Friday A/V Club: Footage from the Communist Mirror-Universe

A weird pop relic from the end of the Soviet era

With all the Cold War nostalgia in the air, I thought I'd post this relic from either the final days of the Soviet Union or the first moments of the post-Soviet era, I'm not sure which:

I've blogged this all-star pop cover of the Soviet national anthem once before, but it's one of those things you just need to remind the world about from time to time. The video's maybe-earnest, maybe-ironic, maybe-kinda-both nostalgia for the USSR feels like it was made by someone trying to create an East Bloc version of an American patriotic montage. That Bizarro-world effect is intensified by the fact that half the musicians in the video look like ersatz versions of the West's pop stars. The last time I posted this, a commenter spotted the Soviet Sebastian Bach, the Soviet Culture Club, the Soviet John Oates, and several more—and he didn't even mention the Soviet Meat Loaf. Clearly, the Communists were growing pod versions of our celebrities.