Songoftheday 12/1/23 - I'm in serious sh** I feel totally lost If I'm asking for help it's only because, being with you has opened my eyes could I ever believe such a perfect surprise?

 

 

"All The Things She Said" - t.A.T.u.

from the album 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane (2002)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #20 (two weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 9

 

Today's song comes from the Russian duo t.A.T.u., who as children were originally members of the kids pop group Neposedy. Lena Katina and Julia Volkova (who depending on who you ask were fired or left on their own) were hired in 1999 by producer Ivan Shapovalov.  Their name was part of the gimmick Ivan created for the act, an abbreviation of the Russian phrase "ta lyabut tu", or "this girl loves that girl", marketing them as thinly-veil teen lesbian lovers. Mind you, this was at the time Boris Yeltsin was leading the country, but right before then-prime minister Vladimir Putin took over. Along with co-producer Elena Kiper, Ivan and t.A.T.u. released their first album (entirely in Russian) on Universal Russia Records in 2001, 200 Po Vstrechnoy, which would eventually be picked up by Interscope Records for a completely re-recorded version in English as 200 km/h In The Wrong Lane. The lead single from the record was "All The Things She Said", which in its Russian incarnation "Ya Soshla S Uma" ("I've Lost My Mind") was written by Kiper with Russian producer Valery Polienko. This is how the original sounded...

For the English-language version for Interscope, Trevor Horn (Yes, Frankie Goes To Hollywood) was hired on to re-produce the track, while he, Martin Kierszenbaum (who later would work with Lady Gaga) and Sergey Galoyan would help translate new lyrics. The new version, which which released in the autumn of 2002, gradually accumulated an audience, and with the salacious tag of schoolgirl dressed lesbians, the song itself got itself on radio on its own merits. Horn cleans up the production to make the dark neo-new wave sound mechanically perfect, while the three verses about being on the run because of a forbidden love were mostly overpowered by the repetitive chorus. Nonetheless, a "Russian" song on pop radio was a novelty in America still recovering from the Cold War years, and the pair found themselves with an international smash out of the gate. The music video basically used the damp prison pastiche in the Russian version without even bothering to re-lipsynch the words...

"All The Things She Said" reached the top 20 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in March of 2003. On the radio, the song peaked at #8 on the Mainstream Top-40 airplay chart, and #26 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. The remixes of the song helped it rise to #5 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the single topped the charts in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, and made the top-40 in France (#2), the Netherlands (#2), Sweden (#2), Norway (#2), Belgium (#2 Flanders/#3 Wallonia), Croatia (#2), Canada (#3 sales), Finland (#3), Romania (#3), Greece (#3), Hungary (#13), and the Czech Republic (#25). The 200 km/h In The Wrong Lane album, released in December of 2002, came in at #13 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over a half-million copies. 

The second single from the album, another translated version from their Russian hit, was "Not Gonna Get Us", which continued the "lesbians on the run" theme with a chorus sung in such a high-pitched tone that somehow wasn't falsetto. While the song went to #38 on Billboard's Mainstream Top-40 radio chart, it missed the Hot 100 altogether. However it was an even bigger success in American (mostly gay) clubs, spending a week at #1 on the Dance Club Play chart. Internationally, the single did better as well, going to #1 in Romania and making the top ten in Finland (#3), Italy (#4), Greece (#3), Austria (#5), the United Kingdom (#7), the Czech Republic (#7), Sweden (#9), Ireland (#10), and Belgium (#10 Wallonia/#12 Flanders).

In the spring of 2003, as "Not Gonna Get Us" was in the States, Lena and Julia won the spot to represent Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest. Their entry, "Ne ver' ne boysia" ("Don't Believe, Don't Fear") had its title ripped from the classic Russian novel The Gulag Archipelago. Written by Polienko, Shapovalov, and Australian writer Mars Lasar, the song won third place in the competition, despite the pair's bad behavior and under-rehearsed scattershot performance at the show. After that, the duo went back to their album to release follow-up "30 Minutes", which made the top-40 in Romania at #34. Lastly, a remake of the Smiths' alternative rock classic "How Soon Is Now?" had some success in Europe, peaking at #8 in Finland and #10 in Sweden, and reaching the top-40 in the Netherlands (#20), Switzerland (#21), Belgium (#27 Flanders/#27 Wallonia), Germany (#33), Australia (#37), and Austria (#37).

 

It was at this time that the curtains were drawn back on t.A.T.u., with a Russian documentary exposing them at "lesbians-for-pay", and their image the marketing ploy of Shapovalov, who they tossed aside, keeping Galoyan as their producer/new svengali for their next record in 2005, Dangerous and Moving, with Ivan only handling the intro and closing title track. The lead single from the set, which was also released in a Russian-language version, was "All About Us". which was co-written by Lisa and Jessica Origliasso from the Australian group the Veronicas. It was another international success, reaching the top ten in many countries, including #8 in the UK, while in America it only made the Dance Club Play chart at #13. Nevertheless, the Dangerous And Moving did manage to place on the Billboard 200 sales tally for a week at #131. The follow-up, "Friend Or Foe", was co-written by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, and was a minor British hit at #48. 

The pair's third English language set, Waste Management, came out in 2009, but to little notice outside of their home country (where it was released the year prior in Russian). Neither did its single "Snowfalls". Since then Lena and Julia split to pursue solo career, occasionally either reuniting or fighting each other in the press. Most notably, despite t.A.T.u.'s embrace of the LGBT community, even appearing at Pride in Moscow when it still was able to be a thing, Volkova disavowed it, using the trope that "lesbianism is OK, gay men are not". Ick. Even so, the duo performed together a couple times in the last couple years.

(7/10)

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Lena and Julia performed live with a band on MAD TV in 2002...

 

 t.A.T.u. performed on the MTV Movie Awards, with the "lesbian" game intact doing both "All The Things She Said" and "Not Gonna Get Us"...

Tomorrow I'll have my top hits of this week, then on Monday SOTD will be back with another duo wanting some answers.