Peculiarities of the post-countercultural epoch of Russian rock

By the early 1990s, most Russian rock musicians realise that the "heroic" epoch (1980s) of Russian rock ended, so to speak, in nothing. The key reason is that the destructive pathos of the countercultural type of the rock culture step by step becomes total and starts destroying Russian rock from inside. The notion of romantic rebellion aiming to win at any cost looses its sense. The absurdity of this struggle is due to the fact that the object of confrontation is not defined (it is actually absent), and the rock culture itself becomes a part of the "enemy" system, a voice of illusory changes. As a result, the total protest wanting a "triumph" of freedom and mind longing for mental and social changes ended up in a total "defeat" of the "rock heroes", which determined the further development of the whole rock culture - and it may be described in terms of self-destruction. Destabisation of the notions of victory and romantic rebellion that are central for the Russian rock "heroic" aesthetics discredits the notion of counterculture that begins to be perceived as artificial. At the same time, the romantic version of the rock aesthetics gets neutralised and the romantic type of consciousness is destroyed. After transition of rock music into the mass culture space two specific and divergent forms of rock culture emerge. The first one is actualised on the art culture level. Representatives of the "traditional" rock art form do not accept the "artificial", simulative reality where it is impossible to distinguish a copy from the original and a lie from the truth. They deny the pseudoart of phonograms and corporate parties and speak for an honest and free art while continuing to spread the word of truth. The second form of rock music, completely "dissolved" in the mass culture space, belongs to the levels of media and kitch cultures. It is a hybrid musical, textual and image form which is deliberately simplified, eclectic and adapted for the mass consciousness. This is not only a music style based on the principles of secondary synthesis (artificial mixing) of rock and pop elements, but also a reflection of a particular type of consciousness defining the peculiarities of a person's mind and behaviour. The author shall call this form of rock rockapops. It is important to notice that rockapops is a heterogenous phenomenon, just like the mass culture space bringing it to life. At present, there are two main types of rockapops and each of them may be correlated with a certain type of personality. It is the glamour type of a rock musician personality that is formed within the purified glamour rockapops version and the simulatively heroic type of personality within the aggressively destructive version.

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