Our editor makes an unusual experiment while listening to «Magic City» and shares his impressions of the album
How are album reviews usually written? I listened for the first time, seemed to understand everything, created a “new text”, turned on at best the same album for the background, at a little worse - jazz radio in iTunes, and sit down and tap out.
For some reason, this didn't work out with Magic City, and I decided to strike with the cavalry from the flank, namely: to give each track from the album one day. Not for days on end, of course, to listen, but you can’t turn on anything else - you listen, think, drive in notes, such are the rules. So, 11 days = 11 tracks.
How do I see the lyrical hero of this album? He is in a foreign city, he has a minimum of money, so, some crumpled and greasy fifty dollars in a pocket of coffee-drenched jeans come from a gas station on the highway. He didn’t sleep for a long time, he ate whatever he got, but this practically doesn’t bother him - but where to go, and, most importantly, why is not entirely clear.
And suddenly he hears this “Hey man! Hey Hey!". The owner of this voice is a kind of Stan Shunpike from Harry Potter, a bus conductor for wizards in trouble. It seems that he just sat on the curb, I beg your pardon, the curb, of course, and absolutely did not understand where to go - and then the meaning finds you. If for the young wizard the meaning was in the Leaky Cauldron bar, where some filthy minister of magic was waiting for him, then for our hero all the most secret is hidden behind the doors of Magic City. Let's follow him, please.
The center of attention of any strip club, of course, is Shest. I cannot fail to note truly wonderful entomological parallels: crickets, bees and drones dance around a pole, which rubs rough working blisters on her hands. The track could fit into the outline of the plot I proposed (of course, it will not work to cram all the songs there) as a kind of afterword shown at the beginning - here he is, the hero who fell in love with this beauty, lies in a rented apartment, which she pays for, and eats something what she brings home.
The lyrical hero of the album, as for me, is rather cool about the material - no, if they give a lot of money, he takes it with pleasure, because they can be exchanged for a bunch of cool things: booze, girls, pills, thrown under the pole, in the end! Put in an account and live off the interest? Perfect! But the very “Something else”, which, most likely, still means some intangible benefits, worries the hero much more. What is this dignity? Honour? principles?
It is a pity that, as the classic wrote, “Principles are such a thing that cannot be fried in butter and served with mashed potatoes.” Probably, if a person who has never listened to LSP asked me to explain with one track what kind of music it is, I would choose “Something else”.
The world of this album is not a gloomy hopelessness, there is no grave cold here, there is no need to call Bombadil. Perhaps there are not so many options for leisure activities, perhaps those who should like you can not stand you. A wheelbarrow, a wedding, tables arranged with the letter "P" - why would the hero do this, out of respect for the third volume of Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary, or what?
The beat is hitting hard, friends are nearby, the arrows are winding circles, which means “everything is OK with me” - I predict that the halls will scream this entire text, and not just the choruses.
"Magic City" is the same American music made in Russian, and made not ashamed or naive"
I'll try to explain: very often, when domestic performers try to make the notorious "American", it turns out somehow pitifully - KVN, not music. Right there, perhaps, first of all, due to the theme, you believe the artist - yes, this is really his life, what surrounds him, he just serves it with a sauce of irony, sarcasm and self-confidence. By the way, about her - how do you like a slightly veiled comparison of your own member with one of the wonders of the world: “And I call you to the promenade in my hanging garden”?
And, well, yes, something needs to be said about the cons! Not about the instrumentals - you need to talk about them with the beatmakers who made this album - but about what you didn't like about the release.
Well, okay, let's do it this way: although the album is listened to, in principle, as a whole (said the person who listened to the track for 11 days, ahem, yes, you can catch on the word), but sometimes the artist's charm makes you listen to the end. What else? Okay, let's compare it to Gallows, if that's what you want - perhaps Magic City is losing to it. OK, I can make a rather strange argument in defense of my today's ward: "Hangman" includes only 8 tracks - throw out from "Magic City" 3 songs that you do not like (I will not scrape any more with all my desire), and you will get less powerful release. Yes, that's right, I provoke and I want to argue with you, I won't hide it. On the other hand, I can add that 11 songs on the disc is almost an ideal album formula, as proven by Boombox. Well, once again I’m simply not interested in pounding water in a mortar on the topic “LSP = Future”, sorry, I’ll leave it to the connoisseurs, especially since Oleg was inspired by more than one Future, this is obvious.
My favorite track out of 11 is “Biggie”, the day I listened to it was filled with energy, vivacity and greyness. In general, one gets the feeling that on almost the entire album Oleg reads / sings with a mockingly condescending smile, as if hinting that you still won’t understand me completely. And in "Biggie" I hear him explain this indulgence: "I listened to Marley, I read books, I wrote rhymes, I listened to Biggie," while peers were interested in bottles and bottles. That is why the author is smart, well-read, erudite, developed and has the right to look down on the world a little.
The song has a samurai detachment and a willingness to die (did you also remember Ghost Dog?), and it really captivates.
The world of LSP is at the same time hopeless, crazy, and charming. Lies, Passions, Vices. I would consider it a crime not to paraphrase Nabokov here, therefore: “L.S.P. - the tongue takes three steps, then hitting the palate, then resting on the teeth, then again rising up.
Since "Madness" we all heard before, and I put it off until the end, a million views already nicely pulled out of my pocket; it was "decision, decision-e-e" to go to a nearby tavern and try everything there, in the preparation of which the sprite is involved.
Drunk bartenders woke me up.
Three years ago, the mainstream of the Russian hip-hop scene, which had already noticeably expanded and absorbed all the most fashionable and relevant, could hardly boast of its authenticity. We had trap in Russian, and battle rap with grime, which were popularized by immigrants, and cloud, and rap rock, and even some echoes of hardcore, but there was nothing really “domestic” in this, except for the language. Hip-hop in the country was divided into two sections: insipid conjuncture and overweight rap from the outcasts from the outback about Russian reality (of course, sometimes done very talentedly). But after that same 2015, rap in Russia finally became independent and began to develop according to its own rules. Rappers began to appear who were no longer embarrassed to experiment and cross different genre (and sub-genre) boundaries, learned to be inspired, not copied, created their own style and “language”, and not just Russified fashionable overseas words, while not losing the understanding of the general public, but even on the contrary, they are in constant dialogue with it. All this applies to a large extent to the Belarusian duet LSP, which makes conceptual music at the intersection of electronics, rock and rhythm and blues.
For several years, LSP created their own separate musical universe, where there is a sweet girl Sasha, there is a dump where bullets are looking for boyfriends, there is a strip club, a brothel, a bar, cruel cocktails, brunettes, brown-haired women - everything a modern lyrical hero needs to isolate himself from the rest of the world and forget. All these characters and locations remind of themselves again and again and grow, change along with their author and his outlook on life. "Tragic City", as it is not difficult to guess from the title, is a continuation of the ideas and history of "Magic City", so the questions are asked on the new album the same, but Oleg answers them in a completely different way. The hero understands that it is impossible to run far from the past, and money is not a panacea for all problems and it is impossible to patch up all the holes with it, just like with alcohol, which is why the apathy and idiosyncrasy of the author to life become more and more tangible in the lyrics from project to project, and the most positive and “bright” song in terms of sound is dedicated to death and the end of the world.
Acid synths and sparse hi-hats, combined with live electric guitar and saxophone parts, give a special charm to the filling of the project. Synthwave influences and a jazzy background allow for very colorful arrangements that complement and exaggerate the overall message of the tracks, while the use of an overdriven guitar helps to add extra tension to the compositions. A symbiosis of retrowave, jazz saxophone and pop-rock groove, painstaking, literally filigree work on sound, bold experiments - all this takes LSP's music to a fundamentally new level and alienates it from the general rap movement in the country.
It's been less than two years and a lot has changed. A quarrel with Twitter essayist Stepan Karma, who voiced the intro to the previous album, a loud scandal with Booking Machine and Oksimiron - all this now does not matter and does not have particularly negative consequences, this is only part of the story that helped the group reach a new level, a lot rethink and record the best album in his discography. All magic is followed by inevitable tragedy, and if “Magic City” is “music for strip clubs where it will never play”, then “Tragic City” is music for sobering-up stations where it will not save anyone.
Imagine being read a fairy tale for adults, in which the main character has everything that an average modern young person can only dream of? Money, girls, promiscuity, a sea of alcohol, forbidden hobbies, eternal parties ... But for some reason, our hero, despite his lifestyle, carefree and relaxed, seems unhappy. And gradually, everything that you considered a marvelous story about non-stop fun, one might say, almost imperceptibly turns into tragedy, the fall of the image of the gulena and the reveler, his transformation into an adult, reasonable person, to whom this whole circus has become alien. This is exactly what happens in Tragic City. If the previous album (Magic city) is a story about life without love, but with all the beauty and failures that are found everywhere for young guys, mostly guys aged 16 to 25, then Tragic city is the embodiment of the growing up of the lyrical hero LSP, the road to light, to the ability to love, to appreciate not only sex and money, no! Bucks fade into the background. No one says that the hero of the LSP refuses the clubs and bars familiar to him and his circle; sits at home and sips lemonade alone, thinking about the one and only girl who occupied a niche in his heart. He has booze, whores and stuff, but how are we going to look at it now?
Review of tracks from the Tragic city album: primitive or postmodern message?
We flew in the clouds like Pushkin...
"Balls, beauties, lackeys, junkers!" That 200 years ago, that in our time - young people love fun, an idle lifestyle in all its manifestations! In that old time, the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin became famous not only for his great poetic and writing talent, but also for noisy festivities with alcohol, ladies and duels. The very first track in "Magic City" - "Crawl" makes it clear that the mood of the hero is still the same - to drink and blow, all this is a long-passed stage, it is powerless against him, but it gives inspiration, allows you to forget about problems. The motto of this man is "grandmothers, women and the game - all that is needed!". If in “Crawl” the theme of drinking and sleepless nights in clubs is clearly expressed, the next composition raises the theme of sex, corrupt women, it is about ways to plug a hole in the heart.
Analysis of the LSP tracks "Coin" and "Money is not a problem"
“Coin” advertises the hero’s attitude towards girls - no love, no feelings, experiences - and it doesn’t matter who to sleep with, the role is played by a coin flying into the air. Yes, our hero can be understood, there is no love at all in his life, it needs to be replaced with something. If drugs and alcohol didn't help, of course sex will!
If you start listening to the album and finish on these two songs, you might think that we have a typical work of a new school artist - fashion trends, club rhythm, at first glance, tracks that do not carry a special semantic load ... The third work in the album also begins - "Money Problem" . The track is a turning point in the album, a point of no return. Everything we talked about earlier depends on one factor - money. Without money, there would be no drinking, no models, no feeling of superiority, no fun!
"I had a problem - I loved her,
There was money - I forgot about it "This quote embodies Oleg's attitude to finances, determines his position in life.
According to the hero, - money cannot betray, lie, quit in a difficult situation, it does not cause difficulties - it helps to overcome them. Despite the rather selfish message, you can see that Oleg’s friends don’t feel sorry for money and girls:
"I am a slave of the golden calf,
And I'm happy to buy whatever my brother wants…” (Money is not a problem)"My boys are here, they want to eat,
They want whores - I have it!
And so they also have
And this is my code of honor
And I take two, although I could take six! (Coin)But the second part of the track allows you to think about the meaning of the above! The hero comes to the conclusion that for him money becomes higher than creativity, higher than an idea. Two elements are fighting in his soul - money and songs. Oleg recalls that once upon a time he was happy and with empty pockets. It would seem that in the first verse we have already heard his position - money makes his life better. But, on reflection, the hero comes to the conclusion that they only help him abstract from the harsh realities: his fame and earnings have made many friends hypocrites, people literally stick to LSP for the sake of money, and the girls are now sleeping with him not for his own sake, but for the sake of in order to also grab a piece of the pie. Money kills the thirst for adventure, adventure and the search for something new in this world, there is nothing to dream about - everything is available.
“When the whole world is open before me,
But he's not that interesting anymore...As a result, to earn - you need to work hard. But the more you work, the less time you have to spend, the less time to live, to spend time with loved ones. But despite all the disadvantages, the hero loves his money, because it is impossible to do without them.
Thus, Oleg moves exterioribus ad interior (from the outside to the inside), talking about the frailty of existence, the meaninglessness of fun, telling us about the bright side of his character's soul. We see the hero not only as a debaucher, but also as a romantic, a sensible person, although a sinner, but at the same time not so lost to society as it might seem before. However, one truth is hidden behind all dreams - we are all mortal, sooner or later we will come to God and repent of our sins, although this is not easy. And if before everything was rosy, various kinds of vices attracted, now I want simple human happiness and a sense of freedom from obligations.
Analysis of the track "Body": the poetics of life's wanderings
The fourth work on the album "The Body" not without reason found a response from the audience. The performer allows us to dream, to get lost in our own judgments about life, about our attitude towards it. It is worth noting that the song is very poetic, full of beautiful epithets and metaphors, which creates an atmosphere of abstraction and allows you to plunge into the bowels of the soul. It is noteworthy that the LSP touches on the topic of faith in God:
“Or come to God anyway,
Not embarrassed by the hole in the sock ... "Sounds ambiguous, right? Either believe, or die, or take the first step, taking the will into a fist, and admit its existence, or be ready for death and answer for your sins. Oleg mentioned the Lord more than once in the album and talked about his role in life, but at this stage the hero had not yet come to a final answer.
Reasoning leads to the idea that the body is not made of iron, all the vices that have been passed eventually affected health in one way or another, the past makes itself felt - bringing pleasure becomes only a bad habit. For the sake of these habits, we cheat, spend money on them, so that in the end ... Just die. The moral is simple: as a result of something, we will all end up in the grave, before death we are all equal. But when and how? Will we all make it? And if we do, does it matter to anyone?
With these thoughts, the main character decides to leave the Magic City, bored with its monotony, fornication and the lack of at least something sacred. It's time to get on the right path, to disentangle the mess that you have made!
“Who will help? - Damn it!
Maybe God…”Last Sunday in the old image, the last time the repetition of everyday entertainment and the full realization that they have become simply boring.
New Chapter: Labyrinth of Reflections
Many remember the feeling of first love, the feeling of happy ignorance, expectation and lightness. It seems that there is no person who has never fallen in love. So our hero is no exception. Before, he didn’t even have the thought that he wanted to get to know the girl better, to explore her inner world! Who would have thought, but we see excitement, fear of losing a person, longing not for someone's forms and skills in bed, but for the soul. Happiness, as it turned out, is not in sex, but in love. Here it is, a stopper for a heart with a hole in it. Love has taken possession of the character so much that he is ready to give up everything for the sake of this girl, but not all at once, because they know each other so little.
Analysis of the track "White Dance"
As in romantic films, time passes quickly, moments pass imperceptibly, the old is forgotten and the new comes. The hero did not even have time to blink an eye, as the White Dance is already dancing at his own wedding, happily declaring that this is love! Yes, and you don’t need a crowd of guests around, there are the closest ones, it’s better to share happiness with them. Either out of happiness, or according to the good old tradition, Oleg again got drunk “in the firewood” with the bride. In this state, the past makes itself felt - he calls his wife "his sweet girl Sasha" (a reference to the track "I'm bored with life"). A struggle flares up in the heart again between the romantic, kind feelings associated with his wife, and with the lust and passion of that sweet lady who charmed Oleg so long ago, struck to the core, but got lost among the rest, almost the same "women for one night". So Sasha remains just a ghost, inaccessible and left in the past, completely lost because of the ring on her ring finger.
My life is not worth her manicure: "Trap" and "One More Day"
And it seems that here it is happiness, love, young, wedding, diamonds, romance - all the cream of true love! But they, unfortunately, are mercilessly mixed with strong coffee of everyday life, quarrels and disputes. Now our hero is no longer loved, he is a bastard and a scoundrel, in a word, garbage. The wife thinks too much of herself, puts herself above her husband. Is this what Oleg wanted? Hell no! The stamp in the passport really changes everything, time puts everything on the shelves, shows who is who. He got to know her to the end, not so his wife and a beautiful girl who wants to know, on the contrary - a hypocritical whore and a fool. This is how relationships collapse, because imaginary love turned out to be just love.
So our character leaves the house to be distracted, to unwind and wash off the burden of family life, “The unfortunate poet leaves his wife.”
To put himself in order, to forget negative emotions, Oleg comes to the Moulin Rouge, where, it turns out, there are also girls who can capture someone's heart with just one dance. A parallel is drawn between spiritual admiration - that is, the inner world of a person and external attractiveness - it was she who served as bait for a character who despaired of his beloved. An equally important topic is also raised - a girl who sells her body for money is unlikely to believe in someone's love and reciprocate it. Such people do not say warm words - their mission is different. They only let the man know that he is not so bad, that he is capable of much. The most intimate secrets and desires are told to such people, experiences are shared, but who confesses their love to them? Even if we discard this fact, courtesans will not give up their craft for the sake of love, a man in their eyes loses morality. As a result, the character still remains with his wife, despite his prejudices and the understanding that their relationship has become an ordinary routine, a monotonously continuing fall from a cliff.
“One day we will wake up with no one, among dead people, dead ideas…”
Analysis of the track "End of the World"
The morning of another day was not supposed to bring anything new. Everything should have gone according to plan, if not for the damn cell phone that woke me up in the morning. And if yesterday the end of the world was approaching in a life together, today is a harsh reality, this day will be the last for humanity. In a critical situation, love awakens again in the souls of the hero and his passion, seemingly having already left their couple. Against the backdrop of flying saucers and shootings, you no longer want to think about everyday problems, about boredom, you just want to spend the last hours of your life together. How would you spend the last 24 hours? Oleg made his choice in favor of feelings, and this is a big step on his part. At the beginning of the album, we saw a fashionable guy, whom the news of the end of the world would have prompted the idea of another booze, but one that the world has not seen before and will not see after. The main resident of the city of tragedies has completely changed priorities, under the fear of inevitable death, this person finally realized what he really is.
Analysis of the track "Spitting at Eternity": which of the LSP will remain at the end of the world?
"You can take my money! -
For me, this is a trifle.
You can take my women! -
Don't take my courage.
You can take my goals
If you know what to do with them
You can't do one -
Catch this my spit into eternity!”It doesn’t matter to Oleg how much money he has, what kind of women he has, and so on - the essence is the same - after leaving this world, you need to leave some kind of trace to be remembered! Money and women cannot be taken to the afterlife, goals cannot be achieved after death, you can leave something behind, even a small spit. I also want to be different from the rest, not to look like anyone and show my individuality: “My verse in the black space seems so white ...”
The hero admits that his way of life was previously irrational, rather even a dead end:
"Lost in three pines,
I will call them Pussy, Money, Weed…”And life is too short to give it to these three old acquaintances, it will not do honor, will not give honor and respect, is unlikely to lead to merit. And what happiness comes from this?
Interesting? Save it on your wall!
Imagine being read a fairy tale for adults, in which the main character has everything that an average modern young person can only dream of? Money, girls, promiscuity, a sea of alcohol, forbidden hobbies, eternal parties ... But for some reason, our hero, despite his lifestyle, carefree and relaxed, seems unhappy. And gradually, everything that you considered a marvelous story about non-stop fun, one might say, almost imperceptibly turns into tragedy, the fall of the image of the gulena and the reveler, his transformation into an adult, reasonable person, to whom this whole circus has become alien. This is exactly what happens in Tragic City. If the previous album (Magic city) is a story about life without love, but with all the beauty and failures that are found everywhere for young guys, mostly guys aged 16 to 25, then Tragic city is the embodiment of the growing up of the lyrical hero LSP, road to light, to the ability to love, to appreciate not only sex and money, no! Bucks fade into the background. No one says that the hero of the LSP refuses the clubs and bars familiar to him and his circle; sits at home and sips lemonade alone, thinking about the one and only girl who occupied a niche in his heart. He has booze, whores and stuff, but how are we going to look at it now?
Review of tracks from the Tragic city album: primitive or postmodern message?
We flew in the clouds like Pushkin...
"Balls, beauties, lackeys, junkers!" That 200 years ago, that in our time - young people love fun, an idle lifestyle in all its manifestations! In that old time, the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin became famous not only for his great poetic and writing talent, but also for noisy festivities with alcohol, ladies and duels. The very first track in "Magic City" - "Crawl" makes it clear that the hero's mood is still the same - to drink and blow, all this is a long-passed stage, it is powerless against him, but it gives inspiration, allows you to forget about problems. The motto of this man is “grandmothers, women and the game is all that is needed!”. If in “Crawl” the theme of drinking and sleepless nights in clubs is clearly expressed, the next composition raises the theme of sex, corrupt women, it is about ways to plug a hole in the heart.
Analysis of the LSP tracks "Coin" and "Money is not a problem"
“Coin” advertises the hero’s attitude towards girls - no love, no feelings, experiences - and it doesn’t matter who to sleep with, the role is played by a coin flying into the air. Yes, our hero can be understood, there is no love at all in his life, it needs to be replaced with something. If drugs and alcohol didn't help, of course sex will!
If you start listening to the album and finish on these two songs, you might think that we have a typical work of a new school performer - fashion trends, club rhythm, at first glance, tracks that do not carry a special semantic load ... The third work in the album also begins - "Money Problem" . The track is a turning point in the album, a point of no return. Everything we talked about earlier depends on one factor - money. Without money, there would be no drinking, no models, no feeling of superiority, no fun!
"I had a problem - I loved her,
There was money - I forgot about it "This quote embodies Oleg's attitude to finances, determines his position in life.
According to the hero, money cannot betray, lie, quit in a difficult situation, it does not cause difficulties, it helps to overcome them. Despite the rather selfish message, you can see that Oleg’s friends don’t feel sorry for money and girls:
"I am a slave of the golden calf,
And I'm happy to buy whatever my brother wants…” (Money is not a problem)"My boys are here, they want to eat,
They want whores - I have it!
And so they also have
And this is my code of honor
And I take two, although I could take six! (Coin)But the second part of the track allows you to think about the meaning of the above! The hero comes to the conclusion that for him money becomes higher than creativity, higher than an idea. Two elements struggle in his soul - money and songs. Oleg recalls that once upon a time he was happy and with empty pockets. It would seem that in the first verse we have already heard his position - money makes his life better. But, on reflection, the hero comes to the conclusion that they only help him abstract from the harsh realities: his fame and earnings have made many friends hypocrites, people literally stick to LSP for the sake of money, and the girls are now sleeping with him not for his own sake, but for the sake of in order to also grab a piece of the pie. Money kills the thirst for adventure, adventure and the search for something new in this world, there is nothing to dream about - everything is available.
“When the whole world is open before me,
But he's not that interesting anymore...As a result, in order to earn money, you need to work hard. But the more you work, the less time you have to spend, the less time to live, to spend time with loved ones. But despite all the disadvantages, the hero loves his money, because it is impossible to do without them.
Thus, Oleg moves exterioribus ad interior (from the outside to the inside), talking about the frailty of existence, the meaninglessness of fun, telling us about the bright side of his character's soul. We see the hero not only as a debaucher, but also as a romantic, a sensible person, although a sinner, but at the same time not so lost to society as it might seem before. However, one truth is hidden behind all dreams - we are all mortal, sooner or later we will come to God and repent of our sins, although this is not easy. And if before everything was rosy, various kinds of vices attracted, now I want simple human happiness and a sense of freedom from obligations.
Analysis of the track "Body": the poetics of life's wanderings
The fourth work on the album "The Body" not without reason found a response from the audience. The performer allows us to dream, to get lost in our own judgments about life, about our attitude towards it. It is worth noting that the song is very poetic, full of beautiful epithets and metaphors, which creates an atmosphere of abstraction and allows you to plunge into the bowels of the soul. It is noteworthy that the LSP touches on the topic of faith in God:
“Or come to God anyway,
Not embarrassed by the hole in the sock ... "Sounds ambiguous, right? Either believe, or die, or take the first step, taking the will into a fist, and admit its existence, or be ready for death and answer for your sins. Oleg mentioned the Lord more than once in the album and talked about his role in life, but at this stage the hero had not yet come to a final answer.
Reasoning leads to the idea that the body is not made of iron, all the vices that have been passed eventually affected health in one way or another, the past makes itself felt - bringing pleasure becomes only a bad habit. For the sake of these habits, we cheat, spend money on them, so that in the end ... Just die. The moral is simple: as a result of something, we will all end up in the grave, before death we are all equal. But when and how? Will we all make it? And if we do, does it matter to anyone?
With these thoughts, the main character decides to leave the Magic City, bored with its monotony, fornication and the lack of at least something sacred. It's time to get on the right path, to disentangle the mess that you have made!
“Who will help? — The devil knows!
Maybe God…”Last Sunday in the old image, the last time the repetition of everyday entertainment and the full realization that they have become simply boring.
New Chapter: Labyrinth of Reflections
Many remember the feeling of first love, the feeling of happy ignorance, expectation and lightness. It seems that there is no person who has never fallen in love. So our hero is no exception. Before, he didn’t even have the thought that he wanted to get to know the girl better, to explore her inner world! Who would have thought, but we see excitement, fear of losing a person, longing not for someone's forms and skills in bed, but for the soul. Happiness, as it turned out, is not in sex, but in love. Here it is, a stopper for a heart with a hole in it. Love has taken possession of the character so much that he is ready to give up everything for the sake of this girl, but not all at once, because they know each other so little.
Analysis of the track "White Dance"
As in romantic films, time passes quickly, moments pass imperceptibly, the old is forgotten and the new comes. Before the hero even blinks an eye, the White Dance is already dancing at his own wedding, happily declaring that this is love! Yes, and you don’t need a crowd of guests around, there are the closest ones, it’s better to share happiness with them. Either out of happiness, or according to the good old tradition, Oleg again got drunk “in the firewood” with the bride. In this state, the past makes itself felt - he calls his wife "his sweet girl Sasha" (a reference to the track "I'm bored with life"). A struggle flares up in the heart again between the romantic, kind feelings associated with his wife, and with the lust and passion of that sweet lady who charmed Oleg so long ago, struck to the core, but got lost among the rest, almost the same "women for one night". So Sasha remains just a ghost, inaccessible and left in the past, completely lost because of the ring on her ring finger.
My life is not worth her manicure: "Trap" and "One More Day"
And it seems that here it is happiness, love, young, wedding, diamonds, romance - all the cream of true love! But they, unfortunately, are mercilessly mixed with strong coffee of everyday life, quarrels and disputes. Now our hero is no longer loved, he is a bastard and a scoundrel, in a word, garbage. The wife thinks too much of herself, puts herself above her husband. Is this what Oleg wanted? Hell no! The stamp in the passport really changes everything, time puts everything on the shelves, shows who is who. He got to know her to the end, not so much his wife and a beautiful girl who wants to know, on the contrary - a hypocritical whore and a fool. This is how relationships collapse, because imaginary love turned out to be just love.
So our character leaves the house to be distracted, to unwind and wash off the burden of family life, “The unfortunate poet leaves his wife.”
To put himself in order, to forget negative emotions, Oleg comes to the Moulin Rouge, where, it turns out, there are also girls who can capture someone's heart with just one dance. A parallel is drawn between spiritual admiration - that is, the inner world of a person and external attractiveness - it was she who served as bait for a character who despaired of his beloved. An equally important topic is also raised - a girl who sells her body for money is unlikely to believe in someone's love and reciprocate it. Such people do not say warm words - their mission is different. They only let the man know that he is not so bad, that he is capable of much. The most intimate secrets and desires are told to such people, experiences are shared, but who confesses their love to them? Even if we discard this fact, courtesans will not give up their craft for the sake of love, a man in their eyes loses morality. As a result, the character still remains with his wife, despite his prejudices and the understanding that their relationship has become an ordinary routine, a monotonously continuing fall from a cliff.
“One day we will wake up with no one, among dead people, dead ideas…”
Analysis of the track "End of the World"
The morning of another day was not supposed to bring anything new. Everything should have gone according to plan, if not for the damn cell phone that woke me up in the morning. And if yesterday the end of the world was approaching in a life together, today is a harsh reality, this day will be the last for humanity. In a critical situation, love awakens again in the souls of the hero and his passion, seemingly having already left their couple. Against the backdrop of flying saucers and shootings, you no longer want to think about everyday problems, about boredom, you just want to spend the last hours of your life together. How would you spend the last 24 hours? Oleg made his choice in favor of feelings, and this is a big step on his part. At the beginning of the album, we saw a fashionable guy, whom the news of the end of the world would have prompted the idea of another booze, but one that the world has not seen before and will not see after. The main resident of the city of tragedies has completely changed priorities, under the fear of inevitable death, this person finally realized what he really is.
Analysis of the track "Spitting at Eternity": which of the LSP will remain at the end of the world?
"You can take my money! -
For me, this is a trifle.
You can take my women! —
Don't take my courage.
You can take my goals
If you know what to do with them
You can't do one -
Catch this my spit into eternity!”It doesn’t matter to Oleg how much money he has, what kind of women he has, and so on - the essence is the same - after leaving this world, you need to leave some kind of trace to be remembered! Money and women cannot be taken to the afterlife, goals cannot be achieved after death, you can leave something behind, even a small spit. I also want to be different from the rest, not to look like anyone and show my individuality: “My verse in the black space seems so white ...”
The hero admits that his way of life was previously irrational, rather even a dead end:
"Lost in three pines,
I will call them Pussy, Money, Weed…”And life is too short to give it to these three old acquaintances, it will not do honor, will not give honor and respect, is unlikely to lead to merit. And what happiness comes from this?
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Three years ago, the mainstream of the Russian hip-hop scene, which had already noticeably expanded and absorbed all the most fashionable and relevant, could hardly boast of its authenticity. We had trap in Russian, and battle rap with grime, which were popularized by immigrants, and cloud, and rap rock, and even some echoes of hardcore, but there was nothing really “domestic” in this, except for the language. Hip-hop in the country was divided into two sections: insipid conjuncture and overweight rap from the outcasts from the outback about Russian reality (of course, sometimes done very talentedly). But after that same 2015, rap in Russia finally became independent and began to develop according to its own rules. Rappers began to appear who were no longer embarrassed to experiment and cross different genre (and sub-genre) boundaries, learned to be inspired, not copied, created their own style and “language”, and not just Russified fashionable overseas words, while not losing the understanding of the general public, but even on the contrary, they are in constant dialogue with it. All this applies to a large extent to the Belarusian duet LSP, which makes conceptual music at the intersection of electronics, rock and rhythm and blues.
For several years, LSP created their own separate musical universe, where there is a sweet girl Sasha, there is a dump where bullets are looking for boyfriends, there is a strip club, a brothel, a bar, cruel cocktails, brunettes, brown-haired women - everything a modern lyrical hero needs to isolate himself from the rest of the world and forget. All these characters and locations remind of themselves again and again and grow, change along with their author and his outlook on life. "Tragic City", as it is not difficult to guess from the title, is a continuation of the ideas and history of "Magic City", so the questions are asked on the new album the same, but Oleg answers them in a completely different way. The hero understands that it is impossible to run far from the past, and money is not a panacea for all problems and it is impossible to patch up all the holes with it, just like with alcohol, which is why the apathy and idiosyncrasy of the author to life become more and more tangible in the lyrics from project to project, and the most positive and “bright” song in terms of sound is dedicated to death and the end of the world.
Acid synths and sparse hi-hats, combined with live electric guitar and saxophone parts, give a special charm to the filling of the project. Synthwave influences and a jazzy background allow for very colorful arrangements that complement and exaggerate the overall message of the tracks, while the use of an overdriven guitar helps to add extra tension to the compositions. A symbiosis of retrowave, jazz saxophone and pop-rock groove, painstaking, literally filigree work on sound, bold experiments - all this takes LSP's music to a fundamentally new level and alienates it from the general rap movement in the country.
It's been less than two years and a lot has changed. A quarrel with Twitter essayist Stepan Karma, who voiced the intro to the previous album, a loud scandal with Booking Machine and Oksimiron - all this now does not matter and does not have particularly negative consequences, this is only part of the story that helped the group reach a new level, a lot rethink and record the best album in his discography. All magic is followed by inevitable tragedy, and if “Magic City” is “music for strip clubs where it will never play”, then “Tragic City” is music for sobering-up stations where it will not save anyone.
