I Want My MuzTV

You might think that all Georgians listen to is traditional Georgian music, straight from the 6th-century Caucasus and into their CD players. While they do listen to their share of traditional music-- a practice I'm 100% in favor of because their traditional music sounds cool and old and has lots of chords that resolve into fifths-- there's other stuff around, too. If you think a little harder, you might smack yourself in the forehead and realize that, of course, they listen to American pop, as well. What red-blooded Georgian wouldn't want to hear "Stars Are Blind" by Paris Hilton five times a day? I could probably count the number of students in my classes who don't have at least one Pussycat Dolls song on their cell phones with one hand.

Now think a little harder. Georgian pop, you say? Yes, it exists. Georgian rap, even, and Georgian R&B, all of which gets played on the radio station Ar Daidardo; the name translates to "Don't Worry," and since the station only plays Georgian tunes, I can only infer that the true meaning of the station name is "Don't worry about foreigners."

Let's dig a little deeper, though. If you were a post-Soviet republic, where would you look for pop culture? The Soviet Union! But since that dissolved over fifteen years ago... Russia!


Enter MuzTV, the cornerstone of my Peace Corps television-viewing experience. In those rare moments between the five hours of Latin American soap operas in the evening and the five hours of Latin American soap opera reruns the next morning, sometimes I can sneak downstairs and put on my dear sweet MuzTV, bastion of all that is recent. Perhaps we get our American pop songs a few months after you do. Perhaps most of the songs are Russian, anyway. It's music videos! It's new! It's (occasionally) English!

During my visit to the US, many conversations went like this:

My sister: Man, Minnesota stations don't play any good jamz.
Me: Speaking of jamz, did you see that new Timbaland video?
My sister: WILL YOU STOP ASKING ME IF I'VE SEEN MUSIC VIDEOS?!?!
Mom: Be nice to your sister.
My sister: But Mom, she always--
Mom: She's just a little out of touch. She'll come out of it.
Me: Like in that Fallout Boy video.


But the secret love that I couldn't share with my family and friends, no matter how many burned CDs I distributed, was my love for Russian pop. I walk around the house singing the first line of "Bostochnaya Skazka" because I don't know enough Russian to understand the rest. I find Valeri Meladze's machismo to be tolerable because he's representin' for the Georgians on the Russian pop scene. I wish I knew what the song "LML" was about, though Via Gra's better song is definitely "Tzvietok i Nozh."

The women are identical, blonde and gorgeous, and the men are portrayed as sex symbols of a kind we usually don't see in the US. Case in point...



DIMA BILAN! Most of his latest hits have been in English, which makes me think that maybe he's shooting for a crossover. For the record, he is a very pretty man, and some of his songs are catchy, especially "See What I See." He's a pop star in Russia of the same mega-level as Justin Timberlake in the US, and if he continues to pronounce "won't you" as "won'tcha" in his songs, then maybe he does stand a chance in the American market... except for one thing. The mullet.


Dima Bilan, if you read my blog: lose the mullet. PLEASE. The mere presence of this mullet makes me wonder if maybe his English songs are only in English because it sounds cool; I refuse to believe that any kind of PR handler would put so much effort into making his English sound believeable, and then send him onstage with a mullet. Of course I'm projecting American culture to an excessive degree by writing here that mullets are unacceptable in any form-- especially since the mullet is popular among Georgian teenage girls (ladies-- the above mullet message applies to you, too)-- and if he's planning on sticking around Moscow, his mullet waving in the breeze next to Red Square, then that's fine. I'm just saying, if the man is looking for a crossover, business in the front/party in the back is not the way to do it.

In abrupt sum, MuzTV is a godsend. Except for those countdown shows it airs in the evening, where I can't identify the overarching theme of the countdown because it's in Russian with no cognates, so I have to wonder how Bruce Willis, Paris Hilton, Jennifer Aniston, and Antonio Banderas all fall under the category of "Something Something Love Something." But other than that, ochin liubliu MuzTV.