Nado tolko vypit' more

Thanks to forum.rrock.ru, I listened to the new (and forgettable) album of Vyacheslav Butusov. Some forumists said that Butusov turned pop, because the album doesn't even remind the listener of any old albums of Nautilus, while others praised the album because of its technical excellence. Elsewhere, commenting the last album of Krematorii, another forumist says that nobody should expect anymore "hits" in the realm of Russian rock, but only quality and enough good songs, because the times have changed - "не та страна, не тот портвейн и драйв уже не тот".

In 2005, were it not for the generous site of Agata Kristi, I wouldn't have known anything about the world of Russian rock. Agata was indeed a good starting point for such a trip. I liked their desperate and nonchalant songs, drowned in dark electronic sounds, with those "so Russian" sound of synthesizers, sharp and melodic. Thanks to them I understood something about the Russian '90s and, somehow in a vicarious way, I also understood something about my own past - the foggy '90s of all Eastern Europe, with high hopes and painful dissapointments about the post-Communist events, with cheap clothes, cheap bars with ads for Coke or chewing gum, naive Westernization and cheerful craziness.
Indeed, in a curious way, Nautilus Pompilius, Kino, Aria, Tsentr, Akvarium (in this order) and many others also led me to recover this past - and to glimpse further into the '80s, an even more foggy epoch, a completely other life, almost like in a dream. Not that I would ever have had such an intention (on the contrary, I wanted only to listen something new and unknown), but, well, it happened. Again in a curious way, nothing in the Western rock, folk or new wave from these epochs can do this in such a way.

Now, the site of Agata Kristi is much less friendly, almost like the website of a corporation, and their previous craziness is gone. Instead of a new album, they issued anew their old albums, this time with fashionable covers made by the Lebedev crew; no doubt, the sound has all the required technical excellence. Maybe the forumists are right and maybe Butusov or Krematorii are right too in what they are doing now. Neither the '90s, nor the '80 are to be regretted. But is the present time so lackluster as to deserve only quality and enough good songs?