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13 Provocative Tracks
t.A.T.u. – All The Things She Said / 200 km/H in the Wrong Lane
Famous Russian radio producer M. Kozyrev wrote a book about his radio career and included All the Things She Said into Top 13 Provocative Tracks.
CHRONOLOGY
The track was played in the air of Nashe Radio once in TOP 13 show in October, 2003.
HISTORY
t.A.T.u. story is a visual aid on the topic “personality, it's role in history”. Everything that happened to the band could be included in the CV of several extremely gifted producers who together (was it luck or destiny?) worked on this one project. The key role was played by Ivan Shapovalov, a psychiatrist according to his education – and with a mission of agent provocateur. However, it would be wrong to say that on the place of these two singers could have been two any other teenage girls. Nothing that is made “hit-or-miss” lives long - I’ve seen the proof of this many times. Quoting one famous American president, “It’s possible to lie to one person many times. It’s possible to deceive many people once. But nobody ever deceived many people many times”. With rare exceptions, the statement is proved by history.
t.A.T.u.’s success has nothing to do with luck or chance - maybe just with mystic formula “to be in the right place at a right time”.
You think that I was not disgusted when I first learned what this girls’ duo does? I was. “My God,” I thought, “How cheap – to exploit the idea of two lesbian girls…” I am sure that our multinational country that occupies one sixth of the earth’s surface shared these thoughts with me. Still, fastidiously screwing up faces and overcoming the disgust, the country turned up the volume in their walkmans and car speakers – when one day the country realized its own humming, “All the things she said, all the things she said…” Then, everybody suppressed their negative emotions towards cynical show-biz moneymakers who have nothing sacred, and passionately started to discuss two innocent girls who were naively caught by these deceitful pedophilic producers.
“No, you watch this!” You’re not watching? Please turn it on! See these… oh… forgot their name… yes, they’re showing t.A.T.u.! Yeah… disgusting...” – this is what one part of the country was telling the other part of the country while Ya Soshla S Uma video unstoppably climbed up hit parades. At some point the word combination “scandalous popularity” disposed of its pronoun.
It was just popularity...
...The popularity with no brakes – and this thought was stated in their second single. Who cares that this video so shamelessly copies the footage of Andron Konchalovsky movie “Runaway Train”? It didn’t matter, no, it didn’t matter…
I’ve heard so many times from many adventurers and wonderful dreamers that “my artist’s breakthroughs in the West that is coming very soon!” Being for so many years in the music industry, I got used to not paying attention to these sick fantasies. I realized how BIG t.A.T.u. got in the West when I drove through Europe and “All the Things She Said” was aired on different stations every 15-20 minutes. I was dazed. Cosmic BG (Boris Grebenshikov, Russian rock legend - tatu.ru), “bonjovish” Gorky Park, glamorous and innocent Alsou have never been even close to this in capitalist countries.
t.A.T.u. became world celebrities. With no exaggeration.
Don’t be surprised, but speaking about pop-bands, t.A.T.u. were the most frequently considered potential candidates to add color to “Nashe Radio” play-lists. Their Western arrangements made by legendary Trevor Horn, sounded powerful and totally “rockish”. We argued a lot, we could never come to a compromise. Pop VS rock fight – this opposition grew stronger. It was clear that it’s better not to get into this experiment. But we followed no laws!
“All the Things She Said” Remix sounded fantastic! An open minded listener could easily compare the sound of these song with the songs recorded in Russian studios.
I included t.A.T.u. into TOP 13 show just once, separately from the hit parade. The consequences of this were predictable. The station’s web-site went down because of listeners’ angry feedback. A typical “Dear Nashe Radio” letter at that moment looked like this:
Guys, maybe, enough of airing this crap? How long can this last? FM turned into commercial drain box of moral degradation – mediocrity and “hard cases” that make people puke! Kozyrev, are you f*cking nuts – to include pseudo-lesbo-tatugirls into your TOP 13??????? How much did they pay you??????? Or maybe they let you play with da girls?????????? You were kinda defending ROCK, you m*****f**ker!!!! Well, who cares anyway?.. {…} FM stations are for Moscow show-off f**ks!
Originally not being a “Moscow show-off f**k”, I still understood everything. Quoting Neznaika, a hero of Nosov’s book, “people juts don’t get my music!” Let this be a joke, I decided then - period.
But “period” was pronounced too early. New adventures were ahead of t.A.T.u.
First – filming “Takoe Delo Vrubaisya Strana” song at Podnebesnaya (Undeheaven) for New Year Party.
Then – Rammstein. They offered t.A.T.u. to record a chorus part for their new song “Moskau”. After long and hard negotiations everything seemed to be finally set. But it’s never that simple. t.A.T.u. got stubborn. I had a big conversation about it with Rihard, a guitar player and Rammstein ideologist. Then I did my best to convince t.A.T.u. producer. I almost succeeded. But just almost…
Till Lindemann came to Stockholm to record vocals together with the girls. The latter were on their way to Sheremetyevo Airporr, but turned back halfway. The producers were not happy with Rammstein feat. Tatu formula. They wanted Rammstein and Tatu. The Germans heard this… and said “bye-bye” to the Russians… Rammstein found some girl singing like t.A.T.u. in Stockholm. Moskau is included into their last album and sounds awesome!
RESULT
Soon after all this t.A.T.u. parted with Ivan Shapovalov, released their second LP and proved out to be the most popular Russian band in the West. Turning pages of the second album’s inlay, I’ve found Sting among the participating musicians. Whether we like it or not, but our country will long be associated not only with Bolshoi Theatre stars, but also with teenage lesbians…
Last time I saw Shapovalov at Nashe Radio office about two years ago. He came together with 7B band.Back then he was Ivan Demyan’s producer and tried to get some publicity around 7B with videos that he shot for them. Perfect song “I - Love” showed band’s frontman going along the jail’s corridor while bullets are hitting his chest and going through it. The video passed almost unnoticed. To their next video Shapovalov simply added white TV noise effect. From time to time slightly recognized Demyan’s face kept appearing interrupted by this noise. This time the video just failed. TV channels just refused to air it. Shapovalov smiled, smoked and didn’t get down. He knew that a real artist lives outside of time.
Shapovalov came to my office at the beginning of the show and asked if I was going anywhere after we would be done – he had a talk to me. I told him that I’ll stay. Vanya gave me this mysterious smile and whispered like we were conspirators, “Hey, buddy, wait for me, it’s important – I’ve got an some business to discuss!” – door slammed.
The show passed quickly. At first I didn’t notice sweet smell spreading in the air of the first floor. Then this smell got so strong that it was impossible not to notice it. Somebody smoked pot there. And mind you – it smelled not like "giving a try of a little bit". The pot was strong: Constant giggling of the girls at reception desk and happy smiles of workers passing by so elegantly were eloquent. It was a memorable day. Everybody was so happy to see me!
When the broadcast was over, Vanya Shapovalov again opened the door of my office. For some reason he was very inspired when he saw me, which was nice. But the next moment I realized that some Latin-American guy singing another tearful ballad from the screen of my TV inspired him no less. Vanya smiled for a long time looking somewhere very far. Then...
...He focused on me and said very calmly and convincingly:
“Mishk, you know what your problem is?”
“No,” I said honestly.
“You can’t think from the universe's point of view!” Vanya smiled mysteriously, winked, waved to the Latin American singer and disappeared.
I’ve never met him since.
Source: Official Site (Tatu.Ru)
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