Gorky Park (band)
Encyclopedia
Gorky Park or Парк Горького (Russian title) was a Soviet (later Russia
n) Glam Metal
band, that gained mainstream popularity in USA during Perestroika
. Gorky Park is famous for its kitsch
use of western stereotypes of Russians, such as pseudo-traditional clothing, balalaika
-like guitar design and Hammer and sickle
as their logo. It was the first Russian band
to be aired on MTV
.
) came together to form Gorky Park. Stas Namin
, a famous 70's soviet musician, became the band's manager. Because Gorbachev lifted the censorship, many underground rock bands, including Gorky Park, became able to receive more widespread popularity. Later that year the band left Russia
for USA in search of a record deal.
In the U.S. the band soon made some connections in the record business. One of the first people to take notice was famous guitarist Frank Zappa
. Jon Bon Jovi
and Richie Sambora
also helped them to secure a deal with Mercury Records
.
The band released a self-titled debut album in 1989, featuring initials 'GP' stylized as a Hammer & Sickle on the cover. With the fall of the Iron Curtain
and a growing interest in Soviets to western countries, Gorky Park soon became widely known. The band seemed to be a kind of symbol of American-Russian friendship. The band's first video, "Bang," received MTV
rotation. Their next two singles, "Try to Find Me" and a collaboration with Bon Jovi, "Peace in Our Time," received rotation on mainstream radio stations.
Gorky Park participated on that year's Moscow Music Peace Festival
alongside Bon Jovi
, Mötley Crüe
, Skid Row, Cinderella
, Ozzy Osbourne
and Scorpions
. Gorky Park joined the other acts from the Moscow Music Peace Festival in the compilation album Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell
. Which included each of the bands performing one song from an artist who died from, or a band who lost a member to, drug problems. Gorky Park's contribution was a cover of The Who
's My Generation.
The band continued into 1990 touring with Bon Jovi and performing at the Goodwill Games
opening ceremony. Gorky Park live shows often featured the band dressed in traditional Russian style, waving Soviet and American flags. In 1991 the band received Scandinavian Grammy award as the best new international act.
As Perestroika era came to its end, the group's fame in America subsided rather quickly. Nikolai Noskov left the band in 1990 but Gorky Park remained active and kept releasing albums in the '90s with Minkov taking over as lead vocalist. 1993's Moscow Calling, produced by Fee Waybill
, sold 500,000 copies outside the US. Their next album, Stare, came out in 1996, released only in Russia, followed up by promotional tour of the former USSR states. In 1998, the band released Protivofazza. In 1999, Alexander Minkov left the band and started his solo career under the stage name Alexander Marshall. Gorky Park was never officially claimed to disband, but actually inactive since 2001. Belov and Yanenkov continue to perform Gorky Park songs in their band "Park Belova" (Belov Park).
Since then, Gorky Park made several brief re-union
s in festivals. On September 12, 2007 the band headlined Bridge of Friendship and Warmth festival in Yerevan
, Armenia
. In 2008, Gorky Park received Muz-TV
award for contribution to Rock music and performed Moscow Calling with Alexander Minkov.
Gorky Park was mentioned on an episode of Saturday Night Live
's skit "Wayne's World
." The band ended up on Wayne and Garth's list of the top ten bad things about the fall of the Soviet Union. The duo claimed with the collapse there would be "No more cheesy behind-the-iron-curtain hard rock bands like Gorky Park."
"-" - album ignored charts or not be released in country
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n) Glam Metal
Glam metal
Glam metal is a subgenre of hard rock and heavy metal that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene...
band, that gained mainstream popularity in USA during Perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
. Gorky Park is famous for its kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
use of western stereotypes of Russians, such as pseudo-traditional clothing, balalaika
Balalaika
The balalaika is a stringed musical instrument popular in Russia, with a characteristic triangular body and three strings.The balalaika family of instruments includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest, the prima balalaika, secunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass...
-like guitar design and Hammer and sickle
Hammer and sickle
The hammer and sickle is a part of communist symbolism and its usage indicates an association with Communism, a Communist party, or a Communist state. It features a hammer and a sickle overlapping each other. The two tools are symbols of the industrial proletariat and the peasantry; placing them...
as their logo. It was the first Russian band
Russian rock
Russian rock refers to rock music made in Russia or in the Russian language. Rock and roll became known in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and quickly broke free from its western roots. According to many music critics, its "golden age" years were the 1980s , when the Soviet underground rock bands...
to be aired on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
.
History
In 1987 guitarist Alexey Belov, vocalist Nikolay Noskov, bassist Alexander "Big Sasha" Minkov, guitarist Jan Ianenkov, and drummer Alexander Lvov (formerly from AriaAria (band)
Aria is a Russian heavy metal band that was formed in 1985 in Moscow. Although it was not the first Soviet band to play Heavy music, Aria was the first to break through to mainstream media and commercial success. According to several public polls, Aria ranks among top 10 most popular Russian rock...
) came together to form Gorky Park. Stas Namin
Stas Namin
Stas Namin is a Russian-Armenian musician, composer, and record producer; artist and photographer; theatre and film director and producer; entrepreneur, promoter, and businessman...
, a famous 70's soviet musician, became the band's manager. Because Gorbachev lifted the censorship, many underground rock bands, including Gorky Park, became able to receive more widespread popularity. Later that year the band left Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
for USA in search of a record deal.
In the U.S. the band soon made some connections in the record business. One of the first people to take notice was famous guitarist Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
. Jon Bon Jovi
Jon Bon Jovi
Jon Bon Jovi is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actor, best known as the founder, occasional rhythm guitarist, and lead singer of rock band Bon Jovi, which was named after him...
and Richie Sambora
Richie Sambora
Richard Stephen "Richie" Sambora is an American rock guitarist, producer, musician, singer, and songwriter who is the longtime lead guitarist of the rock band, Bon Jovi. He and frontman Jon Bon Jovi form the primary songwriting unit of the band...
also helped them to secure a deal with Mercury Records
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal...
.
The band released a self-titled debut album in 1989, featuring initials 'GP' stylized as a Hammer & Sickle on the cover. With the fall of the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
and a growing interest in Soviets to western countries, Gorky Park soon became widely known. The band seemed to be a kind of symbol of American-Russian friendship. The band's first video, "Bang," received MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
rotation. Their next two singles, "Try to Find Me" and a collaboration with Bon Jovi, "Peace in Our Time," received rotation on mainstream radio stations.
Gorky Park participated on that year's Moscow Music Peace Festival
Moscow Music Peace Festival
The Moscow Music Peace Festival was a one-time gathering of high-profile hard rock acts for a performance in Moscow, Soviet Union on 12 and 13 August 1989 to promote world peace and establish international cooperation in fighting the drug war in Russia. It was part of an era of momentous change in...
alongside Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi is an American rock band from Sayreville, New Jersey. Formed in 1983, Bon Jovi consists of lead singer and namesake Jon Bon Jovi , guitarist Richie Sambora, keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, as well as current bassist Hugh McDonald...
, Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe
Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1981. The group was founded by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, who were later joined by lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil...
, Skid Row, Cinderella
Cinderella (band)
Cinderella is an American heavy metal band from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They emerged in the mid-1980s with a series of multi-platinum albums and hit singles whose music videos received heavy MTV rotation. They were famous for being a glam metal band, but then shifted over towards a more hard...
, Ozzy Osbourne
Ozzy Osbourne
John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...
and Scorpions
Scorpions (band)
Scorpions are a heavy metal/hard rock band from Hannover, Germany, formed in 1965 by guitarist Rudolf Schenker, who is the band's only constant member. They are known for their 1980s rock anthem "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and many singles, such as "No One Like You", "Send Me an Angel", "Still...
. Gorky Park joined the other acts from the Moscow Music Peace Festival in the compilation album Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell
Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell
Stairway to Heaven/Highway to Hell was a 1989 compilation album featuring bands that performed at the Moscow Music Peace Festival. It was released by the Make a Difference Foundation. Each song is a cover of a famous solo artist or rock band who had suffered a drug- or alcohol-related death. The...
. Which included each of the bands performing one song from an artist who died from, or a band who lost a member to, drug problems. Gorky Park's contribution was a cover of The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
's My Generation.
The band continued into 1990 touring with Bon Jovi and performing at the Goodwill Games
Goodwill Games
The Goodwill Games was an international sports competition, created by Ted Turner in reaction to the political troubles surrounding the Olympic Games of the 1980s...
opening ceremony. Gorky Park live shows often featured the band dressed in traditional Russian style, waving Soviet and American flags. In 1991 the band received Scandinavian Grammy award as the best new international act.
As Perestroika era came to its end, the group's fame in America subsided rather quickly. Nikolai Noskov left the band in 1990 but Gorky Park remained active and kept releasing albums in the '90s with Minkov taking over as lead vocalist. 1993's Moscow Calling, produced by Fee Waybill
Fee Waybill
John Waldo Waybill , known as Fee Waybill, is the lead singer and songwriter of the band the Tubes...
, sold 500,000 copies outside the US. Their next album, Stare, came out in 1996, released only in Russia, followed up by promotional tour of the former USSR states. In 1998, the band released Protivofazza. In 1999, Alexander Minkov left the band and started his solo career under the stage name Alexander Marshall. Gorky Park was never officially claimed to disband, but actually inactive since 2001. Belov and Yanenkov continue to perform Gorky Park songs in their band "Park Belova" (Belov Park).
Since then, Gorky Park made several brief re-union
Re-Union
Re-Union were a short-lived Dutch musical duo, set up in late 2003 in order to take part in the Dutch Eurovision Song Contest selection in 2004. The duo were Paul de Corte and Fabrizio Pennisi ....
s in festivals. On September 12, 2007 the band headlined Bridge of Friendship and Warmth festival in Yerevan
Yerevan
Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously-inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country...
, Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
. In 2008, Gorky Park received Muz-TV
Muz-TV
Muz-TV is a Russian music TV channel, broadcasting since 1996. It is largely modelled after western MTV and predates launching of MTV Russia in 1998. Muz TV was founded by Sergey Lisovskiy...
award for contribution to Rock music and performed Moscow Calling with Alexander Minkov.
Gorky Park was mentioned on an episode of Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
's skit "Wayne's World
Wayne's World
Wayne's World was originally a recurring sketch from the NBC television series Saturday Night Live. It evolved from a segment titled "Wayne's Power Minute" on the CBC Television series It's Only Rock & Roll, as the main character first appeared in that show...
." The band ended up on Wayne and Garth's list of the top ten bad things about the fall of the Soviet Union. The duo claimed with the collapse there would be "No more cheesy behind-the-iron-curtain hard rock bands like Gorky Park."
Lineup
- Nikolai NoskovNikolai NoskovNikolai Ivanovich Noskov is a Russian singer and former vocalist of the hard rock band Gorky Park.-Early years:Born on January 12, 1956, in Gzhatsk, now renamed Gagarin, Nikolai Noskov comes from a "simple working" family, to invoke an old Soviet cliché...
(vocals) - Alexey Belov (guitar)
- Alexander Minkov, aka Alexander Marshall (bass, later vocals)
- Yan Yanenkov (guitar, ex-TsvetyTsvetyTsvety, were a Soviet Russian VIA band, one of the first to feature certain elements of rock music. They were founded in the early 70's in the USSR by pianist and composer Sergey Dyachkov, bass guitarist and vocalist Alexander Losev, guitarist Stas Namin, guitarist and composer Vladimir...
) - Alexander Lvov (drums, ex-AriaAria (band)Aria is a Russian heavy metal band that was formed in 1985 in Moscow. Although it was not the first Soviet band to play Heavy music, Aria was the first to break through to mainstream media and commercial success. According to several public polls, Aria ranks among top 10 most popular Russian rock...
)
Studio albums
| Year | Title | Label | US Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
Release |
| 1989 | Gorky Park Gorky Park (album) Gorky Park is the debut album from Russian rock band Gorky Park. It was released in 1989 on Mercury Records, after Jon Bon Jovi & Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi expressed interest in the band and got them signed to Mercury, Bon Jovi's label... |
Mercury Records Mercury Records Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal... |
80 | Europe USA Russia |
| 1993 | Moscow Calling | BMG International | - | |
| 1996 | Stare | Nox Nox Nox may refer to:* Nox , the Roman translation of Nyx, the primordial god of the night in Greek mythology.* Nox , a video game developed by Westwood Studios* Nox , a pop band from HungaryIn fiction... |
- | |
| 1998 | Protivofazza | Nox | - | Russia |
"-" - album ignored charts or not be released in country
Singles
| Year | Title | Chart Peaked | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| US Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
|||
| 1989 | «Bang Bang (song) "Bang" is a song by Blur and was released 29 July 1991 as their third single. It was also featured on the band's debut album Leisure. It has been all but disowned by the band, who claim it was written in less than fifteen minutes in response to record company demands for another bankable single... » |
- | Gorky Park Gorky Park (album) Gorky Park is the debut album from Russian rock band Gorky Park. It was released in 1989 on Mercury Records, after Jon Bon Jovi & Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi expressed interest in the band and got them signed to Mercury, Bon Jovi's label... |
| «Try To Find Me» | 81 | ||
| «Peace in Our Time» | - | ||
| 1993 | «Moscow Calling» | - | Moscow Calling |
| 1996 | «Stare» | - | Stare |
| 2001 | «Сделано в России» | N/A | - |