Second season. Industrious approach. Maks Fadeev.


So where was the russian show business all these years, and why it did not can get a traction during this fruitful period.

The backbone of show business are producers. In a half cases they were a prolific composer, who wrote for numerous groups and artists, in another half cases it were not trustworthy entrepreneurs, who for whatever reason it was decided to dabble in artist‘s promotion. And in a some ridiculous cases producers were just husbands of women with ambitions of pop-star.

Let‘s talk about the real ones. We already met the specie of this kind. Igor Matvienko composer, producer, and creator, who stayed behind the group Ivanushki International. In these years of a high period of the wave he put together another two hugely successful groups Korni and Fabrika, boys‘s band and girls‘ band respectively. They were not a cult group, but they were fine.

Another example that we can bring to bear is Maks Fadeev he produced many great hits, but no great artists. It happens sometimes. So he creates many artist and groups that had one great hit and then fall into oblivion. He was bigger than his artists.

The scheme was that the producer-composer concieved an idea, then searched for young attractive people with potential ability to decent sing, dance, or perform. Then put together a group, with members bonded with obligation to him according a signed contract. They issued a music material. Then became popular, and went on a tours.

This process was aired on tv. The first two season of tv programm Fabrika Zvezd (Star‘s Factory) were great. It was a reality show where twenty young performers live through a process of boasting their performer‘s ability and getting a contract with famous producer. In a first season the producer role belonged to Igor Matvienko, for the second season this role was played by Maks Fadeev. The peculiarity of this show was that they really create a pretty decent artists from very raw material that they had. And groups that appeared during the show became really popular and stayed on russian pop scene long after the show had ended. We can named artists such as above mentioned Korni and Fabrika, or for example for the second season Yulya Savicheva.

These groups and artists evolved in a business model, so there is no pivotal album, there are a bunch of hits which they issued occasionally, such as for a new season, summer hit, christmas hit and etc. How can someone recognize an indespensable listening in this case, it`s simple if the clip was shot, there is the possibility that the song was asumed to be good enough for promoting. All other songs with notable exceptions thoug is just an album filler recorded to complete to the album two-three noteworthy singles.

The model fifty-fifty worked for pop for another two-three seasons. But after that it began stutter.

First, there is no infrastructure for musical tours in russian federation. One hand is enough to count big concert venues. In most cities concert must take place on an theater scene with sitting audience only, or in a night clubs, where space is restricted. So there is no specialized halls convenient for concert goers and suited well for artists.

Second, the show business is a shadow zone even in a more developed countries. In russian federation you shouldn`t trust your contragents. Embezzlers are everywhere. If you buy ticket the concert may or may not take a place for a numbers of reasons. People who booked your group for concert in a particular town may turn to be a con artist, when it`s time to settle afterevent payments.

Third, the huge chunk of pop scene is backed by government money. It is hard to compete with the state. The government do not need money, for them it is big expense not profit that matters. State`s money fend off not only independent artist, but also even professional show business producers from the market. Russian federation`s clique promote old soviet artists which can only provoke barfs from the listeners or viewers. So if you are a producer and want to compete not with goverment but for goverment money, then you sell your soul and your audience, fan base, and everything in between.

It was surprisingly long while russian producers had been balancing between catering to audience and satisfying the state. But everything has its end. They were excelent though and immensely musically endowed after all.