The Ultimate Rock 'N' Roll Legend

On August 15, 1990, the U.S.S.R.'s top musician Viktor Tsoi died in an massive car wreck after fishing in Latvia. Miraculously, the one thing that survived intact was a tape of his vocal tracks for the next album. With those tracks his surviving band members recorded KINO's posthumous masterpiece known typically as "The Black Album."

This is often considered the band's greatest work despite the entire musical tracks being recorded after Tsoi's death. However, it sounds as good, if not better than all the other records and it is hard to beleive it was recorded under such conditions. Like in all KINO's other works, that power to transcend not only the language, but their language's poor aesthetics (sorry) is there. However, it is at its most powerful here and every song is a winner. The band's post-New Wave sound is tighter than ever and Yuriy Kasparyan's guitar excels. These catchy and hypnotic songs stick into one's subconscious forever and permanently capture the last days of Glasnost and Parastroika. It makes you really wonder whether Tsoi's death before the fall of the U.S.S.R. was tragic, lucky for him, or even how he could have altered the Russia's unfortunate future. The dark yet hopeful lyrics reflect this unique time in world history on two of the album's best songs, opener "Кончится Лето (Summer Will Soon Be Over)" and (Красно-желтые Дни )Red and Yellow Days)," as does the plaintive "Кукушка (Cuckoo)," one of their best songs. "Звезда (Star)" is one of their best songs and has a cool, simple beat that any fan of New Order or Duran Duran would have to love. "Когда твоя девушка больна (When Your Girlfriend is Sick)" is one of the band's sweetest pop songs yet somehow fits in this heavy set quite well showing how much of a range Tsoi had as a songwriter, hinting at what kind of music he may have made if he lived to see the overly optomistic years following his death. This is perhaps KINO's best work and in many ways the best place to start with this remarkable band and proves that had Tsoi survived they would most likely have caught on outside the Eastern Block.


Кино (KINO) - Кино (KINO) a.k.a. Чёрный альбом (The Black Album) (1990)


Now, on a totally unrelated note, I had the unusual privelige to see 90s pop favorites Sugar Ray at Best Buy on Pico here in Los Angeles last night. I was informed about this by my friend Tommy who is working for Rocket Science, who works for the band. It was a fun way to relive 1999, and the band knew it would hardly be more than that and htey seemd to be enjoying themselves. The set even began with Mark "Mr. Ray" McGrath asking "who wants to hear the number one song of 1999?!" before going straight into "Every Morning." The set consisted of only a few songs including just one from the new album, one cover, and on top of "Every Morning," "Fly" and "Someday." I am sure no one was disappointed... well maybe the band was hoping for a bigger turnout, but they sure didn't show it. As tiresome as it may have gotten ten years ago, you gotta give the band some credit for doing what they know they do well, enjoying themselves, and having a good attitude. After all, weren't all thsoe hits better than anything that's been on pop radio since?

You Just Wanna Know

KINO is known as the greatest Russian band of all time. I don't know enough to argue otherwise, but they are one of my favorites of any geography, regardless.

Here is their first and probably my favorite of their albums. It is a raw set of underground (as in hiding from the authorities) St. Petersburg Postpunk/New Wave. It is not as apparent here, as on their later work, but band leader Viktor Tsoi's top influence was a black market copy of Duran Duran's first album. Here, though the arrangements focus more on (mostly acoustic) guitars than on elecctronics (or anything else on that matter.) Though, unfortunately the proficiency is not strong as lead guitarist Yuri Kasparyan had yet to join. However, I think the songwriting is perhaps the strongest and this was the first album of theirs I really fell in love with. The eerie "Devero" is one that really seaps into you - I woke up one morning into my dark closet of a room in Boston with that sirculating in my brain not long after hearing it the first time. It is the second track, though, "Proso Khochesh Ty Znat" that I see as the stongest track of the set. Thelament over the common Russian affliction of alcoholism "Moi Druzya" and children's song "Aluyminiyeviye Ogurtsy" also stand out as some of the best. Granted though, what detracts from this album is the presence of some filler tracks, so don't feel disappointed if you have to skip some - other albums, such as the posthumous masterpiece Chyorniy Album (The Black Album), don't have any of those. Either way, this is a great place to start and I, of course, would reccomend this to anyone curious about music on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Western listeners should know that Viktor Tsoi holds the kind of regard in the former USSR that John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Ian Curtis, and Bob Marley hold in the West. ...Only combined. He died tragically in a car accident outside of Riga (now Latvia) in 1990. He is also one of the most accomplished Eurasians (half Korean) in history.


KINO - 45 (1982)

The titles here are in Russian, so here is a link that has translierations and translations along with their respective lyrics to not just this, but all of thier records.

In music news, though, something sad. Chris Knox of Tall Dwarfs, Toy Love, and his own solo career has suffered a stroke. He survived, but there are very few details about it. He is only 56 years old.