Towards the end of my undergrad, after I’d studied abroad and achieved a reasonable level of linguistic skill, I started collecting Russian pop songs that seemed to reflect political and cultural attitudes. Songs about AIDS, or Saddam Hussein, or army service. For today I want to share a clip from a Russian movie — a musical of sorts, which follows a group of musicians on a campaign cruise with a candidate, putting on concerts and getting out the vote in various ways. One of the first songs is sung by Shnur, the irreverent and generally foul-mouthed lead singer of the ska band Leningrad, and in the end it’s a farce – they get the guy elected, only to realize they’ve been in the wrong district the whole time. (If you want an overview of Russian music styles, search youtube for “день выборов” (election day) or “день радио” (radio day), both musical films by the same group lampoon a wide variety of Russian music genres.) Read More →