Ranetki - Russian rock band
Jan. 25th, 2011 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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rocknroll_n_blues_queensHey hey so do you like girl rock bands that sing in Russian? I thought you would. Let me introduce you to Ranetki!
Ranetki came about when a music label in Russia realized there was a lot of money to be made in the teenager rock music genre and for too long independent and foreign acts had dominated the emo, angry teenager demographic in the Russosphere. Ranetki were originally:
Valeriya (Lera) Kozlova, drums, lead vocals (b. 1988)
Lena Tretyakova, bass guitar (b. 1988) - a huge soccer fan, formerly won the Russian womens' soccer championship with her team.
Natasha Schyolkova, lead guitar (b. 1990) - was a figure skater from an early age but then left the sport to pursue music.
Anna (Anya) Rudnyova, rhythm guitar, backup vocals (b. 1990) - wrote most of the band's songs.
Eugenia (Genia) Ogurtzova, keyboard (b. 1990)
They were first officially signed to their label in 2005 and in 2006 released their first album, "Ranetki", here's the cover of the album.
Their most successful single to date has been "About You" ("O Tebe"):
You will note the GIRL DRUMMER WHO IS ALSO THE LEAD SINGER, the GIRLS ACTUALLY PLAYING THEIR OWN INSTRUMENTS and the Che Guevara guitar (LOL). IDK IDK they didn't make manufactured rock bands this cool when I was a kid.
Their first single, in 2006, was "She's Alone" ("Ona Odna"):
Things I love about this video:
1. FIRCE DRUMMER-LEAD SINGER IS STILL FIERCE.
2. The plot is that some girl is getting harassed by a bunch of guys at school (who all look like hip hoppers, lol ~youth culture drama~) and then get the shit beaten out of them by the members of the band!
3. There is nothing, NOTHING more fierce than Natasha's guitar playing. NOTHING.
And in case you're wondering by now how the whole vocals-and-drums thing works live (I would never think you could pull that off because one would drown out the other!) here's a version of them singing "About You" live, with Lera very successfully doing both the drumming and the singing and Natasha still being her FIERCE GUITAR PLAYING SELF:
In 2007 they provided some songs for the soundtrack of an enormously successful Russian teen drama, Kadetztvo, about the lives of 15 year old boys in a military academy. This is actually how I originally heard of the band, because the show was so successful I eventually heard about it and checked it out and by then it was known as a kind of For Him/For Her deal where there were the boys of Kadetztvo and the girls of Ranetki and they kept being intertwined in an unholy tween synergy of glee. The band got bigger and bigger and in 2008 they got their own show, "Ranetki" aired on the same network as Kedetztvo. The show ran for FIVE SEASONS (Kadetzvo only aired for 3, though each season had more episodes) and the girls basically played themselves. The plot was that one of them shows up at a new school in Ekaterinburg and falls for the hottest guy in their year. At the same time the school is looking to start a band and after searching high and low among all the male musicians in attendance, eventually the band is made up exclusively of girls. 5 different girls with different personalities (the shy one! The sporty one! The nerdy ones! The femme fatal!) and soon the protagonist discovers the band is actually a much bigger deal than her boy trouble - and the hot guy actually moves away at the end of the year. Have a promotional poster for the TV show.
However, also in 2008, Lera, the lead singer, left the band. She gave an interview later on recounting how she was forced to leave the band by her ex-boyfriend and then (and current) producer. She claims she was approached by the band Nine Lives backstage one day, on tour (this is a male rock group with a female vocalist) and asked why she'd left Ranetki. She said she didn't know anything about it, and then approached their producer and knew from his reaction that he was replacing her with the lead singer of Nine Lives. This is kind of a touching fan tribute overlaying the audio from that interview over clips from the TV show. The title is "Why Lera REALLY left Ranetki." Nine Lives was originally the winner of a TV contest to find the next band to open for Ranetki on tour.
She's since begun a solo career and is currently working on an album. You can even read about her on wiki, in English! Her replacement was Anna Baidavletova (b. 1992), usually referred to as Nyuta.
In 2009 the band released its second album, "This is Our Time" ("Eto Nashe Vremya"), (cover art) and their most successful single came out in 2010, "They Won't Change Us" ("Nas Ne Izmenyat"):
As you can see the video refrences heavily the kind of fame the girls have enjoyed in the wake of "Ranetki mania". The stage clothes and behavior is also much darker, more adult, more chillaxed. Once again, I DO LOVE THEIR VIDEOS. I love Natasha's STILL IMMENSELY FIERCE PLAYING, I love the BREAKING INTO A MUSIC SHOP AND MAKING IT THEIR OWN thing, I love the ~tired of the rockstar lifestyle~ exhaustion, lol. The lyrics are as usual, very bubblegum pop (They won't change us/our summer will come and so will our autumn/they won't change us/'Cuz we still believe in miracles), but you know. Manufactured girl bands, it tends to happen. In 2009 Natasha also married the group's producer (yep, the one from the before) and in 2010 gave birth to their first child.
In 2010 the band also released its 3rd album, "I'll Never Forget" ("Nezabudu Nekogda") (cover art), with singles being "Taxes on Love" ("Nalogi na Lyubov") and "You misunderstand who I am" ("Ty ne ponyal, kto ya").
Taxes on Love video:
This time the theme is supernatural/fantasy/horror and VIDEOS ARE AWESOME AS USUAL. The song's a bit more techno in style, which I personally love, and of course, there's badassey as usual. The next video though, "You misunderstand who I am," is straight up violence-against-women Saw type stuff which I absolutely can not watch, but if you have a stronger stomach for horror here it is.
And in 2011 they're due to release another album, "Bring Back Rock-n-Roll". OK I guess that concludes our musical program for this evening. Have a random fun fact: Anya and Genia did two TV commercials for "Ob" tampons. Not too many rock musicians I can say this about, lol!
OK some pics? Some pics.
Obligatory Beatles parody, Natasha doing her best Joan Jett impersonation, adorable pre-2008 photo from an award show (the band's won pretty much every music award there is for their genre), possibly my favorite group press shot, Natasha smiling - THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO END TAKE COVER, with the Che Guevara guitar, in dresses, from the highschool graduation episode of the TV show, Lena in a sports uniform playing guitar, from the TV show (WARNING: PICTURE IS MADE OF AWESOME), Natasha being badass with her guitar (I could look at a million of these), on stage, winning an award.
Incidentally, if you're at all interested in the world of young women in a music industry largely dominated by male acts (*cough* rock music), I would strongly, highly, passionately recommend the excellent Runaways, that talks about a speicific period and industry but really is applicable to pretty much everywhere. I'll hopefully post a review of the film at some point but meanwhile let me say - IT IS AWESOME. YOU NEED TO SEE IT.
Ranetki came about when a music label in Russia realized there was a lot of money to be made in the teenager rock music genre and for too long independent and foreign acts had dominated the emo, angry teenager demographic in the Russosphere. Ranetki were originally:
Valeriya (Lera) Kozlova, drums, lead vocals (b. 1988)
Lena Tretyakova, bass guitar (b. 1988) - a huge soccer fan, formerly won the Russian womens' soccer championship with her team.
Natasha Schyolkova, lead guitar (b. 1990) - was a figure skater from an early age but then left the sport to pursue music.
Anna (Anya) Rudnyova, rhythm guitar, backup vocals (b. 1990) - wrote most of the band's songs.
Eugenia (Genia) Ogurtzova, keyboard (b. 1990)
They were first officially signed to their label in 2005 and in 2006 released their first album, "Ranetki", here's the cover of the album.
Their most successful single to date has been "About You" ("O Tebe"):
You will note the GIRL DRUMMER WHO IS ALSO THE LEAD SINGER, the GIRLS ACTUALLY PLAYING THEIR OWN INSTRUMENTS and the Che Guevara guitar (LOL). IDK IDK they didn't make manufactured rock bands this cool when I was a kid.
Their first single, in 2006, was "She's Alone" ("Ona Odna"):
Things I love about this video:
1. FIRCE DRUMMER-LEAD SINGER IS STILL FIERCE.
2. The plot is that some girl is getting harassed by a bunch of guys at school (who all look like hip hoppers, lol ~youth culture drama~) and then get the shit beaten out of them by the members of the band!
3. There is nothing, NOTHING more fierce than Natasha's guitar playing. NOTHING.
And in case you're wondering by now how the whole vocals-and-drums thing works live (I would never think you could pull that off because one would drown out the other!) here's a version of them singing "About You" live, with Lera very successfully doing both the drumming and the singing and Natasha still being her FIERCE GUITAR PLAYING SELF:
In 2007 they provided some songs for the soundtrack of an enormously successful Russian teen drama, Kadetztvo, about the lives of 15 year old boys in a military academy. This is actually how I originally heard of the band, because the show was so successful I eventually heard about it and checked it out and by then it was known as a kind of For Him/For Her deal where there were the boys of Kadetztvo and the girls of Ranetki and they kept being intertwined in an unholy tween synergy of glee. The band got bigger and bigger and in 2008 they got their own show, "Ranetki" aired on the same network as Kedetztvo. The show ran for FIVE SEASONS (Kadetzvo only aired for 3, though each season had more episodes) and the girls basically played themselves. The plot was that one of them shows up at a new school in Ekaterinburg and falls for the hottest guy in their year. At the same time the school is looking to start a band and after searching high and low among all the male musicians in attendance, eventually the band is made up exclusively of girls. 5 different girls with different personalities (the shy one! The sporty one! The nerdy ones! The femme fatal!) and soon the protagonist discovers the band is actually a much bigger deal than her boy trouble - and the hot guy actually moves away at the end of the year. Have a promotional poster for the TV show.
However, also in 2008, Lera, the lead singer, left the band. She gave an interview later on recounting how she was forced to leave the band by her ex-boyfriend and then (and current) producer. She claims she was approached by the band Nine Lives backstage one day, on tour (this is a male rock group with a female vocalist) and asked why she'd left Ranetki. She said she didn't know anything about it, and then approached their producer and knew from his reaction that he was replacing her with the lead singer of Nine Lives. This is kind of a touching fan tribute overlaying the audio from that interview over clips from the TV show. The title is "Why Lera REALLY left Ranetki." Nine Lives was originally the winner of a TV contest to find the next band to open for Ranetki on tour.
She's since begun a solo career and is currently working on an album. You can even read about her on wiki, in English! Her replacement was Anna Baidavletova (b. 1992), usually referred to as Nyuta.
In 2009 the band released its second album, "This is Our Time" ("Eto Nashe Vremya"), (cover art) and their most successful single came out in 2010, "They Won't Change Us" ("Nas Ne Izmenyat"):
As you can see the video refrences heavily the kind of fame the girls have enjoyed in the wake of "Ranetki mania". The stage clothes and behavior is also much darker, more adult, more chillaxed. Once again, I DO LOVE THEIR VIDEOS. I love Natasha's STILL IMMENSELY FIERCE PLAYING, I love the BREAKING INTO A MUSIC SHOP AND MAKING IT THEIR OWN thing, I love the ~tired of the rockstar lifestyle~ exhaustion, lol. The lyrics are as usual, very bubblegum pop (They won't change us/our summer will come and so will our autumn/they won't change us/'Cuz we still believe in miracles), but you know. Manufactured girl bands, it tends to happen. In 2009 Natasha also married the group's producer (yep, the one from the before) and in 2010 gave birth to their first child.
In 2010 the band also released its 3rd album, "I'll Never Forget" ("Nezabudu Nekogda") (cover art), with singles being "Taxes on Love" ("Nalogi na Lyubov") and "You misunderstand who I am" ("Ty ne ponyal, kto ya").
Taxes on Love video:
This time the theme is supernatural/fantasy/horror and VIDEOS ARE AWESOME AS USUAL. The song's a bit more techno in style, which I personally love, and of course, there's badassey as usual. The next video though, "You misunderstand who I am," is straight up violence-against-women Saw type stuff which I absolutely can not watch, but if you have a stronger stomach for horror here it is.
And in 2011 they're due to release another album, "Bring Back Rock-n-Roll". OK I guess that concludes our musical program for this evening. Have a random fun fact: Anya and Genia did two TV commercials for "Ob" tampons. Not too many rock musicians I can say this about, lol!
OK some pics? Some pics.
Obligatory Beatles parody, Natasha doing her best Joan Jett impersonation, adorable pre-2008 photo from an award show (the band's won pretty much every music award there is for their genre), possibly my favorite group press shot, Natasha smiling - THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO END TAKE COVER, with the Che Guevara guitar, in dresses, from the highschool graduation episode of the TV show, Lena in a sports uniform playing guitar, from the TV show (WARNING: PICTURE IS MADE OF AWESOME), Natasha being badass with her guitar (I could look at a million of these), on stage, winning an award.
Incidentally, if you're at all interested in the world of young women in a music industry largely dominated by male acts (*cough* rock music), I would strongly, highly, passionately recommend the excellent Runaways, that talks about a speicific period and industry but really is applicable to pretty much everywhere. I'll hopefully post a review of the film at some point but meanwhile let me say - IT IS AWESOME. YOU NEED TO SEE IT.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:10 pm (UTC)See? That wasn't so hard now was it:DDDD!!!!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:12 pm (UTC)And I'm glad you like :D
no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:12 pm (UTC)*goddamnit I need women drumming icons*
no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:31 pm (UTC)I'm gonna go with not so much stealing as drafting the contract to receive UNHEARD OF royalties and creative control, in Western terms. Ah, Russian mainstream music industry! would you mind writing about that too? :)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:26 pm (UTC)*gets to tagging*
no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-25 09:31 pm (UTC)