Fake T.A.T.us

It seems hard to believe that Ivan Shapovalov's charges released their debut album six years ago but that's what Wikipedia claims and, like most people, i can't be bothered looking for a second source to verify whether it's correct. What's certain however, is that T.A.T.u exploded at the fag end of the Napster boom. Before file sharing became semi-accountable through web-logs, if not to the RIAA then to your readers, you could get away with labelling any old toss as a leaked recording by a popular group and nobody would be much the wiser. Practically anything involving at least two Russian girls was feverishly downloaded in the hope that it was, as advertised, the latest effort from Yulya and Elena. Little came close to their magnificent brand of slightly hysterical pop but that's not to say there weren't some fairly decent knock-offs doing the rounds.

One of the best was the endearingly morose Melom by Propaganda - far and away the best thing on any of their first few albums. They later reinvented themselves as a rather excellent spangly electro-pop group with Super Detka and Yai-Ya, borrowing more than a little from Dead Or Alive.

Propaganda - Melom

Propaganda - Super Detka

Propaganda - Yai-Ya

TEMA, pictured looking glum at train station, are quite an oddity in that they appear to have been formed to bridge the gap between the tribute band and the copy-cat. Their Prosto Ya Fanatka album seems to have been intended to mirror the sound of 200 km/h down to the last detail - not simply to cash in, so they said, but because, as the name would suggest, they were such huge fans. It's a variable collection but Kto Esli Ne Ya is almost worthy of their idols.


TEMA - Kto Esli Ne Ya


I bought Leona's album, Argumenti, in Lviv last year simply because she was wearing a chequered-tartan-mini-skirt school-uniform type affair and i wondered how closely the musical influence would follow the sartorial one. The obvious answer is "quite a lot". Charmingly, she's actually pictured studying Mikhail Bulgakov on the inner sleeve, like a good Ukrainian school-girl, rather than feeling-up a hot classmate. The title track's very good.



Leona - Argumenti