Poland was the least repressive of the Soviet-bloc countries. It was a pop culture Mecca.
I am not an expert on this, but MY UNDERSTANDING is that Soviet pop music was dominated by things like Sekret (this rather cheesy but catchy group: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2gnnywqKBQ&feature=related), singer-songwriters like Vysotsky and Okudzhava (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkGc8i78AE8) and of course Alla Pugacheva (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmDLR1QYNQY&feature=related ). Oh that is so delightfully Soviet cheesy. Those are all clips from Brezhnev-era Soviet TV by the way. There was the underground stuff for there's no footage of it since it wasn't permitted into the public sphere until Gorbachev.
I don't know anything in the modern era I wouldn't see on MTV, since I don't follow the stuff. Personally my favorite contemporary Russian bands are Mumyi Troll (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vVAx5wp-gY) and Leningrad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LsaY8bo03c ).
BTW the lead singer of Grazhdanskaya Oborona died a coupld of months ago from drinking ethanol.
--- "B." <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hey Chris,
>
> Those Russian vids are cool (please keep sending
> them,
> if not here, at least to me off list).
>
> Honestly, though, I have yet to find any Russian
> band
> that blows me away. On the other hand, during the
> Cold
> War, for some reason your neighbors in Poland
> cranked
> out a surprisingly large number of good stuff.
>
> Like this video from 1985 from Poland's Siekiera, a
> band who started as a hardcore thrash band then went
> into his really weird, cold wave, post punk
> direction,
> which is where they are at in this vid. It has the
> feel of a Polish Bauhaus or something:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XagVXbaUb8
>
> And from 1982 (!!) in Poland, Dezerter playing as
> fast
> and aggressively (and as good) as any US or Brit
> hardcore band at that time:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i27IoDMqqE
>
> So what was Russia doing in '82?
>
>
> -B.
>
>
>
>
> Chris Doss wrote:
>
> "People have been putting all this old music footage
> from Soviet TV on youtube, which I think is pretty
> cool, although some of it kind of sucks."
>
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