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53 albums · 1960–2019

Music of Russia, from the bards and the Leningrad rock club to today

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

The Tsoi Wall on the Arbat in Moscow, covered in graffiti to Viktor Tsoi and Kino
Zemfira at a keyboard on stage, in black and whiteThe Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory seen from the balcony, the audience taking its seats before the organ and the stage
The Tsoi Wall on the Arbat in Moscow, 2010. Photo: Hshuvaeva, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. · Zemfira at the Olimpiysky in Moscow, 2016. Photo: Marina Zakharova, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · The Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory before a concert, 2024. Photo: Perituss, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Russia's popular music had a voice before it had records to sell, the bards with a guitar in the kitchen, Bulat Okudzhava and Vladimir Vysotsky, and the estrada of the big halls, Alla Pugacheva above all; then the rock clubs of Leningrad, Moscow and Sverdlovsk gave it Akvarium, Kino, Zvuki Mu, Alisa, Nautilus Pompilius, DDT and Grazhdanskaya Oborona, the nineties Mumiy Troll, Splean, Zemfira, Leningrad and Korol i Shut, the folk of Ivan Kupala and Pelageya, the hip hop of Kasta, Oxxxymiron and Husky, and the electronic and indie of Tesla Boy, Nina Kraviz, Kedr Livanskiy, Monetochka and Shortparis. The list has 53 records from 1960 to 2019, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; the symphonies and opera, for which Mravinsky's Tchaikovsky stands here alone, the chanson of the prison songs, the jazz of the thirties and the regions' own music from the Volga to the Caucasus and Siberia would each need a list of their own. About 44 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

Rock 23%Electronic 8%Punk & New Wave 7%Other 62%
  • Rock 23%
  • Electronic 8%
  • Punk & New Wave 7%
  • Other 62%

The genres named most: russian, rock, hip hop, electronic, folk, pop.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: Russia 53. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.