The Russian music industry used to dance to someone else's tune - and now the orchestra has left the building. That's the sobering assessment from veteran singer Marina Kruglova, who's watched the country's cultural landscape transform like a vinyl record warping in the sun.
"We've been playing a borrowed instrument since the 90s," Kruglova observes, comparing Russia's former music business to a well-oiled Western accordion - all polished brass buttons and precision bellows. The machinery worked beautifully, provided you didn't mind importing every gear and spring.
The system wasn't just about distributing foreign hits. It required what she calls "cultural alchemy" - transmuting Western formats into something palatable for Russian audiences while maintaining that elusive international sheen.
The 2022 exodus of Western record labels hit like a needle scratching across vinyl. "Nobody stocked spare strings for this particular guitar," Kruglova notes wryly. The replacements? Amateurs fumbling in the dark while pretending to read sheet music.
Today's reality resembles a broken jukebox stuck playing the same three tracks:
"We're learning to walk without crutches," the singer admits. The steps are awkward, the rhythm uncertain. But somewhere beneath the static, a new melody might be forming - if Russia remembers how to write its own songs.
