After the protests of 2020, the art of resistance reached its peak: in just a few months, more than a hundred protest songs of varying degrees of quality were created. After that, there was a predictable decline: repression, forced emigration, and attempts to make a living did not contribute to the emergence of new and high-quality music. The same decline can be seen even now.
When it comes to successful examples, we can mention Akute's new album - "Напалову тут" ["Halfway here"] - in which the band returns to its guitar roots after an ambiguous experiment with electronic sound. Or Gregory Neko's quite successful experiment – a contemporary mix of electronics and jazz-like improvization, which sometimes resembles a currently popular London band The Comet Is Coming. A cool release by band "Союз" - a vivid homage to the Brazilian music of the 1970s with gentle melodies. The album, by the way, received a compliment from the American star Tyler The Creator. The album Hlybini by an accordionist Alaksandr Jasinski, a former member of the Fratrez and Bosae Sonca bands, should be mentioned: an interesting combination of progressive rock, experimental music and jazz, at least from the point of view of the use of the instrument.
But these are all quite well-known names. New Belarusian music lacks a fresh perspective and interesting ideas. On the one hand, this is the result of total state censorship. On the other hand, it is also a question of musical horizons of an artist when an initially secondary product is used as a reference. Thus, music parasitizes genre clichés and tries to conform to certain standards: it sounds either childishly naive or predictable and uninteresting. In the first case, there are timid reasons for optimism, in the second case, one can safely switch on the “grandpa” mode and dwell on the fact that Belarusian music is no longer the same.
In October, a popular TikTok artist kirkiimad released the album “Crowd of Krots”: a compilation of genre clichés of teenage pop music, decorated with a decent sound design. Another example: in September, a new track by a currently popular trio uniqe, nkeeei & Artem Shilovets was released – a song completely devoid of ideas but with 300,000 views on YouTube.
A new Belarusian musician dreams of getting into trends on TikTok or beating the YouTube algorithms. This is a fight with artificial intelligence for the right to exist on the Internet. And the artistic value of expression here has completely secondary importance. For a beginner Belarusian artist deprived of media support, this is the only way to a potential listener. Design and survival tactics are in the first place, artistic value is a nice bonus.
At the same time, the Belarusian language is an important element of creative expression even for Russian-speaking artists. This is a legal expression of a position and a painless attempt to say something that supposedly cannot be said. For many musicians, this is a difficult philological experience, so it turns out to be inappropriate, to put it mildly. The lyrics of the songs are created based on the school course of Belarusian and Google, so they limp on both legs with Russian words and weak rhymes. The question of whether it is for better or for worse is debatable and does not require an answer.
A vivid example is the song "Дзікунка" (“Savage”) by a young singer Iva Sativa. This is an attempt to combine the Belarusian language and a fashionable beat, but the attempt is quite weak. It can be seen that in the artist's mind, Belarusian culture is a clichéd image of grandmother's singing about maidens and round dances, through which ridiculous lines appear: “Карацей кажучы, ну што б ты панімаў, гэта Беларусь, ёў, ацані запал” ("In short, well, so that you understand, this is Belarus, hey, check out the passion.")