a.k.a. “Путин зажигает костры революций” a.k.a. “Putin Lights the Fires of Revolution”…
[Video][Website]
[4.90]
Anthony Easton: This is about the song and not the politics, though we wouldn’t be covering the song if we weren’t covering the politics. All of the usual caveats aside (that two years is absurd, that the political situation in Russia is horrifying, that the all-consuming loop of patriarch and Prime Minister is completely terrifying), one of the reasons that this is getting attention is that Russia has never been completely European, so there is a bump of isolation that occurs when attempts at translating or transferring occurs. Pussy Riot’s complete absorption of both the music and the cultural baggage of punk rock erases that bump, so critics and media types have this context, and genre history that can be used as shorthand to discuss the politics. That the women are really good at translating Russian experiences against that bump — that the single, for example, is released on the day of their jailing — is really important. That it is a generic punk song, when punk still reads in some quarters as politically adroit and socially ambitious, is an excellent way of collapsing sign and signifier. In other words, this is a generic and not very good punk song, because generic and not very good punk songs make the politics easier to absorb.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: As a release to make something of their plight to get attention for their messages, I can’t fault the song, although it doesn’t sound authentically pissed-off enough to resonate other than as a footnote to a news event. In any case, its frenetic lurch makes a good case for putting the focus squarely back on the injustice. Punk rock is amateurish nearly by definition, but this really is just amateurish without any other characteristics. I like the brief guitar solo two minutes in, though.
[3]
Jonathan Bradley: I rather thought Putin extinguished revolutionary fires, what with his personal popularity and all. Pussy Riot has become a(n international — I don’t know how they’re received in their own nation) symbol of a Russian oppression that is neither new nor specifically targeted at musicians who subscribe to a sound that acolytes of Western-derived music from around the world have come to associate with exciting political activism. But symbolism is the point: “Putin Zazhigayet Kostri Ryevolyootsiy” is timely and competent but leaden and unadventurous. I like the raucousness and the shouting — there’s a buzzing volatility, a rawness that should probably be at the heart of whatever it is that punk is — but it’s all in service of a rather dour end. A thousand local bands formed this year will come up with it in their first practice session. Political music works best when it nurtures communities and any efforts Pussy Riot contributed toward that goal had occurred well before this file hit the Internet.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: The Pussy Riot case shouldn’t even be a case, clearly, but it’s dismaying how the (Western, non-incarcerated) world wants to turn it into a real-life version of Bandits with cuter clothes. I give it one month before Etsy sells more Pussy Riot balaclavas than the Odd Future kind. It’s even more dismaying that no one outside Russia had heard of them before their detention, but if even Donita Sparks’ LP got ignored, what hope is left for Russian women not buddies with Kathleen Hanna? There’s enough hope for a single, at least. It’s tighter and more listenable than you’d think. Nitpicking its musicality is unfair, considering they were presumably distracted by getting detained, and as pointless as word-clouding a Paul Ryan speech. (Guardian wise-ass: “the lyrical combination of its melody with the spatial use of a staggered chord structure gave it a quiet immediacy…”) But the trade-off vitriol, guitar sear and hooky rallying cry? They’re all there, and they reward translation. They all work. If Kate Nash bedazzling spiral notebooks counts as the cause, surely my downloading this on musical merits counts too.
[7]
Brad Shoup: Here’s what I don’t know: which members of the collective were involved in the recording of this song, whether this is on the album, whether there is an album. What I think: this is a decent three-chord hardcore/Oi!-brid, and its seams are showing. I’ve heard a few other tracks credited to the group, and the approaches range from obvious sonic cut-and-paste to NWOBHM karaoke. They’re all valid approaches, and all would have interested me more than this. The translated text is bracing — a real caged rage — and a canny way to extend the media coverage of their plight. They toss a parting shot at Lukashenko that I don’t really get (“Go take the old Lukashenko’s wife”). Something elegiac may be found in the brief solo, and you ought to marvel at the bile expelled through the lung-lacerating vocals, but if you want to edit your Amnesty petition to a soundtrack of Grazhdanskaya Oborona, Tank Girl and Fatal Microbes, I’m certainly not one to judge.
[6]
Mallory O’Donnell: I thought you guys had vodka. For this.
[3]
Frank Kogan: Drum, gtr., and bass are way underrecorded, but the latter’s got enough rolling bottom that at live volume it could power some credible slam-dancing. The singers retch and shout through the verses; in the chorus, the fishwife calling to hell, four notes over and over, is pretty great. She’s the song’s hook. Not enough propels off that hook, but I’ll listen to ’em again, not just for the group’s sociopolitical adventurism, and not just for reminding me of punk-armpit clubs in the Lower East Side in 1982, stoking the fires of 3 AM vomit and idealism, but also for that electric fish squall.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Fabulous rolling bass and vocals that are as legit angry as you can get without knowing the consequences of such anger. Little tension between those vocals and the hook though.
[5]
Jer Fairall: The vocals suggest Sleater-Kinney’s confrontational angularity, but less concerned with nuance or structure than simply making a pissed-off racket, pushing forth towards the shouty anarcho-punk territory of “If The Kids Are United” and countless other likeminded anthems. If it is all little more than simply commendable in both aim and execution, I’m still taking bets on the number of supportive Pazz & Jop votes it’ll get in a few months time.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: An Onion-style infographic with the headline “Why Are We Talking About Pussy Riot?” 32% Going to church is totally lame. That’s what this is about, right? 18% You say Carly Rae Jepsen, I say Crass. If you’re one of the ten percent who still listens to real music like this post. 9% Well, you see, it all started with the hardline attitude taken by Patriarch Tikhon against the Renovationists in 1923… 23% Just glad to be hating Russia again. 18% I can say “pussy” in public and my girlfriend doesn’t yell at me.
[5]