of Leningrad, on the other hand, are arguably/equally well-known for ska-driven, verbally outrageous tales of daily, difficult life. The former might appear escapist, whilst the latter could strike newcomers as stridently confrontational. Nonetheless, even from those first two sentences it may be clear that for all the visual and musical differences between these bands, they do at least share common ground in a dalliance with excess.
That borderline aesthetic is, in turn, tied to some initial experiences of both ensembles in the heady fiscal climate of 1990s' Russia.
We turn first to Vintazh (i.e., "Vintage" or "Antique") and the central figure of Anna Pletneva (below), who came to public attention in the late 1990s as a member of the female trio Litsei. That ensemble was responsible for some of the finest primetime pop of the decade, but as time went on, the pressures of remaining relevant started to tell. Not only did band members pose for Playboy, but their lineup began to change every few years, with lead vocalist Anastasia Makarevich being the only constant. Being from a family of Soviet rock star royalty, Makarevich was able to stake a greater claim on the project.
Anna Pletneva
By the time Pletneva appeared, there was no real sense in the Russian music press that playing for Litsei meant long-term employment. And so Pletneva was first jettisoned and even jobless for a while, until the creation of Vintazh - another "producer's project," about which we wrote at the time of their inception. Since 2008, when that article appeared, Vintazh - and especially their frontwoman - have continued the same game with things risque that once tempted Litsei onto the pages of a certain glossy magazine. Not only have recent hits been dedicated to topics such as a "Naughty Girl" (Plokhaia devochka), but Vintazh also went through a change in its line-up, in order to remain maximally youthful.
Bodies, so to speak, seemed to matter more than faces.
But what of Leningrad, led by nationally infamous frontman Sergei Shnurov (below, center)? The band was born in 1996, a time of great social change across Russia. During the fiscal chaos of Yeltsin's second term and the subsequent oil boom of the early 2000s, Leningrad's sound and favorite subjects combined as an alternative worldview to shoptalk and corporate confidence. Continuing, perhaps, the traditions of protest within Russian rock, the band also employed a broad range of reggae and ska influences. The result was a melange of an ironic, drop-out aesthetic and the most obscene, confrontational language imaginable.
Indolence, cultural savvy, and blasphemy came together.
Much of the band's "colorful" phrasing has its roots along the fringes of Russian society. Given the prudish nature of dictionaries and Moscow's media prior to the 1990s, for example, bad language and bad behavior were presumed to be synonymous - and for good reason. The people who spoke (very) improperly had, it was assumed, acquired their rhetorical tools in nasty places - such as prison. Leningrad, playing with those enduring stereotypes, managed to rope together a good-time, sax-heavy sound with the worldview of a cynical loser.
And yet - in the background - there always lay the sneaking thought that social indifference could easily become anger. The distance between sulky dismissiveness and direct dissent was small. Moscow's mayor banned Shnurov et al from the city's venues... Just in case.
Shnurov stopped Leningrad in 2008 in order to foster an alternative rock project - Ruble - but the final months of 2010 saw rumors in the Russian press that they would be reformed. And indeed they were - with an album called "Khna" (i.e., "Henna"), a partial reference to the red hair of jazz vocalist Julia Kogan. She was both shown on the cover and very much foregrounded in the recording. Her previous experience had only been in the capacity of back vocalist. As we see, she's now front and center.
Leningrad's Julia Kogan
The newest Leningrad recordings continue along those dual lines of West Indian rhythms and local swearing: the tension between Caribbean ease and domestic hassles can be striking. The opening track of the band's last CD involved Kogan describing her sexual preferences in ways that made radio play an absolute impossibility. A song of promiscuity would only be heard narrowly; our heroine's desire and society's willingness did not coincide...
With that background in place for both collectives, we turn to the new material. Vintazh now have a third studio album on display, "Anechka" - the title is a diminutive form of Pletneva's first name. It follows on the heels of the band's 2009 release, "Sex." Those two titles alone give some sense of Vintazh's semantic focus - of what the trio would like to mean. In the same vein, these 2011 songs have been promoted with a series of concerts billed as "The Story of a Bad Girl." And yet - for example whilst in Azerbaijan recently - Pletneva has joked that "Sex" was "only ever a joke to which we gave some formal structure."
Viewers react to our videos with a degree of humor...
Deep within these apparently shocking invocations of physical or "immoral" excess is an undercurrent of irony. Not only is this attribution of transgressive display to humor a way to get the material on television(!); it also suggests that physical liberty as a topic of discussion might, perhaps, not be considered seriously. When speaking of her videos, Pletneva said a few weeks ago: "Our videos are becoming increasingly revealing - and I like that. I like being open [or revealing] with our audience. It gives me a chance to play the hooligan a little. People see and understand all that: they react to things with a degree of humor."
"Don't Lie to Yourself..."
This same line of promotion has arisen in Vintazh's connection to the gay scene in Moscow. Such liberal practice would certainly not find support in many other Russian cities and so, once again, the trio is obliged to walk a thin line between appealing excess and palatable (or credible) conservatism - with the help of a few well-placed smiles.
There's no point limiting your songs to some boundaries or other - including sexual boundaries
Pletneva has just said in another interview: "In the gay clubs I'm always received not as a Russian singer, but as Madonna... if not better!... Since we first played in those places, we've developed a true, mutual love affair. They've become my favorite shows." She then transfers that sense of freedom to the music: "In my view there's no point limiting your songs to some boundaries or other - including sexual boundaries. Everybody's different. Everybody has their own life: a multifaceted and multicolored existence, just like a rainbow."
A few jokes, once again, would work well here - especially in the "provinces." If we turn to the new album from Leningrad, there's another (darkly humorous) view of what average Russian families truly desire - far from the Moscow club scene. The new CD is titled "Eternal Flame" - but shows the gas ring of a cheap cooker. All prior associations of the title with military or patriotic morals have vanished. All civic cohesion has evanesced. In its place we find neither the accepting, sexually liberated behavior of "Anechka," nor the feral vigor of 1990s commerce.
Average people now live woefully average lives and are happy with the lowest (laziest) denominator. Dignity and drama have left the building.
The opening track on "Eternal Flame" is called "Our Nation Loves..." and consists of various cynical lists, documenting the lowly taste of typical folks. The world's largest nation, apparently, has a long affection for some of the following: "Monuments made of concrete... two sausages in their gruel... housing with low ceilings... and women with silicone implants." The list grows longer and more offensive.
Monuments made of concrete... Housing with low ceilings
The proud traditions of Russian rock, for example, are dismissed as socially ineffectual; instead, say the lyrics, today's public prefers the MOR ballads of Stas Mikhailov or unchallenging bubblegum pop of Zhanna Friske. TV series should all include mafia cliches, and every living room should be stocked with vodka and bananas. Holidays should be spent in Turkey - in search of prostitutes. If the general worldview here were still not clear, the chorus then informs us that "Our nation loves all kinds of sh*t!" Other songs on the album do equal damage to the presumed patriotism of both Olympic and martial custom. Fanfares become brash and brassy - in several senses.
As with Pletneva, so some press chats with Sergei Shnurov shed light upon these issues. Within seconds of an interview starting in the city of Nizhnii Novgorod, he recently expressed his dislike for national television and even Facebook. "Social networks are the first step towards artificial intelligence. And anybody who ever saw the movie 'Terminator' knows how that finishes..." This overarching conviction that virtual experience has now overshadowed real politics was developed further. He dismissed even his own music as "artificial rock. Real rock came to an end in the twentieth century. Nowadays anything's possible... except music. Musicians cannot be leaders of social movements." He then credits the appearance of a nationally famous Leningrad rock scene in the early '80s to the blessings of the KGB. Liberty is an illusion.
Musicians cannot be leaders of social movements
Throughout the Vintazh album and surrounding activity, there's a display of sexual liberty that - for all its appeal - is unlikely to survive far beyond the Moscow Ring Road. Nor would it be entirely acceptable to primetime television, coast to coast. That same freedom, therefore, is advocated, employed, and undercut by irony - simultaneously. The Leningrad CD, full (as ever) of fantastically obscene language, is seen by the public in terms of a time-honored rebellious stance - that of the '80s rock generation, accredited with initial democratic expression as an empire began to fall. And yet Shnurov himself dismisses not only the social value of his music, but of all rock ensembles.
Not long ago, he referred to Leningrad as "a constant" within Russian music: a constant, sometimes shocking verbal display of fireworks. That changes little. What, therefore, emerges is music of consolation, not of self-expression or unfettered freedom. The thorny headgear in Vintazh's most recent video suggests some awareness of what happens to bona fide, emancipatory rhetoric once it heads out into the taiga.
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