Host:
Music and sex make a hot combination, and are raising a storm of a discussion once again. Successors of Madonna and Britney come from Russia, and again, limits are crossed and rules broken. Welcome to 4Pop, we are gonna interview the girlband Tatu and specialists of the music business, sexuality and culture.
Short clip of "Ya Soshla S Uma" shown.
Host:
Tatu has already been rocking our eastern neighbor for 2 years now. Muscovites, Yulia and Lena, have sold over a million records there, and the amount of pirated CDs sold cannot even be estimated. Now, the girls are trying to breakthrough internationally, and are travelling around the world to give interviews. So, judging from all this, this interview should have been a pretty normal band interview, but it didn't turn out that way. Maybe the girls were just too tired.
Girls Interview Time.
In English:
Host: When did you last get an hour of sleep?
Lena laughs.
In Russian:
Yulia: (Misunderstanding the question.) When can we sleep?
Lena: No. When was the last time we slept?
In English:
Yulia: Today.
Lena: What... What do you mean? Like, like, sleep, like what sleep? Like f*cking or like sleeping? (Lena gestures the motions she describes.)
Yulia: (In Russian.) Ask him. Sleep or just relax? What does he mean? When was the last time he slept?
Lena: Like f*cking or like sleeping?
Yulia: (In Russian.) When was the last time he f*cked?
Host: I meant sleeping, but I can ask the both questions. But first sleeping.
Lena: Uh...
Yulia: (In Russian.) When was the last time he f*cked?
Lena: When did you last time... f*ckin'?
Tomi Hottonen, researcher of Russian literature:
Tatu is extremely popular in Russia and this kind of acting is popular among teens. So girls like to act like this in public and like to show their sexual orientation and their relationship in public.
Girls Interview Time.
In English:
Host: When you started the band, what was the musical idea for the band?
Lena: To establish our life. In our songs, in our videos. For example, Julia likes to masturbate in our last video, it's just, like, Julia is masturbate in the, in the bathroom.
Gimmel, crappy Finnish "Popstars" band. (Not my words, but ¤xxx¤'s words. Lol! I love them subtitles. They is funneh. -E.)
Jenni: I like their hit song (ATTSS) very much.
Suski: I and Jenni have their records and t-shirts.
Jenni: And their video is really good, it fits the music perfectly.
Girls.
Yulia yawns, and Lena gives the camera the finger. (Aren't they just adorable? Har, har. -E.)
Katja Stahl, works in different areas of pop:
When they first showed it to me on "Levyraati" (Music rating TV program), I thought it, "Pretty nice, I'll think about it," but then, they told me that this is a lesbian band, and the video is lesbian-oriented. Then I thought that this could bring up a discussion, but I haven't used it so far (in Levyraati).
Girls Interview Time.
In English:
Lena: We are homosexualists. (Lena cracks up at herself.) (Their choice of words is just THE most funny thing. -E.)
Sari Virtanen, editor-in-chief of the Gayculture magazine "Z":
Some people will get angry about this. But some people might think that if everything gets commercialized, why couldn't we commercialize the feelings between women or men. So, they will think it's fine.
YSSU shown again.
Host:
Sex is the best way to market, no matter what your product is. With Tatu, the music industry breaks the limits yet again.
Girls Interview Time
In English:
Host: Why sex so important in music?
Lena: In music? Uh... We're not having sex in music. We're, uh...
Yulia: (In Russian.) Tell him that sometimes we do it in the studio. If we're singing or dancing.
Lena: Sometimes, maybe... on the... on the studio, when we're just tired of making music, we have sex...
Yulia: (In Russian.) When singing or dancing, say.
Lena: For example, in the bathroom.
Yulia: (In Russian.) Tell him it's because of emotions.
Lena: It's emotions.
Katja Stahl: Sex and music have always been connected in some kind of perverted way. I just read the biography of the Motley Crue, which is really an extreme demonstration of how they are connected with each other. It's pretty surprising how tightly they are connected. Reason has no room when feelings and lust lead the way.
Girls.
While Lena's saying something (that I can't make out -E.), Yulia's making some pretty amusing motions while almost singing.
In Russian:
Yulia: Move ahead with ease. You're needed in the hold. [In this case, 'hold' refers to the area under the deck of a vessel where cargo is stored. I think this must be some kind of Russian rhyme or verse or something of that sort. -yul.]
They both laugh.
Katja Stahl: Madonna is a good example, because she made it so big. She presented herself as a sex symbol, not just trying to wake feelings in other people.
Girls Interview Time.
Yulia claps her hands. (Whee? -E.)
In English:
Lena: With the... thing, you know, which thing... (She's trying to demonstrate what she means with her hands and laughs.)
Gimmel are talking amongst each other in Finnish.
Host: Where do you draw the line?
Jenni: We won't talk about "them".
Ushma: This shirt is the limit. (Laughing.)
YSSU shown again.
Host:
Tatu is not the first band to be openly homosexual. The international producer of Tatu, Trevor Horn has previously worked with gay-bands Pet Shop Boys and Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Being openly gay is not enough anymore, Tatu attracts more attention with their openness.
Girls Interview Time.
In English:
Host: I'm sure you've heard that a lot of people have said that you're not really lesbians, that it's just an image. How do you reply to that?
Lena: Everybody has theirs own opinion.
Yulia: (In Russian, mumbling.) What?
Sari Virtanen: In a way it shouldn't be important if they are gay or bisexual. It's not anybody's business, and I don't think it's a sin to use it to market them. The sexuality of heterosexuals has always been used, why couldn't they use theirs?
Jenni: It's a good marketing gimmick, it attracts attention because it's taboo.
Girls Interview Time.
Lena's laughing again.
In English:
Host: Why do you want to talk about sex so badly? I didn't bring it up.
Yulia: We like sex.
Lena: But we can't do it... Because we have no... (Making a gesture to demonstrate "what every boy" has.)
Yulia: Time.
Lena: No time. This, this... (Still gesturing.) What every boy have. (Some more laughing.)
Sari Virtanen: It's their way to get attention and shock the interviewr and TV viewers, by playing that they have something "going on" there. It might be the only option left. After this, comes, maybe, violence.
Girls Interview Time.
In English:
Manager: (Beata? -E.) I'm manager.
Host: Well, how do you manage two lesbians who are this crazy?
Yulia: (In Russian.) This is our manager, who, by the way, is with us every night.
Lena laughs.
Manager: Yeah, it's, it's just being all together. Like, all the time together.
Yulia: (In Russian.) We turn each other on together.
Manager: Sometimes, like all together--
Lena: Every night and every day, we are all together. We making love... by three. (They're all just laughing.)
Manager: This is how we--
Lena: F*ck. (More laughing.)
Manager: This is how we just understand each other.
Katja Stahl: I think that the fact that their manager lets them talk like that, about dildos and stuff, shows that they are on a "short path". They want to have contraversy around them more than anything, and then say, like, "By the way, we have this record here also."
Girls Interview Time.
In English:
Host: What is your new CD like?
Lena: Our new CD? You mean, our album? We're working on. And we don't want to speak about our new CD because nobody would be... uh... Nobody will be interested in this if we... if we say everything about our CD, so...
Yulia leans over and tells the host/interviewer something.
An exerpt of "Nas Ne Dogonyat" shown.
Host:
Tatu is just as "created" a band as Gimmel. Tatu was created by psychologist Ivan Shapovalov. The distinction of Tatu from a Western and Finnish point of view can partly be explained with differences in culture. Though Tatu shocks in Russia also.
Tomi Hottonen: This kind of phenomenon becoming a massproduct worries Russian morals in general. And the discussions and critique Tatu have gained have been, like, "Man has made a product that man wants to listen." (Very hard to translate, cannot be correctly translated... -¤xxx¤)
NND shown.
Tomi Hottonen: The name "200 km/h in the Wrong Lane" is about standing against the Western morals and reasonable thinking.
Girls.
Yulia and Lena take turns singing the Soviet Union national anthem.
Katja Stahl: I don't think they are popular because they are Russian. Blaa-blaa... blaablaablaa... (I love ¤xxx¤'s subtitles. -E.) But nobody has been interested in Russian music before, and with it being such a big country, it would be rather astonishing not to find any sort of talent in Russia.
YSSU again.
Host:
In Finland, Tatu went gold in December, and are getting more and more popular as time goes by. Listeners are generally teens, so there rises a dilemma. Are they a good example for the youth?
Katja Stahl: It depends on who you as. I don't think it's so horrible that a couple has sex together, even if they have a dildo present, it's not so dramatic.
Host: Which ones are better idols to little girls, you or Tatu?
Jenni: Of course, we say Gimmel!
Host: Why?
Suski: Little girls' mothers don't like that their daughters idolize lesbians.
Sari Virtanen: Luckily I don't have a daughter! This is a complicated question.
Suski: Was it OK that we said that mothers don't like their daughters idolizing lesbians?
Sari Virtanen: I wouldn't forbid it, it would just make it more tempting. I wouldn't recommend it, but I'd take it pretty neutrally.
YSSU. Yet again.
Host:
Next, Tatu will try to break through into the biggest market in the world, USA. They are also recording a new Russian album at the moment.
Girls Interview Time.
In English:
Host: Where will Tatu be in 20 years? Musically.
Yulia: (In Russian.) That's it. The sex is finished.
Lena: Maybe, we'll die tomorrow. Nobody knows. Maybe we'll just f*ck each other, just, like, die.
Yulia: (In Russian.) Let's finish up. We've got another interview coming up.
Katja Stahl: These kinds of "shockers" come every other year. But they only last a while. I think it's only that one track (ATTSS) that will sell, the record won't do as well. Blaablaa... (This translating has been a PAIN IN THE @$$! ...So don't complain if you don't understand something. -¤xxx¤)
Meanwhile, a clip of the girls is shown, where Lena musses up Yulia's hair and proceeds to let her hand drop on her friend's breast. (Positively, funtastic. -E.)
Girls Interview Time.
In English:
Lena: Be careful this night!
Host: You too!
Lena: Have... (She sits up and calls over to the host/interviewer.) You have just, like, real sex. Just wild sex. (They crack me up. -E.)
Host:
If this wasn't enough Tatu for you, you can watch Tatu's Russian music videos from our website. Next week 4POP with a new topic, until then, remember to love yourself. Bye.
Translation by ¤xxx¤, yul and Echoed.
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