There are so many “pop-stars” in Armenia, that it is becoming hard to find ordinary people in this country – after all, we are only 3 million!
While it all started with Artur Grigoryan’s Theatre of Song, it was ALM and Shant TV who spoiled Armenian music landscape once and for all. Yesterday I spent 5-6 minutes watching some kind of new music star show on Shant TV, and then another one on Armenia TV, only to turn to ALM and find Tigran Karapetovich complaining, that Shant has taken away all his stars: diamonds, jewels, etc. The problem, as I see it, is not that we have too many stars and star shows, the problem is – we don’t have even a single pop-star!!! All this fighting for “stars”, calling names to each other, etc is just ridiculous. We don’t have anyone we can speak of as our home-bread Armenian music star, which the world would recognize.
This news item I saw today on A1plus, in which Nune Yesayan and Shushan Petrosyan are complaining about the new singers who hinder former stars, was the end of it. I can’t bear and will just shout: “SHUT UP YOU ALL”! What is it you are fighting for? This miserable media market, which can’t sustain even a single star? Or are you complaining, because the new kids have taken your place near the table of the ruling political force – when they go on their pre-election campaign? This is just ridiculous…
Artur Papyan
Journalist, blogger, digital security and media consultant
2 Comments
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Well, it’s funny about Shushan and Nune because when I was writing about the pop and rock music scene in Armenia around 2000, they both hated each other. Boy, what accusations and hatred did I hear so it’s funny that these gals are now going to perform with each other.
Actually, I can see they’re only going to do so for one reason and one reason only. Not for art, not for music, not for taste, but simply for money. That’s also why they don’t like the new stars who appeal to a younger audience more interested in dancing that rehashed Armenian folk melodies a little above rabiz (Nune) or patriotic songs which while sung well, are ultimately boring and not what kids want (Shushan).
To be honest, most of the Armenian music scene — new and old — is lousy, but part of the blame for that can also be put at the feet of Nune, Shushan and others who did all they could to monopolize the market to make money while also doing everything to bad mouth each other and prevent the emergence of others. What goes around comes around so maybe this is justice.
Of course, another issue is that Nune in particular only remains in the public eye because of the Diaspora who wants such music and also because of her past relationships with the head of Levon Travel and more recently, Bagrat Sarkisyan (Armenia TV). She would never have made it without the support of either of these two people, and especially the manufactured publicity in the pages of AIM magazine written by one of Armenia TV’s Diasporan employees, so she should be thankful for what’s she got.
Which is actually quite a lot considering how tedious her voice is. Shushan, at least, can sing.
Onnik – your comment was better then my whole post! Thank you for the highly informative comment!!!