Belarusian Generation Y logbook

One of the most widely recognized musicians of the modern Belarusian alternative music scene, Lyavon Volski, presented a horror-video for the song “Eurovision” from his solo-album to be released soon. The video will be available at TUT.by portal from April 1st till April 8th.

The new song is confusing and surprising even to the old fans of Krambambulya, which is known for eccentricity and creativity. “Eurovision” is a 100% minimalistic horror-video, which was recorded using an old Kurzweil music sequencer. You can find it following this link.

The lyrics of the song correspond with its arrangement. The refrain says “I sing so well, that I will definitely go to the Eurovision song contest!“.

As it was previously explained, there are two music worlds in Belarus. One is predominantly Russian speaking official pop-singers, who desperately try to copy the Russian pop-stage in almost everything and who also enjoy a wide support from the state in form of the concerts, TV shows and open-air. The other world is predominantly Belarusian-speaking, more alternative in the topics and creativity. Until recently the 2nd world was actively pushed by the state out of the people’s attention.

The preparation for the Eurovision song contest is a big thing in Belarus. The victory of Belarusian kids, who took the first prizes in Eurovision-junior song contest in 2005 and 2007, and the 6th place of Dmitry Koldun in Eurovision 2007 are the only achievements of Belarus at the international arena to be proud of (together with the Belarusian models who also often take first places at the respective contests). As a result the very importance of the participation in the contest is made equal to a national achievement. Since Russian producers often promote their favorites to the contest through neighboring countries and many people do not believe the telephone voting during the selection, it raises a big amount of scandals and fights between those who think they will be a better representative of Belarus at the Eurovision contest.

The reputation of Eurovision as a pop-contest with all the songs almost the same makes rock-musician smile while watching it from outside. Lyavon Volski, who is also a rock-legend for the Belarusian youth, shares that the idea of the presented song “Eurovision” came to him in a dream:

I was dreaming that I am participating in the selection of the possible representatives of Belarus at “Eurovision”. I was wearing a glamorous white suite, half-naked girls were dancing around me and I was singing something slow and melodic and the audience was dancing as if it was a rave track. I woke up in the middle of the night because of my own laughter.

The video was made by a group of young animators from Miensk under the supervision of Yauhien Novash, whose previous works Volski got through his acquaintances.

Lyavon explains:

I thought that their black humor and horror-style will be very relevant to the material of this kind. Especially all these pseudo-scary things with the tomato sauce.

Video’s director, Yauhen Novash, accepts that they took the annual fuss around the selection for Eurovision song contest and their own emotions as a basis for the clip.

You know, every time when I hear about a new scandal during the selection for Eurovision in Belarus or other countries, I always imagine real fights, which they never show on TV. We tried to create something on this topic. In general I think that one could make a full-length movie about Eurovision. It will be cooler that “The Scream”.

The video finishes with a phrase “Tomato sauce is the sponsor of the good mood”. In the comments to the news about the presented video, which was released on the Day of a Fool (April 1st), some people mentioned that the song itself after little more arrangement could definitely win the Eurovision song contest.

Photos from the last selection concert for the Eurovision 2008 you can find in our PhotoBlog.

“Palac”, a Belarusian-speaking folk-pop band, which had been forbidden until recently, was one of the candidates to represent Belarus in Belgrade but was not selected by the jury.