The next is an excerpt from the newly revealed ebook Rockin’ the Kremlin: My Unimaginable True Story of Gangsters, Oligarch, and Pop Stars in Putin’s Russia written by David Junk with Fred Bronson, out now on Rowman & Littlefield. David Junk was the primary CEO of Common Music in Moscow, serving to promote artists from Elton John to Mariah Carey in Russia and signing t.A.T.u. and Alsou to Common. Junk additionally opened the primary Common Music workplace in Kyiv, Ukraine, and developed music actuality exhibits for TV in Ukraine. Fred Bronson is a journalist, creator and common contributor to Billboard. He has written three books in regards to the Billboard charts and coated American Idol and Eurovision for Billboard extensively.
Tailored from the ebook Rockin’ the Kremlin: My Unimaginable True Story of Gangsters, Oligarch, and Pop Stars in Putin’s Russia by David Junk with Fred Bronson. Utilized by permission of the writer Rowman & Littlefield. All rights reserved.
The Kiss Heard ‘Around the World
I knew the Moscow-based duo t.A.T.u. was going to be my worldwide breakthrough from the primary second I noticed their controversial video.
I cherished their music. The dynamic vocals had been haunting and the music had an infectious dance beat. The lyrics had been provocative. There was no act like them anyplace on the earth. However I needed to persuade my Russian advertising and marketing and gross sales staff to help me. An act like t.A.T.u. was going to be a danger for everybody. Russia was nonetheless a really illiberal society, regardless of the Soviet Union being lengthy gone. This band could be pushing boundaries.
I gathered the staff in my workplace, plugged t.A.T.u.’s VHS tape into my TV hanging on the wall, and we watched it collectively. Everybody’s mouth dropped watching the notorious scene when Julia and Lena kiss. “No! You can’t signal them. Are you loopy, David?” Asya, my very sensible advertising and marketing director stood up and shouted. “We’re going to catch a lot hell for this, from all people!” I argued, “Don’t you’re keen on how they’re rebelling towards authority? That’s all that kiss is. They’re teenage symbols of a brand new Russia, leaving the previous behind.” That’s when my wonderful radio promoter Sasha Rodmanich spoke up. “The music is a success.” At a document label, that’s all that issues. So with Sasha’s promise the music could be a success at radio, I used to be in a position to rally the staff, together with Asya, who must carry a lot of the burden. We had been going to pursue signing t.A.T.u. However she was proper to be cautious, since I used to be taking Common into uncharted territory.
Homosexuality was a criminal offense within the previous Soviet Union and below Russian legislation, promotion of LGBTQ points was thought of propaganda, punishable with time in jail. Homosexual Russians have all the time been handled as outcasts and subversives by the authorities. So when Julia and Lena overtly embraced homosexual rights and kissed of their first music video, I knew I needed to make a fast resolution that might change my music profession perpetually: ought to I signal probably the most thrilling new music act in Russia (and perhaps the world) to Common, even when it meant risking my visa standing as an American working within the nation and even doable jail time as a result of I angered the 2 strongest establishments within the nation – the federal government and the Russian Orthodox Church?
Each frowned on all issues LGBTQ. Or ought to I draw back from the controversy and miss the perfect alternative I’d ever have to advertise a Russian act all over the world, maybe reaching my wildest dream, being the primary document govt to advertise a Russian band in America? There was no means I used to be going to go on this. I saved my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t find yourself in a Russian jail.
To signal t.A.T.u., I needed to cope with Ivan Shapovalov, a excessive IQ provocateur within the mildew of Intercourse Pistols supervisor Malcom McLaren. He was a manipulative, edgy individual, whose eyes would pierce you whilst you had been in dialog. The band was his thought, and he introduced in songwriters to craft the anarchistic message. He auditioned many ladies and finally selected two Moscow youngsters: Lena Katina, a firey redhead with a head of untamed curls, thought of the affordable one; and Julia Volkova, the sassy brunette manga comic-looking foul mouthed and humorous one. Each had labored in tv and music initiatives as baby actors.
I didn’t know what to anticipate from Ivan as a result of negotiations in Russian present enterprise had been by no means predictable. After the autumn of the Soviet Union, Russia was chaotic, corrupt, and harmful, like Chicago was within the Thirties when Al Capone was declared the FBI’s public enemy No. 1. Russia was the wild, wild east, and their music trade had no guidelines or requirements.
Widespread Western enterprise practices like royalty funds and songwriter copyrights had been international ideas. Payola was rampant. The federal government didn’t help the music trade or musicians’ rights.
The most important impediment was that 90 p.c of all music bought in Russia was printed on counterfeit compact discs, whereas music legally launched by document firms accounted for the opposite 10 p.c. Musicians solely made cash from gross sales of the official releases, so this case made it practically unimaginable for artists to outlive financially. The pirates who made the bootleg CDs bought them in unlawful out of doors markets and kiosks all through the nation whereas native authorities turned a blind eye to all of it. Worse but, the pirates had been managed by organized crime teams that used the proceeds from counterfeit gross sales to fund a number of unlawful actions, together with promoting weapons to terrorists and intercourse trafficking.
Ivan was a troublesome negotiator, and he knew how badly I needed to signal the band. My rival Sony Music had caught wind of my efforts and began courting him whereas I used to be making an attempt to shut the deal. I knew I needed to play to his ego, so when he arrived at our Common workplace to debate a document contract I made certain Asya gave him a tour of our advertising and marketing and gross sales division the place giant cut-out posters of Elton John, U2, and Bon Jovi’s new album releases had been hanging on the wall together with dozens of different posters of Common’s huge roster of superstars, demonstrating that we had been a world label, not a small Russian one. That was my greatest leverage for negotiations. “Why ought to I provide the rights to t.A.T.u.?” Ivan requested, looking at me together with his wild eyes. “I don’t want a document label; the pirates will steal the music from you anyway.” He was proper about that. Piracy would restrict our gross sales. I informed Ivan, “When you signal with me I assure that t.A.T.u’s album would can be promoted by Common not simply in Russia but additionally internationally.” That persuaded him. Common was some of the prestigious American manufacturers on the earth and the most important document firm, and he needed t.A.T.u. to be related to the perfect Western artists.
Ivan demanded $100,000 for the rights to t.A.T.u., which might have made it the most important document deal in Russian present enterprise historical past. He was adamant that he couldn’t settle for something much less. I didn’t imagine him till I found that he had already bought the rights to the primary single to a document label managed by Russian gangsters they usually had already manufactured it.
I acquired indignant with Ivan, and he informed me that he had made a mistake, that he was new to point out enterprise and didn’t know something about music rights. The gangsters had initially paid him $5,000, however now that he was in talks with Common, they needed considerably extra to present the rights again. I didn’t have a lot selection as a result of this wasn’t simply any music. This was the hit single with the infamous music video that will launch t.A.T.u. internationally and prime music charts worldwide. If I didn’t get the only rights again from the gangsters at that exorbitant value, there could be no t.A.T.u.
I needed to maintain my bosses at Common’s headquarters at nighttime about among the unsavory points of the deal. Fortunately, they thought I had accomplished a superb job promoting American rap and hip-hop music in Russia, with Eminem being my greatest success.
Nonetheless, $100,000 was outrageous for an artist from that a part of the world and could be the most important payout in Russian and Jap European historical past. None of my colleagues who ran Common subsidiaries in Jap Europe had ever requested that a lot. In the end, my London bosses agreed to the quantity, and I used the cash to pay Ivan, who paid off the gangsters.
With Common Russia behind the duo, t.A.T.u.’s debut album, 200 Po Vstrechnoy, acquired wider distribution and have become an exceptional success in each Russian metropolis and former Soviet republic, together with Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine. Julia and Lena topped the charts all over the place within the area, and t.A.T.u.’s first music and video hit No. 1 concurrently on pop radio and MTV in 2000.
Their music first appealed to homosexual and lesbian youth, then unfold to a a lot bigger viewers of disaffected teenagers. They took off like a wildfire all through the previous U.S.S.R. Stadiums had been bought out and crowds of followers had been labored up right into a frenzy with Julia and Lena’s provocative performances. It was Russia’s model of Beatlemania. My Jap European colleagues took discover of that as a result of all of them had sizable teenage Russian-speaking populations of their international locations and sensed a success for his or her markets. On that rating, t.A.T.u.’s album delivered, topping the charts in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland.
We had been on the point of launch 200 Po Vstrechnoy in Germany, however I knew that t.A.T.u. would by no means transcend Russian-speaking audiences in Jap Europe except they recorded in English for Western markets.
We would have liked a associate to assist make a t.A.T.u. album in English. We would have liked to rewrite and re-record the songs, and we would have liked a much bigger, extra highly effective associate ally within our mum or dad firm Common Music Group to shepherd us by means of the method. I needed Common’s full weight behind the discharge.
I went on a street tour of all of all the corporate’s workplaces seeking assist. We informed everybody that t.A.T.u. was on the way in which up, promoting out concert events all over the place and climbing the charts in Bulgaria, Poland, and Hungary. If they’d an English-language launch, I mentioned, they might develop into a world act. Sadly, no one was focused on partnering with us.
Wherever we went – Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, London, anyplace Common had an workplace – the reply was all the time no. When folks from the label noticed footage of them kissing on stage, it made them uncomfortable, and when Lena and Julia invited boys onstage to do the identical, my colleagues had been too nervous to help us.
One other subject for the executives was my aim of breaking t.A.T.u. into the American market. They must compete with American pop stars like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, boy bands just like the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC and large pop acts from the U.Okay. My colleagues arrogantly dismissed the potential for a band not from America or the U.Okay. to have a success of their markets.
My street tour was a bust, so I went again to Moscow and mailed packages with the Russian album and movies out to all of the remaining labels within the Common Music Group that we hadn’t visited. We saved getting turned down. It felt like we’d by no means discover a associate – till immediately I obtained a telephone name from Interscope Information in Los Angeles, a subsidiary label of Common and the most popular document firm in America.
I used to be stunned that Interscope was . Their roster included No Doubt, Marilyn Manson, the Black Eyed Peas, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Nelly, and Blink-182 – among the hottest acts on the earth. They actually didn’t want us. Nonetheless, I had accomplished nicely promoting their artists in Russia, so there was already a symbiotic relationship in place.
I had despatched our package deal to the label’s co-founder, Jimmy Iovine. He was probably the most highly effective document govt on the earth, and earlier than forming the label, he had produced among the most outstanding artists of all time, together with Tom Petty, U2, and Stevie Nicks. He despatched t.A.T.u.’s Russian-language CD to British producer Trevor Horn, who had helmed very profitable information for artists like Seal and Sure. He had additionally been within the Buggles, whose “Video Killed The Radio Star” was the primary video ever proven on MTV.
He cherished the t.A.T.u. CD and was very smitten by working with Julia and Lena. He had been a ground-breaking pioneer within the U.Okay. music trade, producing the overtly homosexual act Frankie Goes To Hollywood. I suspected that t.A.T.u. breaking by means of boundaries in Russia and Jap Europe hit a nerve with him. He simply had one query: “Can they sing in English?”