THE CONVERSATION: Why Russia’s indie musicians don’t sing in English anymore

Description

On my first fieldwork trip to Moscow in 2016, I asked the singer and songwriter, Sergei Sirotkin, what I thought was a straightforward question. What language did he believe would be more used in Russian indie music (indi) in the future? His answer was unexpected: “That’s a difficult question…that’s almost a geopolitical issue.”

What I learned as I carried out my PhD research into contemporary Russian music was that language choice was central to answering complex questions around identity. These issues sit at the crossroads between national culture, international politics and the intimate space of the self, and the musicians I spoke to reflected deeply on them.