From a purely nostalgic point of view, it\u2019s a little sad, a bit sentimental. I once worked part-time for MTV Europe, which was based in London near Camden Market. I remember one funny episode \u2014 I was introducing actress Natalya Negodaon MTV, the star of the sensational Soviet erotic drama Little Vera. We talked about sex in the Soviet Union and other spicy topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But returning to our not-so-cheerful times, I think MTV\u2019s departure \u2014 though partial, not total \u2014 is completely understandable and commercially justified. MTV and other music TV channels have lost both their audience and their appeal. So naturally, with their influence declining, they\u2019ve had to cut staff and close branches.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/photo_2025-10-17-22.14.01.jpeg\")
<\/a>The days when music channels drew viewers by showing trendy music videos are long gone. Music videos simply aren\u2019t the cultural phenomenon they were in the 1980s and early 1990s, when famous actors starred in them, and top film directors shot them, and fans eagerly awaited premieres. In Russia in the 1990s, we even coined the fashionable word \u201cclipmaker.\u201d All of that is in the distant past. Now people discover new music online, primarily through YouTube.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I work with teenagers, and I saw how they were recently counting the days until Taylor Swift\u2019s new video premiere.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s more about Taylor Swift herself than about the medium of the music video. She\u2019s managed to captivate young audiences worldwide \u2014 quite mysteriously, I think, since, in my opinion, she\u2019s a rather ordinary singer. But yes, people eagerly await her albums, songs, and videos. There\u2019s no denying that Taylor Swift is the biggest star of her generation. In terms of sheer fame, she stands alongside Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, and Bob Dylan. Whether she truly deserves that status is debatable \u2014 but it\u2019s a fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s the secret of stardom? Can someone be \u201cconstructed\u201d into a star?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, yes. Some people become stars for fair reasons \u2014 they\u2019re talented, gifted songwriters, composers, and performers. Think of The Beatles, or Sting, or Mark Knopfler, who wrote \u201cMoney for Nothing.\u201d Wonderful musicians, great vocalists. In Britain, you could name PJ Harvey or Beth Gibbons of Portishead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When a talented, charismatic person becomes a star, that\u2019s natural. Of course, there\u2019s always support \u2014 good producers, wealthy record labels, and clever PR campaigns. That\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s less fine is that very often stars are made out of people with no special talent at all \u2014 just a pleasant, sexy appearance, good choreography, and lots of coaching. But empty inside. That too happens all the time \u2014 that\u2019s show business. There are plenty of skilled professionals who can turn a mediocre performer into a superstar. You can\u2019t really escape that reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the Russian-language scene, we\u2019ve seen a bright new star \u2014 Liza Monetochka, whom you\u2019ve even included in your London disco lineup\u2026<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Monetochka has been living happily in Vilnius, Lithuania for several years now, and she tours successfully around the world. She\u2019s a very talented young woman \u2014 I\u2019ve seen it myself. A great songwriter, great studio artist, and a truly captivating stage performer. She writes wonderful songs \u2014 no wonder some of them have become anthems that everyone sings. Her last big hit, \u201cIt Happened in Russia, So It Happened Long Ago,\u201d is a fantastic song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think she\u2019s the most talented Russian-language artist of her generation. You can draw a line from Alla Pugacheva, to Zemfira Ramazanova, and then to Liza Gyrdymova \u2014 Monetochka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You mentioned Springsteen and Dylan, and that brings me to my next question. Biopics about musicians are everywhere \u2014 Dylan played by Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, Springsteen by Jeremy Allen White. Why this surge of interest?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think the main reason is simple: these are artists who wrote and performed outstanding music. Their songs are still loved, still sung in karaoke, and people remain fascinated by their personalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of them also lived dramatic, interesting lives. That\u2019s what drew filmmakers to the first musician biopics \u2014 \u201cLady Sings the Blues\u201d about Billie Holiday, \u201cThe Doors\u201d about Jim Morrison, and \u201cWalk the Line\u201d about Johnny Cash.Tragic figures, many of whom died young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, we\u2019re getting more biopics not just about tragedy, but about famous musicians in general \u2014 because audiences crave these stories.<\/p>\n\n\n In Bob Dylan\u2019s case, for example, his life wasn\u2019t especially tragic. Most of his inner dramas ended in the period shown in \u201cComplete Unknown\u201d with Chalamet \u2014 his early years, the affair with Joan Baez, and the struggle between folk and rock. After that, he settled into his role as a great poet and musician. I doubt you could make a very dramatic film about Dylan\u2019s last 50 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biopics will keep coming. I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll eventually see ones about Prince, Janis Joplin, and John Lennon \u2014 if Yoko allows it. I really don\u2019t understand why there still isn\u2019t a proper film about Amy Winehouse \u2014 now that was a real tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Young people watch these biopics, even though for them this is \u201cdaddy\u2019s rock,\u201d as the English say. Back when you ran your discos at MSU, did you see them as educational projects?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I started running a disco with friends at Moscow State University on the Lenin Hills in 1972, and it lasted for two years \u2014 the very first disco in Moscow, maybe in all of Russia. We did it simply because we adored music \u2014 especially Western, Anglo-American music, which we were crazy about. And we weren\u2019t alone: all the forward-thinking youth in the country loved it, especially since it was forbidden fruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You almost never heard that music on the radio or TV, and no foreign artists toured the USSR. The Rolling Stones wanted to come from Warsaw to Moscow in 1967, but the authorities stopped that \u201ccultural sabotage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Our disco went like this: in the first part, I\u2019d talk about my favorite bands and play vinyl albums. Back then I loved progressive rock \u2014 Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Frank Zappa. Then for the next two or three hours, we\u2019d just have dancing, playing lighter music \u2014 glam rock, David Bowie, Marc Bolan, regular rock\u2019n\u2019roll and rhythm-and-blues. People loved it. The university\u2019s Komsomol officials, however, didn\u2019t \u2014 and after two years, they shut us down. These days, I DJ only occasionally, but I still enjoy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019re bringing your disco to London, but it will feature Russian-language music \u2014 from Magomaev to Monetochka?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, it\u2019s the opposite of what I did in the 1970s. Back then I played Western music in Russia; now I\u2019ll play Russian \u2014 or Russian-language \u2014 music in England. It\u2019ll be a real disco, though I call it a \u201chumanitarian disco.\u201d That\u2019s my own invention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I used to do these in Moscow at private events. It\u2019s not a scientific or educational project like my old progressive-rock sessions \u2014 it\u2019s a proper dance party, with brief comments and little stories behind the songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My goal is to make sure people have fun and comfortable dancing. That\u2019s not exactly a strong suit of Russian pop and rock \u2014 compared to international club hits, ours lag behind. But in the 60s, 70s, and even today, there are songs you can happily dance to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, the great Muslim Magomaev will delight us with his twist-rhythm song \u201cThe Best City on Earth.\u201d And from Edita Piekha, we\u2019ll hear \u201cA Wonderful Neighbor Moved Into Our House\u201d \u2014 a cheerful, melodic dance tune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not catering to primitive tastes \u2014 only cool, clever, and talented songs, even if a bit nostalgic. I love this music myself, and when I\u2019m at the DJ booth, I can\u2019t help dancing along. I hope even the local churchgoers will like it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was struck by your idea comparing the Decembrists to rock stars \u2014 you\u2019ll be lecturing about this in Oxford and Edinburgh?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, that\u2019ll be an experiment. I\u2019ve had three books published in the UK. The first and most famous is \u201cBack in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia\u201d (1987). My third book, \u201cSubculture: The History of Russian Youth Resistance 1815\u20132018,\u201d came out in 2017. As the title suggests, it traces youth movements \u2014 mainly protest ones \u2014 in pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and post-Soviet Russia. It starts with the Decembrists and ends in our turbulent present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I gave a course on this topic at King\u2019s College London in 2015, which led to the book\u2019s publication. So now I\u2019ve decided to combine my first and last books in one lecture \u2014 starting with rebellious Russian youth, from dandies and Decembrists, and moving into the 1960s and 70s, when protest and subculture took musical form through the stilyagi and hippies. This time, though, no dancing \u2014 but I promise it won\u2019t be boring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In November, Artemy Troitsky \u2014 historian, music critic, host, and writer \u2014 will give a series of lectures on Russian rock in Oxford and Edinburgh. In London, however, he\u2019ll be doing something quite different: hosting a full-fledged disco \u2014 after all, Troitsky began running the very first discos at the main building of Moscow State University when he was still a young man. His visit to the United Kingdom is organized by UK Integration and Masha Macmin, a cultural producer who has spent several years developing humanitarian and educational projects between the UK and Eastern Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":56927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"type_post":[184],"column":[185],"class_list":["post-56970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","column-letters-from-the-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56970"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=56970"},{"taxonomy":"column","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/column?post=56970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>