Schundsänger gegen die organisierte Langeweile

In widely available publications on Soviet pop music, the performers of the officially recognized ėstrada music are often described as agents of state or party guidelines who conveyed messages that officials liked to hear. A closer look at the phenomenon, however, reveals a different quality: there were developments in form and content that were basically incompatible with ideology, but which cannot be interpreted as expressions of oppositional thinking either. On the one hand, many interpreters performed songs with at least partial ideological references. On the other hand, influences were visible that could be understood as “international”, “western” or “regional”. Pop songs that seemed to be “western” brought some internationality to the reality experienced by Soviet consumers, at least for the duration of a piece of music. Nevertheless, the performers of these titles were not part of the counterculture.