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25 albums · 1980–2025

Music of Turkmenistan, from the bagshy and the dutar to Gunesh, Ashkhabad and today

· 1 min read · by 1001 Albums

Three dutar players in white telpek hats seated on a carpet
The composer Nury Halmammedov in a white shirt, hands clasped, beside a stone wallParahat Amandurdyyev singing on an open-air stage at night
Bagshy with their dutars at a festival in Turkmenistan, 2019. Photo: Kalpak Travel, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · The composer Nury Halmammedov. Photo: Максат Алламурадов, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Parahat Amandurdyyev on stage in Ashgabat, 2013. Photo: TmWikipediya, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Turkmenistan's music begins with the bagshy, the singer who carries the dessan epics and the songs of Mary and Dashoguz to the dutar and the gyjak, heard here in the Köroğlu recordings and the women bakhshi of two anthologies, then Nury Halmammedov's symphonic pictures of the Karakum, the jazz-rock of Gunesh and Rishad Shafi from Ashgabat, the wedding band Ashkhabad, and the singers of today, Palwan Halmyradow, Myrat Öwez, Sahydursun Hojakowa, Hajy Yazmammedow, Mekan Atayev and Nazir Habibow. The list has 25 records from 1980 to 2025, one or two by each name and only a small part of what they made; the dessan epics in full, the song of each region and its school of bagshy, Sahy Jepbarov and Maya Kuliyeva, and the many Soviet-era records and cassettes that never reached streaming are left for other lists. About 20 hours of music, 3 days of a few records each.

By genre

Pop 29%Folk & Country 5%Jazz 4%Other 62%
  • Pop 29%
  • Folk & Country 5%
  • Jazz 4%
  • Other 62%

The genres named most: turkmen, pop, folk, bagshy, fusion, jazz-rock.

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: Turkmenistan 25. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

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