Allj featuring Feduk – Rozovoye Vino

Introduction

After doing a little research, I decided to change the chart I use to find the songs I want to review. Instead of using Муз-TV, I want to start using TopHit.ru mainly because it seems to use a better metric to find the most popular songs. It uses radio play as well as YouTube views to help it determine the top songs in Russia as well as Ukraine whereas I think Муз-TV concentrated more on what it plays on its own channel.

With that said, I introduce to you this week’s song: Allj featuring Feduk – Rozovoye Vino! According to TopHit.ru, this song has been number one on their chart since the week of September 18, 2017.  Both of these artists are pretty new to me and I have only heard one other Allj song, which is called “Рваные Джинсы” which seemed pretty cool. I was kind of taken aback by the contacts he must be wearing, which make his eyes look like they’re pure white. Music is all about image, so this is his thing. Why not?

Since I didn’t know much about either rapper, I decided to read short biographies of each of them, which you can read as well (for Элджей and Feduk). I used these biographies since neither of them seem to have Wikipedia pages yet. Both rappers started making music around 2009 but Feduk became more popular sooner than Элджей, when in 2012 he was able to write music for a soundtrack. It seems like in 2016, Элджей really started to get more mainstream attention with his most recent album Sayonara Boy.

Things I liked about the song

While I do have a YouTube link here in the blog, this song actually doesn’t have a music video. I think that’s pretty telling for just how popular it must be in Russia that it doesn’t seem to even need one to help promote itself!

When I first listened to it, I noticed that the music seems fairly minimalist, which I really like. I think it sounds great and the lack of complexity of the background music lets the rap really shine.

Speaking of the rap, I really liked how this song doesn’t try to depend on a chorus sung in some kind of R&B style like so many mainstream rap songs do these days. The chorus is sing-song but not fully sung and I think that’s great. It’s cool to hear just a rap song.

I think the effects they put on the voice during the chorus sounds really cool too. They make Элджей’s voice sound big! Also, I kind of like his voice during the verse parts too. It’s very distinctive. Lastly, I really like the voice sampling at the end of the song with the chorus out-tro.

Things I didn’t like about the song

The chorus out-tro actually brings me to something I didn’t like about this song. That’s the fact that I think it would have been a bit cooler if they chose to have the song fade out rather than abruptly end like it does. I think that would fit the feeling of the song better. It’s mainly about going out and having a great time, so why not just fade out like it could continue for a while rather than end on a whimper like it does now?

The other thing I don’t particularly like about this song is sometimes I think the background voice work just doesn’t sound good or doesn’t fit well. I found a few parts with the background voice especially in the first verse just seemed strange. It’s fast, so you can get over it quickly.

Words I learned

Something I forgot to mention that I liked, which is more apparent when you take a look at the lyrics is that rozovoye vino is not in them! It’s really cool they just named the song that and it’s not part of the chorus or anything. This song has several words I didn’t know:

From the chorus:

Вата – cotton

“Эти облака – фиолетовая вата.” I’m kind of surprised I didn’t know the word for cotton but actually I also wonder where it would have come up in my education in Russian. The line translates as “These clouds are like violet cotton.”

From the first verse

Угорать – to crack up, to have fun

Here’s the line from the lyrics: “Я хочу угорать, я хочу угорать.” Once you know the verb, it’s simple: “I want to have fun, I want to have fun”

Хавать – to lap up, chow down

“No stress. Хаваем, как M&M’s dance, dance.” This is a word I haven’t heard before, so it’s cool to get a word that seems to have that kind of feeling for eating that I didn’t know how to express.

Кэс – a thousand rubles (slang)

“Kiss, kiss, вдыхай меня через кэс, через кэс.” When I saw this word in the lyrics, I checked out the side-by-side translation and then I found the link you can click if you click on the word. It’s hard to learn slang in a foreign language since nobody teaches it to you in classes. Listening to music, we can hear some!

Крекс–пекс – magic words like abracadabra, hocus-pocus, or voila (check it out)

“Моя волшебная палочка в твоих руках. Крекс–пекс!” This line translates to something like “My magic wand in your hands – Voila!” We can probably guess what the magic wand is.

Кент – guy, crony, jerk, dude

“Твои кенты-лошки, а я без башки” is the line where this word appears. I wonder where this word comes from.

There are more words from the lyrics that I didn’t know but I am running up on my word limit so I will stop here. Since there are quite a few more words in a rap song, there are already twice as many new words as most of my other entries in just the first verse and chorus!