Zemfira and emptiness: Buckwheat for Monetochka
Buckwheat-Monetochka is something so third-rate that only complete despondency and many years of silence in our “smart music” gave them at least some chance.
Now Zemfira owes me! I held on steadfastly all the last weeks and months, when I was bombarded from every information “iron” with news about two rising stars, about two new “voices of the generation” - Monetochka and Buckwheat. With my usual wariness, I reasonably assumed: if I (and everyone else) are being pushed into something so persistently, then it’s not worth listening to, at least for now, in the general hype crowd. But the respected singer knocked my moral stability out from under my feet with her statement “Buckwheat is very bad, terrible voice and appearance. It’s difficult to perceive - she can’t sing, the lyrics don’t convince, and she’s very ugly. Monetochka - excellent texts! He looks normal, unlike Grechka, but his voice is disgusting,” and I broke down and was seduced by the desire to independently evaluate the truth of these words. And he spent half an hour of his life on... Well, actually, now we’ll find out why.
In short, I’ll start with the fact that I, as Polygraph Poligraphych Sharikov, do not agree with either Engels or Kautsky - neither with the fact that Grechka is very bad, nor with the fact that Monetochka has excellent texts.
The fact is that both Buckwheat and Monetochka are the same person. More precisely, one image, one stage image, these are Siamese twins with two heads, but a single nervous system. There is no difference between them. And to understand how true this is, it only takes ONE comparison, just ONE name. But before I say it, a little preface.
As I am sure many people know, the last 30 years have given Russian music and literature a number of wonderful names - extremely strong authors and performers, and in a very wide stylistic and thematic range. Since we have set the rules of the game - “a girl with a guitar”, then in this nomination Monetochka and Grechka, like it or not, will have to stand at the end of the line behind Yanka Diaghileva, Nastya Poleva, Olga Arefieva, Zhanna Aguzarova and the same Zemfira, and so and a host of lesser-known, but no less original performers like Tikka Shellen, Surganova or Arbenina. And in this row they look, to put it mildly, very, very PITY. For one reason only: the identity is not visible. Individuality. Uniqueness. Uniqueness. This is not even an amateur level - this is “wait outside the door for now.”
But the fact is a fact: the popularity, despite this, is obvious. What is the image of our Monegrechka successfully built on? Whose image are they trying to successfully clone?
And here is that very name: Amy Winehouse. Kind of rock, but still pop. It’s kind of underground, but for the masses. It’s kind of rebellious, but very much within the limits. It’s like melancholy, but only slightly. It's like a tragedy, but in a glass of water.
Grechka’s analogy with her “Drug Addict Girlfriends” and others “Sorry Mom” with Winehouse’s messages about Rehab (rehabilitation course for addictions), Addicted and the rest You know I’m no good – simply hits the eye. True, Emmy had a voice and charisma, while Buckwheat had neither of those. And when Liza Gyrdymova tried to shake the universe by breaking bottles in the video “Every Time” - I froze! What audacity! What's next?! She'll scribble an obscene word in the elevator with a nail! Riot! Despair! Pain! (What other hashtags should I add?)
And here, in Russian, they are trying to make a two-headed Amy Winehouse “from pine cones and acorns”, using local material. The image of a young bastard who “wants to get drunk” is not that new, but every generation needs its own heroine. And here this nonsense about the “voice of a generation” comes to the rescue.
The great schemer Ostap Bender once grasped a simple and effective recipe for quick, albeit short-lived success: compose a set of the most commonly used, “hot” vocabulary, arranging it in the right order, you get a boiling text on the topic of the day like “Eastern Highway - this is an iron horse, which, sweeping up the sands of the past with a steel gallop, sets the pace of history, revealing the next gnashing of teeth of the slandering enemy, against whom the ninth wave is already rising.” Buckwheat and Monetochka (especially the second head of our Siamese twins) went exactly this way: you need to cram more words from Internet jargon into the texts and the shkolotrons, squealing with the joy of recognizing their native publics, will give you a million views.
To put it delicately and roundly, it sounds like this : “To the accompaniment of a piano, the girl spoke touchingly about teenage everyday life, joked about politics and modern culture. Listeners appreciated her talent, and after a few months Monetochka turned into an Internet meme: her songs perfectly reflected the already established public culture.” In this case, of course, no special meaning, poetry or originality was required - in the same way, you can create a hit song about the Afghan war from the set of “shuravi”, “perfume”, “black tulip” and “Kandahar”, as well as about the thieves’ share from a dozen words corresponding to the topic (well, here “Radio Chanson” will help you with carts indistinguishable from each other). Those who need it will listen and wipe away their tears. Target audience, niche and all that. Which, in general, is what Gyrdymova (a wonderful surname, if Tolkien had known it, would have called the leader of the orcs) demonstrated in the song “Ace of Trumps”:
Separately, it is necessary to say about the monstrous, hopeless vulgarity of both stage names. “Monetochka” immediately activates in the memory a phrase from a former hit about “For a coin, for a pill they took our little girl,” and Grechka is, damn it, heroin in St. Petersburg slang, or what? However, in a paradoxical way, you still get into the image: Gyrdymova’s pro-furist and lascivious coloring somehow actually hints at inexpensive prostitutes, and Grechka’s voice resembles a tasteless brown mess from a public catering establishment. Whatever you call the yacht... it serves you right!
A plush non-rebellion (or, given their age, a pedo-rebellion?) with “Yaga” at the “last disco” and a list of jargon of the Internet era will, of course, have an effect. Fast. But not for long. The audience is growing rapidly, and in five years there will be different Internet realities.
In fact, I feel very sorry for all of us in this situation. Buckwheat-Monetochka is something so third-rate that only complete despondency and many years of silence in our “smart music” gave them at least some chance. Well, the fresh stuff will quickly go rotten, and there are still no other, more worthy names. In pitch darkness, even the light of a cigarette seems like a star.
Alas, the best review of the work of these two girls can fit in three short words: nothing. And this is the verdict both about the songs and about the singers themselves. It's a pity for half an hour of life.
Grigory Ignatov
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Singer Grechka: “I’m sure that very soon I will become even more popular”
Henderson tank top and shirt
On the street, Nastya Ivanova sang the songs of the Valentin Strykalo group, and at home she sang her own songs. She recorded them on a simple tape recorder, then posted them on VKontakte under the pseudonym Grechka. Simple words about the most important thing that happens in life, in places Cobain-esque anguish, and in the background the hum of a washing machine that works in the corridor during the recording.
— I bought cheap, for 15 rubles, advertising on a social network, and my music was distributed throughout Russia.
She sings about love and longing, registrations and first experiences of varying degrees of severity - about everything that fills the life of a teenager in a small town in the Leningrad region. “In Kingisepp there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, people are not interested in anything. Someone goes to St. Petersburg once and says: “I was in the gallery - wow!” “Gallery” is the name of the shopping center, of course.”
Six months ago, Nastya entered college to obtain a specialty in housing and communal services (she jokes: if the toilet breaks in the house, I can easily fix it), and moved to St. Petersburg. Everything has changed since then. Her songs were heard by Alexander Ionov, the owner of Ionoteka, a club from which the stars of the St. Petersburg independent music scene have emerged in recent years. Nastya played several concerts there, and then Ionov invited her to record an album.
The album “Stars Only at Night” was released in December, and a week later several online publications immediately dubbed Grechka the new hope of Russian rock. Every single ticket for the first Moscow concert was sold out. Nastya is called either the new Zemfira or the new Yanka Diaghileva, but the labels only irritate her.
- This Yanka Dick... how? Diaghileva stood with a guitar, and I stand with a guitar - that’s why people think that we are similar. In fact, I simply did not have another tool at hand.
Now 6 thousand people subscribe to her VKontakte page every week - from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok. “I don’t know who my audience is, it changes every day. At first, 14-year-old girls and cute boys who like to be sad listened to me. After the album was released, older people, about twenty-five years old, were added. Now even 40-year-olds write to me that with my songs I restore their youth to them.”
“Nowadays, girls love a high-speed marathon / bolts in the eyes / waste night and day.” At first glance, it may seem that Grechka promotes drugs in her songs. In fact, their meaning is exactly the opposite. Nothing awaits the Marathon Runners except a broken heart and a collision with emptiness. While young rappers rap about marijuana and Xanax, Grechka takes the position of her lyrical heroine - a broken high school student who returns home to her mother late and drunk.
— My songs are mockery of the people who have surrounded me for a long time. I know these problems: disagreements with peers, despair, self-hatred. Soon I want to launch a new project under the code name “Grechka Commandments”. I know what every teenager would like to hear when they feel bad. I'll just say these things into a tape recorder and publish them online.
While deputies are looking for ways to protect teenagers from the dangers of the Internet, Grechka becomes the voice of those who have already gone through all the problems. She laughs at suicide and sexual promiscuity: “Many boys use / many girls like to drink / many boys smoke like locomotives / many girls like to sleep with everyone,” lines from the song “Mom, Sorry.”
Buckwheat is already being played on St. Petersburg radio stations. This year she will go on her first concert tour across the country. “I have fans in every city. We corresponded with many of them a year ago, and I will be pleased to see these people.” Now she is writing songs for her second album, which, apparently, will hardly resemble her debut. “Those who compared me with Diaghileva will probably be disappointed. But it is not important. I'll add electronics. And I will never stop looking for new sounds.”
Before leaving for St. Petersburg, Nastya lived with her mother, but admits that she was never particularly close to her. True, now they began to go for long walks together.
“More recently, my family started supporting me. My mother is 50, for her fame is her daughter on TV, in a magazine, on the radio. I know, I’m just sure of this, that very soon I will become even more popular. ¦
Popularity
One fine day, Anastasia performed at Ionoteka, a St. Petersburg club and an important underground point in Russia. The girl admits that she really liked this place. Soon Nastya was lucky enough to meet its owner, Alexander Ionov, who, after listening to her home recordings, took the singer to his label Ionoff Music.
The debut album of the young singer, entitled “Stars Only at Night,” was released in December 2020. Ionov himself (bass) and drummer Ivan Griboyedov took part in the recording of the album.
The album consists of songs about youth, love and drugs (which, according to the singer, she has never tried and generally “doesn’t like drug addicts”), and also contains a cover of the song “Love Me, Love” by the group “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” with redone verses .
Singer Grechka performs at the Ionoteka club
After the release of the album, Grechka attracted the attention not only of the Ionoteka audience, but also of reputable publications and subscribers of well-known public pages with indie music on the VKontakte social network.
At the beginning of 2020, Grechka’s first debut concert took place in Moscow, which coincided with the girl’s first visit to the Russian capital. At the concert, the singer performed with an electro-acoustic guitar, which she bought for 3,000 rubles. “In general, it was sold on Avito for five, but Sasha Ionov helped negotiate,” recalls Grechka.
Buckwheat became popular overnight
Many listeners noted that Grechka’s breakthrough is reminiscent of the success formula of the Ukrainian group “Vulgar Molly” by Kirill Bledny, which captivated the audience in a matter of months. It is noteworthy that the singer performed as the opening act for “Vulgar Molly” at a concert in St. Petersburg in February 2020.
