Televizor

About

Televizor were one of the few political rock bands in the Soviet Union, and they've been loudly anti authoritarian ever since. Formed in Saint Petersburg in 1984, back when the city was still Leningrad, the gothic rock and industrial group came up through the Leningrad Rock Club, with Mikhail Borzykin as founder and frontman. Their 1987 album Otechestvo Illyuziy is often ranked among the best records in Russian rock history, and "Your Papa Is a Fascist" remains one of their best known songs. The sound pulls from Talking Heads, The Cure, Cocteau Twins, Depeche Mode and The Smiths, while Borzykin's lyrics lean on Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, the Strugatsky brothers, Bulgakov and Hermann Hesse. Over the decades they've called out Vladimir Putin in their songs, including "Ty prosti nas, Ukraina", which they played in Kyiv in 2015. Their studio catalogue runs from 1985's Shestvie Ryb to 2016's Ikhtiozavr, and their songs made it onto the Legends of Russian Rock collection.