Drag Race fan fave Katya, the ditzy alter ego of Brian McCook, talked to HuffPo recently. According to the post, one of HuffPo’s writers emailed Katya the questions because she (Katya) is so terribly busy traversing the globe making appearances and being quite the bon vivant.
Being the glamorous Russian prostitute that she is, Katya likes to party, and she mentioned one of her musical favorites: Russian musical artist Glukoza, who climbed the European pop charts with the song “Schveine.” So of course we listened to it, because if Katya likes it, so do we. And honestly, it is a good song. After a bit of research we found Glukoza also recorded an English version, but the song works better when enjoyed in the lilting yet gutteral Russian vernacular.
Russian pop music, like much of its kind from the European continent, is usually one of two styles: either sappy ballads sung as loudly as possible, or simple, happy tunes that are heavy on the synthesizers. Glukoza’s song list includes heaping servings of both groups (her name translated from Russian means “sugar”), but she has several tunes that are catchy to the jaded American ear. “Yura” has a lounge-music, dance-a-go-go feel that would be at home in a Quentin Tarantino movie. It’s as if she wrote her music just to be lip-synced by one of Heklina’s girls at Oasis or one of the performers at Lucky Cheng’s.
Here are three of our favorite videos, and speaking of drag, the second video has men dressed as women, but we’re not sure of the context so someone feel free to translate the lyrics for us. Regardless, the animation in the first and the third are genius. (As a bonus: Watch for references to American movies such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Aliens, as well as graphic novel and gone-but-not-forgotten MTV show The Maxx.)
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canadalaw
The second one is obvious a homage to ” Some like it hot”, even the name Sugar comes from there, given that it was Marilyn Monroe’s name in it.
Glücklich
“…sappy ballads sung as loudly as possible, or simple, happy tunes that are heavy on the synthesizers.”
Yup. I’ve not been to Russia but anyone who’s been to Brighton Beach or SF’s Outer Sunset knows that pretty much sums up contemporary Russian pop.
Russian early synth-pop on the other hand is pretty cool considering it’s such a western sound for the Soviet era.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCrnTZWxRM8
Tracy Pope
@canadalaw: It was a very well done homage with some scenes done nearly identical to the movie. The English translation is pure modern pop lyrics (not my favorite style) but I really liked the video.
AlexEf
Zhanna Aguzarova (????? ?????????) is what you need to listen, not her bad copy Glukoza
Here it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYKxPr8Vmxg&list=PL65A96FCCB46C3E57