Russian pop music is Russian language pop music produced either in Russia, CIS countries, Baltic states and other foreign countries in which the songs are performed primarily in Russian language, languages of the countries of the CIS, and in the other languages of the world. This is the successor to popular "variety" Soviet music with its pop idols such as Alla Pugacheva or Valery Leontiev.

Modern-day mainstream Russian-language pop music is very diverse and has many ways to spread through the audience. The most famous pop stars can be seen on general television in music or talk shows, and also on music TV channels such as MTV Russia and Muz-TV. There are also Russian Pop radio stations, and there have been many One-hit wonders in recent years.

The Russian-language music market

Russian-language market of popular music began to grow with the increase of Soviet influence in the world arena. In addition to the nearly 300 million Soviet citizens living in the 13% of the world landmass in 1990, Soviet pop music has become popular in the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, especially in the Slavic regions (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia, but also in Romania, Hungary, China, Cuba).

The undisputed center of the creation of the Russian-language pop music of that time was the Moscow and, to a lesser extent, St. Petersburg. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia is still a major producer and consumer of Russian-speaking music, demand is still high in some of the new independent states, especially Ukraine and Belarus. For quite significant regional centers contemporary Russian language popular music include, in addition to Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kyiv (Ukraine), which is also focused on the Russian-speaking market.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Iron Curtain, the mass emigration of the early '90s, led to the formation of large Russian-speaking diaspora in the European Union, Canada, the United States, Australia and other regions, where the local population has had an opportunity to get acquainted with the Russian music of different genres, through the Internet, satellite television, various media, music in nightclubs.

A notable contribution to Russian pop music performers that do not come from Russia. Among them: Philipp Kirkorov from Bulgaria, Ani Lorak and Verka Serduchka from Ukraine, Laima Vaikule from Latvia, Seryoga and Dmitry Koldun from Belarus, Avraam Russo from Syria, A-Studio from Kazakhstan and others.



Muslim Magomayev, 1960s-70s pop star
Muslim Magomayev, 1960s-70s pop star

Formed as one of the largest markets in the world in the early of the 1960s, the Russian-language pop music was represented by such artists as Edita Piekha, Valery Obodzinsky, Muslim Magomayev, ensembles, organized in Moscow and Leningrad in 1966: Vesiolie Rebiata, Poyushchiye Gitary.


Alla Pugachova, 1970s-80s pop star
Alla Pugachova, 1970s-80s pop star
Sofia Rotaru, 1970s-80s pop star
Sofia Rotaru, 1970s-80s pop star

In the 1970s, Sofia Rotaru, Alla Pugacheva, Valery Leontiev began their careers, getting union wide reputations. At the same time in this period of the Russian pop music begin to influence various western genres (jazz, rock etc) But also the popular Soviet music is gaining tremendous popularity in Eastern Europe. First Vesiolie Rebiata EP ensemble released in the summer of 1970, for several years has sold 15,975,000 copies. In 1973 at the international competition record in Liverpool (England), the ensemble was awarded the second Prize. It was the first major success of Soviet pop music in the West.


Valery Leontiev, 1980s-90s pop star
Valery Leontiev, 1980s-90s pop star

In the early 1980s Russian-speaking Soviet-era music is booming. Works by Latvian composer Raimonds Pauls, such as "The Million scarlet roses", were created in this period, then will almost classic examples. Yury Chernavsky writes songs for films and together with the ensemble Vesiolie Rebiata lets magnitoalbom Banana Islands. Among beginners debuts Vladimir Presnyakov. In the mid-1980s Vladimir Matetsky started his cooperation with Sofia Rotaru with the song "Lavanda". Effect of a new stage in the development of pop music in the late 1980s was a group Laskovyi Mai and Mirage.


Philipp Kirkorov, 1990s-2000s pop star
Philipp Kirkorov, 1990s-2000s pop star

Even in the early 1990s, when the country was going through a severe economic and political crisis, Russia and Moscow in particular, continue to be important producers of the Russian-language musical production. Many famous hits of popular music were written during this period (Igor Nikolayev, Natasha Koroleva, Larisa Dolina, Na Na, Anita Tsoy, Tatiana Bulanova, Leonid Agutin, Oleg Gazmanov, Valery Meladze, Kai Metov, Dmitry Malikov, Bely Oryol, Natalya Vetlitskaya, Car-Man, Marina Khlebnikova, Zhenya Belousov, Litsey, Murat Nasyrov, Alyona Apina, Vlad Stashevsky, Linda, Lika MC, Natali, Irina Saltykova, Russkiy Razmer, Shura, Tatyana Snezhina and others.). Many Soviet performers were still popular in 1990s, for example, Alla Pugacheva, Philipp Kirkorov. This period was also characterized by the emergence of new artists and groups who have been especially popular in the coming years, such as Valeriya, Blestyaschie, Ruki Vverh!, Ivanushki International, Gosti iz budushchego, Hi-Fi. Russian record for the sale of records belongs to the ensemble Vesiolie Rebiata and makes 179,850,000 copies sold.


t.A.T.u., one of the most successful Russian pop groups in the world

The end of the 1990s and early 2000s were marked by a significant increase in the world, specially American music in the traditional dominance of Russian music. Russian popular performers in full acquainted with the world of music experiences, borrow a lot of it, especially in terms of arrangements. In the late 2000s, the Russian market of Pop joined the transitional period. Due to a serious drop in sales in the form of physical media (which is typical for the industry worldwide), there is a reclassification of labels to sell music through the Internet (mostly so-called digital singles). By 2009, album sales have dropped significantly when compared to 1990s and mid 2000s due to increasing sales of digital content (digital singles, ringtones, ringback tones, etc).

In the Billboard charts

Date Chart Performer
May 19, 1990 Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200 Gorky Park
April 27, 2002 Dance Club Songs PPK
March 15, 2003 Billboard Hot 100, Billboard 200, Pop Songs, Dance Club Songs, Latin Pop Airplay, European Hot 100 Singles, European Albums t.A.T.u.
May 28, 2011 Uncharted, Next Big Sound Neoclubber


One of the main features of the Russian pop industry is widespread touring concerts and corporate performers in Russia and the CIS, which is due on the one hand, the enormous size of the country, as well as to the fact that because of the rather widespread piracy, the profit from CD sales are not up to the performers (that unites it, such as Arabic pop music).

See also

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (December 2009) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Russian article. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 2,512 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Российская поп-музыка]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template ((Translated|ru|Российская поп-музыка)) to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.


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