“Stiliagi”: The Soundtrack

January 9, 2009 by admin
Filed under dance, dance: doo wop, jazz, jazz: big band, jazz: dixieland, jazz: swing

In tough times, people get nostalgic. As the Russian economy descends at an impressive rate, a hit musical has reached domestic screens: “Stiliagi.” The term, based on the Russian word for “style,” might best be translated as “Teddy Boys,” since the action takes place in 1955. The promotional materials aim to describe these young people for a new audience, more than four decades after their great influence on Russian urban culture.

“There were all kinds of stiliagi. Some were out to shock people, while others dressed more elegantly. There was the ‘golden youth’ – whose parents were allowed to travel abroad [from the USSR] – and there were the kids who tried to emulate them, too.”

“In addition, there were simple, DIY kind of stiliagi, who styled themselves in their own, special way. At the end of the day, though, they were all on the same side. They were all straightforward guys and dolls, each and every one of them – and they’d stay that way forever. ”

As today’s Russian media, in particular television, grows increasingly conservative under the influence of state resources, it’s understandable that the romance of Soviet counterculture would return. This gaze, cast backwards onto the past, has a special resonance for the film’s music.

Although the boogie-woogie and jazzier dance numbers are performed to big band arrangements redolent of the ’50s, almost all the songs are in fact cover versions of Soviet rock staples from the late 1980s.

The director, Valerii Todorovskii, has justified his strange decision in several interviews: “In my discussions with the musical director, the idea emerged of using Russian rock from the ’80s. I mean the first wave of rock, when people appeared like Viktor Tsoi, Bravo, Nautilus Pompilius, Kolibri, and Chaif. I was given some of the recordings – and understood that they’d be a perfect fit.”

“The ’80s music matched the outlook of the ’50s; both groups wanted to stand out and create a counterculture. After all, those early rockers were born in the 50s, when everybody was listening to boogie-woogie.”

As you can see from the photographs here, the filmmakers have taken a few liberties with the costumes: quiffs stand a little higher and skirts are a little brighter. The people responsible for this look have admitted that the movie, in essence, is a “fantasy” about a certain decade, rather than anything that strives to be historically correct.

The songs, as you can hear, have been handled with both love and affection, primarily by Konstantin Meladze. This big-band aesthetic is something he developed a couple of years ago with the female trio Via-Gra and their own, equally sunny play upon Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Friend.” It’s clear that when talk turns to pop music of years gone by, the only suitable sound is an expensive one.

Yet this raises something of a problem, especially in the light of Moscow’s new exhibition dedicated to stiliagi culture (above).

The director has said publicly he’s celebrating a youth movement that always wanted to stand out from the “gray masses,” be they Soviet citizens of the ’50s or today’s pro-governmental youth groups, such as “Nashi.” The thing is, however, that movements like the stiliagi or perestroika rock music need that universal grayness in order to define their sense of difference. Although this film’s creators deny any direct nostalgia for the Soviet past, they’re certainly celebrating a time, place, and outlook that only socialist society could have made possible.