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rfmcdonaldI have to confess that I like t.A.T.u.
I shouldn't have to confess this, not because this is shameful, but because it's perfectly good music. Back in January 2004, while I was visiting an HMV store on an overnight trip to Ottawa, I took a look at the store's singles rack and noticed the CD singles for "All the Things She Said" and "How Soon Is Now>". They were cheap, and so I bought them, and took them home with me, and played them (not without some ribbing from friends), and found out that their music was actually pretty catchy. I'm not alone in this: In 2005, Michael Idov at Slate praised the group and their music.
So there.
Also in Slate, in 2003 Rob Walker lambasted t.A.T.u. in his "The underage sex project with a hit record". Of course t.A.T.u.'s lesbianism was nothing more than an attempt at a succès de scandale that succeeded beyond anyone's dreams. There's no better example of lesbianism marketed for heterosexual men than the "All the Things She Said" videos, with its scenes of two attractive teenage girls making out in their schoolgirls uniforms as the rains falls, falls and drenches them both and their outfits as people watch.
The sensationalism doesn't change the fact that this is a rather important development in the context of Russian society. The history of gay rights in Russia seems to be very much one of ups and downs. Liberalization after the Bolshevik revolution was soon followed by repression and recrminalization in the 1930s, with another thaw starting in the late 1980s in the glasnost' that produced, in 1993, the repeal of anti-sodomy laws. Post-Soviet attempts to organize the gay community on the Western model failed in the 1990s for any number of reasons, however, and the Russia's GLBT population seems to be fragmented and depoliticized in a manner not entirely different from that of pre-Stonewall North America. It strikes me as rather important that people in Russia are willing to buy two and a half million copies of the debut album of a lesbian-themed pop muic group. What will happen in Russia when the t.A.T.u generation reaches adulthood?
This brings us to a wider theme, touched upon in 2003 article in The New Yorker. Shteyngart did, as Idov said, lambaste the group's manager for his cynical manipulations of two teenage girls. He also made the point that the existence of a pop music group like t.A.T.u. is a signal that Russia is a normal society. Thirty years ago, deep in the stagnation of the Brezhnev era, would t.A.T.u and its associated sensationalistic media industries have ever been thought possible?
I shouldn't have to confess this, not because this is shameful, but because it's perfectly good music. Back in January 2004, while I was visiting an HMV store on an overnight trip to Ottawa, I took a look at the store's singles rack and noticed the CD singles for "All the Things She Said" and "How Soon Is Now>". They were cheap, and so I bought them, and took them home with me, and played them (not without some ribbing from friends), and found out that their music was actually pretty catchy. I'm not alone in this: In 2005, Michael Idov at Slate praised the group and their music.
The band t.A.T.u. was a product that one could only sell, or buy, once. Even as the goth-chipmunk ardor of their 2002 single "All the Things She Said" was steadily denting stateside radio playlists, it was safe to assume there would be no competing teenage-lesbian Slav duo that year. Lena and Julia took the waning Britney-vs.-Christina debate and resolved it as only a reeling post-socialist mind would--Both! Making out! In a way, they formed the ultimate, albeit belated, punch line to the 1990s: liberation as political correctness as farce. Not bad for two girls in Catholic-school uniforms, especially considering there are no Catholic girl schools in Russia. The highbrow reaction was a mix of bemusement and horror, with Gary Shteyngart doing the requisite hand-wringing in The New Yorker. His conclusion: The girls were in need of deprogramming, and the duo's manager, Mr. Shapovalov, was a man capable of mesmerizing Mesmer.
One small detail spoiled the otherwise immaculate picture of corrupted youth, hair-raising exploitation, and proto-capitalist greed run amok: " All the Things She Said" was a terrific song. Tightly constructed by craftsmen unknown and given a steely sheen by the celebrated producer Trevor Horn, the killer single ostensibly about same-sex lust was, in fact, a valentine to all of us who like a bit of a challenge with our pleasure. In an era when one good hook is enough to hang an album's worth of filler on, "All the Things She Said" contained at least five distinct parts, each catchier than the other. What's more, it drew freely from disparate sources, both above- and underground: goth rock, industrial, sleek '90s techno. In short, it was a ubiquitous hit that also doubled as a hip discovery—a phenomenon that hasn't recurred until Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone."
So there.
Also in Slate, in 2003 Rob Walker lambasted t.A.T.u. in his "The underage sex project with a hit record". Of course t.A.T.u.'s lesbianism was nothing more than an attempt at a succès de scandale that succeeded beyond anyone's dreams. There's no better example of lesbianism marketed for heterosexual men than the "All the Things She Said" videos, with its scenes of two attractive teenage girls making out in their schoolgirls uniforms as the rains falls, falls and drenches them both and their outfits as people watch.
The sensationalism doesn't change the fact that this is a rather important development in the context of Russian society. The history of gay rights in Russia seems to be very much one of ups and downs. Liberalization after the Bolshevik revolution was soon followed by repression and recrminalization in the 1930s, with another thaw starting in the late 1980s in the glasnost' that produced, in 1993, the repeal of anti-sodomy laws. Post-Soviet attempts to organize the gay community on the Western model failed in the 1990s for any number of reasons, however, and the Russia's GLBT population seems to be fragmented and depoliticized in a manner not entirely different from that of pre-Stonewall North America. It strikes me as rather important that people in Russia are willing to buy two and a half million copies of the debut album of a lesbian-themed pop muic group. What will happen in Russia when the t.A.T.u generation reaches adulthood?
This brings us to a wider theme, touched upon in 2003 article in The New Yorker. Shteyngart did, as Idov said, lambaste the group's manager for his cynical manipulations of two teenage girls. He also made the point that the existence of a pop music group like t.A.T.u. is a signal that Russia is a normal society. Thirty years ago, deep in the stagnation of the Brezhnev era, would t.A.T.u and its associated sensationalistic media industries have ever been thought possible?
