Between The Global and the Intimate: Russian Popular Music and Language Choice

This article investigates language choice in Russian popular music in the 2010s and discusses the values that non-native performers attach to singing in English. It argues that the choice to use English for non-Anglophone musicians emerges at the complex intersection of global dynamics and the intimate space of the self. Scholarship has amply discussed the adaptation of global musical trends into vernacular languages, but has tended to overlook the meanings of local music produced in the global language. Through interviews with Russian Anglophone musicians, the article reassesses the significance of personal creativity, agency, play, escapism, and bilingualism in the practice.