Ресайклинг советской эстрады в телешоу «Голос»

Abstract

The article explores how The Voice re-actualizes the Soviet era songs and symbols. The nature of the show’s interaction with Soviet culture is traced through five parameters: the geography of the participants, the repertoire, the figure of one of the mentors, voice timbres, and specifics of interpretation. The Voice, like the all Union song festivals of the Soviet era, strives for geographical pervasiveness and maximum ethnic diversity within the project. This diversity, however, turns out to be very conditional. It does not imply musical immersion into different cultures, but is limited to a linguistic, and, at most, arranging reworking of the titular nation’s culture. Among the Soviet pop music themes, in the highest demand in the show are dramatic love ballads, songs about nature, and compositions about the artist’s fate. Alexander Gradsky, being one of the mentors, gave newly found relevance to the half-forgotten hits of the Soviet time, creating a new image of the Soviet music stage, far from sterile piety and emotional restraint. The analysis of participants’ timbres and the peculiarities of their vocal technique shows that The Voice brings back the fashion for trained, powerful and velvety voices of the Soviet estrada. Another trait noticed was the two vectors of the performing interpretation of Soviet pop songs. Most of the contestants tend to become completely identical, indistinguishable from the original (canonical) version of the song, while only few dare to radically rethink the Soviet-time songs, striving to show their originality and uniqueness by significantly changing the well-known music.