Kyrgyz Music Friday is a (sometimes) weekly feature in which I post a pop music video from an artist in Kyrgyzstan. It could be catchy, annoying, funny, insightful, brilliant, awful, or anything in between. It’s what’s playing on the radio, what all the cool kids are listening to these days. Kyrgyz Music Friday is not trying to appeal to your musical taste (which I’m sure is awesome), but simply gives you a glimpse into how pop music is done on this side of the world. Feel free to share your thoughts on this week’s video in the comment section!
This week’s video is by Nena, “Unchukpadyng” (Нэна, “Унчукпадың”), which means “You didn’t say anything”.
The song is much better than the video. It’s upbeat and poppy, and watching Nena sing and bop around in the video makes me feel like I should follow her lead. If only the director had cut out the entire subplot, it would’ve been a perfectly decent video. The subplot involves a random dude looking for a jacket at the mall, a girl with white eyeliner realizing that she has fallen deeply in love with this dude after a few moments of brief, wordless interaction, and her desperate attempt to chase after him. If only she had said something before he left the store! It would’ve saved her 30 seconds of frantic running, because (Spoiler Alert!) she does bump into him in the end. It would’ve been better if perhaps she had been chasing after him because he forgot to pay for his blazer.
What do you think, thumbs up or thumbs down for this week’s selection?
I love her voice! Wearing sunglasses in one’s music video seems a bit odd, though.
I absolutely love Kyrgyz pop music–I really think it has the best of Europop and Asian pop without the cheesiness of the worst European stuff and the post-apocalyptic horror of the worst Asian stuff.
That said, I’d like to buy/download a compilation of Kyrgyz pop or stream a radio station. Do you know how I could do that?
Not sure about buying a compilation, I think a couple bands have albums on iTunes, a few are probably on Soundcloud (like Kanykei, I think), but here are some online radio stations I’ve found:
http://obondoru.kg/radio_online/?ecid=df92dab455007b3770f1318774c7ce9b
http://tumar.fm/radio/radio_popup.html
http://ktrk.kg/online-audio.php?id=3