Boney M, Scorpions, Modern Talking, Rammstein—these German rock and pop groups at various times gained near-iconic status among the Russian-speaking audience. This text is a brief chronicle of the love for German music, as well as a hypothesis regarding the unique influence of German taste on Russian music lovers over the past few decades.
As the saying goes, «What is good for the Russian is death for the German,» and as often happens with folk wisdom, it is false. At the very least, if you read it in reverse and apply it to the musical tastes of our audience—which, as is well known, differ greatly from English and American tastes—it reveals a different truth. Of course, Anglicophiles, who eagerly follow everything happening in London, have always existed in our circles as a small but cohesive group—they were always the nurturing base for such a peculiar phenomenon as Russian Britpop. However, fans of purely American music—whether it was the great Bob Dylan, Southern rock, or Country—could be counted on one’s fingers in the pre-internet era. This wasn’t solely due to inherent national differences in hearing; it was also because, regarding Western music, our audience was heavily influenced by German taste during the Soviet era.
East Germany, the GDR, was a satellite of the Soviet Union, where the striking forces of the Western Group of Soviet Forces were based. Our officers brought back from there not only scarce «Madonna» tableware and furniture sets, but also records and memories from watching the local music programs. Moreover, the famous program «Melody and Rhythms of Foreign Pop,» which Soviet viewers enjoyed during holidays like New Year’s or Easter (to distract young people from attending processions—though they mostly went to those to drink and fight), was composed entirely of German television broadcasts. This is how our people developed a steadfast love for German bands: the best example is Boney M, who became a Russian folk ensemble on par with Deep Purple. Even much of the English music filtered into our country specifically through the German lens, for instance, the popular Soviet group Smokie, which had a rather modest success in its home country.
So, New York disco music was heard in our country in its purely German flavor—Supermax, Chilly, Dschinghis Khan, and, of course, Boney M—the latter, in turn, kept Russia in mind by singing the sacrosanct «Rasputin, Rashen Sex Machines.»
British neo-romantic new wave manifested in us through the popular affection for the German band Alphaville, which cloned its ideals several years later, and from the English themselves, the public chose Ultravox, a collective that sought inspiration in Germany itself, in the Celtic studio of electronic producer Kenny Planke.
New Wave Of British Heavy Metal also brought its thunderous waves to our borders via Germany—in the form of the Teutonic band Accept, which also returned the favor to Russia (consider the Cossack papakhas on the cover of the album «Russian Roulette» or the metal version of Tchaikovsky’s «Slavic March» from the album «Metal Heart»).
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