PodSafe Music

Though it’s easy to criticize the unedited structure of Russia’s biggest music portals, the rapid and enthusiastic development of podcasting deserves much praise, in particular for nurturing legal or “podsafe” music. Information about podcasting started coming seriously to Russia in 2004 from a number of sources: word of mouth, search engine rubrics/catalogs, domestic news stories, and links to overseas, English-language web pages.

Slowly the nation started bypassing Moscow television and investigating a form of “Do-It-Yourself Reality Shows,” the term given to Russian podcasts by gonzo youngsters. The most famous exponent of this medium has been ex-MTV Russia presenter, Vasilii Strel’nikov (above); he has used it to come in from the rural cold through his own snowballing music- and spoken-voice project, RussianPodcasting.ru.

“For twelve years I talked with the entire world; I presented musical programs, read the news and was the happiest guy on Earth. After all, people heard my voice in the furthest corners of the planet! There are no words to explain that kind of feeling!... Nowadays everything’s a lot simpler. In order to broadcast to the whole world you don’t require powerful transmitters or special studios. You can do it from your bedroom via the internet! It’s called podcasting, from the words I-Pod and Broadcasting. All you need is a PC or a MAC, a soundcard and a microphone! Download the free Audacity MP3 recorder for Windows, Mac or Linux. That allows you record and edit sound files… Record your show – about 10 or twenty minutes. It could be a story about your life, your friends, family, work or study. It’s a kind of live magazine. The whole planet will hear you!”

Quite frequently this activity has been defined by the Russian press as “personal radio,” whether it involves music or not. You tell the world what you would like it know: the long, intermittent and awfully provincial stories/songs that would otherwise go unheard. Some of podcasting’s ardent, anarchic members even hope that it will kill radio altogether. Bloggers and podcasters are riding a wave that observers believe will constitute a worldwide audience of 75 million listeners by 2010. The minority will soon constitute a majority… or so believe the rural romantics.

Any possibility for change and social agency in new songs, however, has a very long way to travel. Strel’nikov, in a witty aside, recently recalled the text of what he holds to be Russia’s first podcast, placed upon his personal site. Having been away from Moscow’s music TV for several years, he decided to return from the uninhabited edges of the map: “Hello, kids. I’m Vasilii Strel’nikov. Thanks for visiting our site. I’m alive and well. I’m on my pension and living in the forest!”

Hello, kids. I’m Vasilii Strel’nikov. Thanks for visiting our site. I’m alive and well. I’m on my pension and living in the forest!

No wonder the site’s tiny private chronicles of self-made agency are handed over to humor and self-irony. The same spirit runs through Rpod’s music pages: Strel’nikov actively discourages long dance mixes or mash-ups, so the likelihood of quick, legal, and original recordings is greatly increased. The site as a whole has become Russia’s greatest depository not only of pod-based songwriting and audio-critiques, but all manner of spoken-voice genres - all the way from nationwide, public and political debate to private uncensored comedy.