At a recent London seminar on punk in post-socialist Eastern Europe, Penny Rimbaud made an unexpected twist to definitions, stating simply that punk ‘isn’t’. He posits punk as the equivalent of an avant-garde movement that, by its very definition,ceases to be avant-garde
from the moment its status enters its self-awareness. Although in many ways controversial, Rimbaud’s argument raises a number of interesting perspectives for our reading and understanding of punk in contemporary Russia, and for how Russian bands relate to and define punk, or try to escape
established definitions of it. Rimbaud’s paradox that punk isn’t also finds support in certain aspects of punk’s Russian history. This article investigates how a number of contemporary Russian bands relate to genre. Here it finds two main types of relationship:association
with a pre-established genre and genre evasion. What purposes do these strategies serve, and ultimately: is punk? If so, is Russian punk?
From the mid-1980s, rock music emerged as the leading musical culture in the major cities of the Soviet Union. In writings and research on this ‘Soundtrack of Perestroika’, attention has been primarily paid to the words rather than the sounds. Russian rock critics and academics, as well as those who participate in Russian rock culture, persistently emphasise the literary qualities of Russian rock music and most still prefer to approach rock as a form of musical poetry - ‘Rok poèziya’. This seems out of step with the growing emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach within popular music studies. The aim of this article is to investigate and discuss some of the core arguments that underpin notions of Russian rock music's literary qualities. This may help to uncover some specific national characteristics of rock in Russia, whilst at the same time questioning the need for, and value of, a literary approach to the study of Russian rock.
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