In 1980, the "bloody Soviet regime" reached right up to the main diva of rhythm and blues, soul, disco and jazz - to the most real and beautiful Diana Ross.
Yes!
If we have decided something...
There was the Olympics-80 in the country, all the bears and bears were thrown into the warm welcome of foreign guests (no one was hurt, including the most important of the bears - he just flew away in a balloon, and everything was fine with the guests anyway - they generally ended up in a fairy tale), peace-friendship-chewing gum and other delights of heavenly life reigned everywhere like Finnish juice in bags or something else in the same spirit. Beer! It was everywhere! And sausage. And crayfish, but these are only for beer ...
Idiotic jokes, they are more and more from the sadness of the universe, from the sad realization that we could turn the ship around, could. Yes, they didn't want to.
In 1980, the company "Melody" (directly subordinate to the "bloody Soviet regime") released, and moreover, under license, honor by honor, the album "Diana Ross Sings". In fact, it was Diana's eighth studio solo album, it was called Baby It's Me and was released on September 16, 1977 by Motown Records.
A very cool record. Soft stitching module on the basics of soul and rhythm and blues, as if you / we / anyone had not heard anything like this before - and now the moment has come to hear, and so as not to lose face in front of foreign guests of the capital and all sorts of other things ... You get the idea.
On the envelope Diane was a miracle how good. After all, it was decided to abandon the original, inexpressive (to be honest) and not talking about anything to a Soviet person design (and this is also true - the original design did not say anything to a non-Soviet person, some kind of nonsense) and the very famous Ross photograph was used. Where she's not even her at all. An alien almost creature. Priestess of the alien cosmic gods. Or rather, one of them.
This album made a splash in the Land of Soviets, but quiet. You know, like if something long-awaited happens suddenly, but just as everyone around predicted it. And then everyone feels his involvement in the miracle that has happened, and everyone understands in his own mind: "It seems that there is no miracle here. It seems that this is how it should be. And was it worth inflating in connection with this, uh... Such a fuss?"
Some bewilderment is caused by this album, if you look at it as a "handout to the Soviet government." But this is exactly what all sorts of "experts" convince us (from time to time): "Here! They thrust it into your muck, and you rejoiced.. Together with Ababa and Bonima.. And the Italians later - to boot!
No, not like that.
It's not that we're just happy, and here - attention!
Everything was very ordinary: Dayna Ross lay down on the secret matrix of the Russian soul, so much so, it was exactly made under this very matrix. How would it be explained more sensibly ...
Many times I heard from a variety of people: that disc, it was perceived very naturally. As if we ourselves recorded it, here, in the USSR, it's just that the singer's name is wonderful and she herself is a black woman. So what? We are internationalists! No matter what color you give us as friends, buddies, if only he was good with himself, soul and heart. Other things are secondary. Already there he is Yakov, Svirid or Sebastian. Or there they call the girl Ophelia, Penelope - anything can happen. A land of opportunity. What's not clear?
Nothing is clear.
Turn it on and listen.
Is it clear now?
If it were not for the "confrontation between the two systems", when it were not for "two worlds - two childhoods", when it were not for the vertical arms race imposed on us by good-neighborly neighbors, then the Olympics-80 with all its bears and bears would be just the Olympics (we were so cool that we are still afraid to admit it to ourselves: we are scared to look at the USSR, like in the sun), and Finnish juice in bags would be just juice. In bags. And the counters of the Melodiya company with honest Western licenses would be just counters. Well, the record. Well, I bought it.
Understand?
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In that sweet dope, in that elixir infused with jeans and rose water, there was not a damn thing for us, when it was all casual and by the way.
Incommensurability, sisters and brothers.
Cruel incommensurability.
Diana Ross - she's wonderfully good.
There is no equal to it, and perhaps it will not be at all.
And something else is important. I hold the same record of "Melody" in my hands, I twist it faithful several times a year, and I just can't understand: is this what we lacked?
The devil dug so deep into the parts box. He has so many secret places there for all sorts of insignificant, but such cute nuts, bolts and cogs, everything is so deftly laid out and adapted to a "comfortable life" ...
You Got It is the second on the album. A mystical, profound thing. And at the same time very clear, simple.
It's simple.
Nothing can be understood.
But you can at least draw conclusions.
Or not?
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.