Soundtrack’s Genre Patterns of the Russian Retro-series about Soviet Pop Artists

Among the retro-series about Soviet pop artists, the author identifies three types of soundtrack: 1) quotation (songs of the Soviet era in the sound closest to the original or direct inclusion of an authentic soundtrack); 2) modernized (a conscious and radical change in the sound of original songs through arrangement); 3) stylized (songs specially written for a specific series, presented as songs of the Soviet era). The main attention in the article is given to the soundtrack of citation and modernized types. Although the quote-type soundtrack strives to be indistinguishable from the original, it works powerfully and reinterprets the popular music of the Soviet era. On the one hand, the “radius” of Soviet popular music is greatly expanding from a chronological and geographical point of view and including foreign pop hits, thieves' songs, old romances. On the other hand, the creators of serials are pursuing a strict repertoire policy towards Soviet popular music. In particular, they almost completely exclude civil-patriotic songs both from the sound landscape of the soviet era and from the biographies of the artists. The character of a modernized type of soundtrack is highly dependent on the location and function it serves in the structure of the series. It turns out that in the intros to the series and in the dubbing of the love line of the main characters, the original songs undergo an insignificant change. A much more radical introduction into the original text occurs when songs become part of a genre off-screen soundtrack or are transformed for dramatic needs, growing into an independent musical number within the narrative.