Dora & Tanny Volkova – Doradoera
Dora, or Дора, also known as mentaldora, actually Дарья Шиханова, comes from Саратов ( Saratov) and was born in 1999. A young twentysomething, but presents herself as even younger. She describes her music as ‘cute rock,’ and that probably has something to do with it.
Superdoera
In Дорадура (Doradoera), Dora talks about herself. Because Dora goes through things, and things go wrong. With dates and such. Flights of fancy from the heart. All because (всё потому, что) Dora is a fool (Дора – дура): Dora is a fool. Dora is even Супер-дура, a super fool, superdoeradoradoera. Pretty catchy, and it’s fun to try to follow along with that alliteration, but it leans quite a bit toward teen pop. Especially when you see the video that is not allowed here. There’s also a lyric video, a karaoke piano version, and an acoustic performance, none of which are allowed or available.
Tanny Volkova
Fortunately, there’s Tanny Volkova (Таня Волкова), also born in 1999, from Odessa, Ukraine – but Tanny speaks Russian, and she raps too. Originally a vlogger, which shows in her introduction to Doradoera. Where she says that this is not really a cover, but her version. With guitar, bass, and drums, which balances out the sweetness, making it sound simply super.
With a comment from Dora herself under the video on YouTube: Да хватит прикидываться, ты же и есть Дора (stop pretending, you are Dora), but she is doing Tanny a disservice there.
Sisterly
A meeting had to happen, and a joint version too. At the same time, a little competition over who can look most like they’re still fifteen. See Поем песни с Дорой (singing songs with Dora, 2020, 7 min), announced in встреча с моей… сестрой?? (meeting with my… sister??, 2020, 9 min), with the crowning moment being the version below.
More Dora on
Instagram,
Spotify, and
VK; portrait/биография on
24 сми.
More Tanny on
Instagram and
YouTube; portrait/биография on
24 сми.
Most of the music here is also in an
R1 playlist on YouTube (in order of release).
See also
Best Russian Music and
Russian Song Lyrics.
More
Music
Anyone who wants to present Russian music cannot ignore Zemfira. Popular and mainstream – millions of records sold – but also distinctly idiosyncratic. The music is usually accessible (we categorize it under Pop), but the attitude is rock.
Raw Anti-Putin punk from
Nizhny Novgorod /
Нижний Новгород. Loosely based on ‘Maggie’ by The Exploited.
From the green city of
Zelenograd /
Зеленоград. Dreamy indie-folk with a melancholic undertone. Created by
Mikhail Rodionov (1992).
The alarm blares (Ревёт тревога), the road awaits (ждёт дорога). They are many (Их немало), we are few (нас немного). We are in an unjust world (Мы в несправедливом мире) tin wolves in the shooting range (Жестяные волки в тире).
The word offret is Swedish and means ‘sacrifice’; the band Offret is Russian and makes heavy music. The link between the word and the band: a
1986 film in Swedish by the Russian Andrei Tarkovsky.
A band from Saint Petersburg that makes a kind of post-punk/indie-pop. Not for long yet, so not much material yet. However, they already have a few very successful tracks with original music videos. До свиданья, дорогая is the
Russian title for the film
The Goodbye Girl (1977), but it has nothing to do with it.
