When I see you in the hall, I look at the wall

I started this blog to enlighten the non-Russian speaking world to the joys of Russian pop music. Since Russian music is generally not released outside Eastern Europe, and the Cyrillic script makes navigating Russian websites very difficult; Russian popstars are almost completely unknown in the West. The major exception, of course, is t.A.T.u., however a couple of years before Yulia and Lena were unleashed on to the world, a beautiful young lady from Russia had a minor hit in the UK.

It was 18 year-old Alsou Ralifovna Safina (now Abramova), a native of the Russian Federation's autonomous republic of Tatarstan. Following her second placing in 2000's Eurovision Song Contest with the song 'Solo', Alsou, the daughter of a billionaire oil magnate turned politician of the Russian Duma's upper chamber, had a UK top 20 hit in 2001 with 'Before You Love Me'. Her comeback single 'Always On My Mind' was pulled from the schedule in 2005.

Alsou (also spelt Alsu) has actually lived in London since the age of 10, where she attended a performing arts school. Her pop career began in the late 90s and the year 2000 saw the release of her debut album 'Alsou'. Her finishing second in the Eurovision song contest, Russia's best result (t.A.T.u. only managed third place), secured her position as a major player on the Russian music scene and prompted her record company to launch a Europe-wide assault. However the 2001 release of the English version of her album was only met with limited success. In the years that followed Alsou release two more albums - the Russian language 'I Dream About Autumn' in 2002, and '19' in 2003 which was in both the Russian and Tatar languages.

A worldwide r'n'b-pop album was planned for release in 2005, but only two songs from the project emerged - 'Always On My Mind' (no, not the Elvis song), whose UK release was cancelled, and the Nelly collaboration 'I Wish I Didn't Know'. Last month she married Russian billionaire Yan Abramov in the kind of the lavish, over-the-top ceremony that we have come to expect when Russia's super rich get hitched. Pictures can be seen here. Links to mp3s are below. Youtube videos may be clicked to open full screen version. Clockwise from top-left: 'Before You Love Me', 'Always On My Mind', 'Autumn', 'Vchera', 'Solo', 'He Loves Me'.