All about the joint track and music video "TOXIC" by Pussy Riot and Dorian Electra
Содержание
"TOXIC" is the name given to the joint track by the band Pussy Riot and singer-songwriter Dorian Electra. The producer was Dylan Brady, the so-called half of the experimental electronic duo 100 Gecs. A spectacular video was shot for the song, which gained more than 60 thousand views on YouTube in 3 days! In this track, the Russian punk band combines their style with the hyper-penetration of Dorian Electra... The track itself oscillates between fervent rave beats and a fully blown chorus:
"What's your damage, what's the problem, what's the issue?
You blame me for your problems, don't you?
You are my daily poison, so annoying.
You're even more toxic than my employer..."
The idea, the meaning of this collaboration, as well as more details about one of the most scandalous Russian bands and one of the most eccentric Western performers - all in order.
About the song...
"TOXIC" can be characterised as quite political, and at the same time a track! In fact, this was stated by Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of Pussy Riot! Her word:
"'Toxic' because political, because the personal is political. The single reflects the importance of taking care of yourself, looking after your mental health and abstaining from relationships that poison you. A few years ago I went through an emotionally abusive relationship that ended in physical abuse - I was held against my will in the house we lived in. For me, the best way to deal with trauma is to express my pain in art, so we wrote 'Toxic' with Dorian and Dylan..."
For his part, Dorian Electra adds:
"I am honoured to be part of this project! Nadia (meaning Tolokonnikova) is one of my favourite people, friends and collaborators, and I've always been inspired by the combination of activism and art in Pussy Riot. This song came so quickly with Nadia and Dylan in the studio together - we knew we had to do something so damn edgy and sweet at the same time..."
It is worth adding that "Toxic" follows Pussy Riot's recent single "Rage", which was released amid a wave of protests in Russia over the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Two Pussy Riot members, Maria Alyokhina and Lyusya Stein, are currently under house arrest, facing two years in prison for supporting Navalny.
Clip
The music video for the song "TOXIC" shows us Tolokonnikova humming a snippet of Britney Spears' "Toxic"... Very quickly, the video turns into real chaos: the footage jumps between Tolokonnikova and Dorian Electra performing the track....
This clip can be characterised as an overly gruesome, yet very appealing mess.....
About Pussy Riot
And now, having talked about the song and its crazy video, we can move on to the performers themselves... Let's start with the scandalously famous Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot: they are a feminist girl band formed in 2011 in Moscow! Interestingly enough, this musical project does not have a permanent line-up: however, Tolokonnikova has been its face for many years... The band members call themselves part of the "third wave of feminism", and the girls label their views as "left-wing anti-authoritarianism"! It is worth noting that this group has a clearly thought-out philosophical and religious worldview: the members of Pussy Riot are against any dictatorship! With the help of their creativity they promote freedom of thinking, as well as the priority of the individual over the state machine... The main goal of the group is to defend the rights of women all over the world (and not only women...).) Among the idols, so to speak - the authorities of the group - one can single out Simone de Beauvoir, Shulamit Firestone, Judith Butler... Emmeline Pankhurst, as well as Soviet avant-garde artists Stepanova, Mukhina, Rozanova are considered to be their predecessors....
In March 2012, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich were arrested: all because of the famous scandalous action in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour... In the autumn of the same year, Pussy Riot was ranked 16th in the list of the hundred most influential thinkers of the year (Foreign Policy magazine)!
And lastly about Dorian Electra ...
As for Dorian Electra, this performer can be characterised as a guest from another planet... To begin with, Dorian has no gender! That is - at birth it was a girl, but later the performer started calling herself "they", positioning herself as a queer and genderfluid... Also "they" were diagnosed with attention deficit disorder.
Dorian Electra released his first album (and) in 2019. According to the artist's stories, his main idols since childhood have been David Bowie and Bono (U2):
"I was introduced to Bowie by my father. As a kid in general I watched a lot of androgynous rock stars... I was also a Bono fan! It's probably funny, since a lot of people don't like him... But I did. I performed the song Vertigo for my family: for this performance, if I may say so, I drew my beard with eyeliner... It was my first reincarnation experience...".
Thus, Electra started (and) his way to becoming an intergalactic pop hero of our time! Well, the duet with Pussy Riot really turned out to be cosmic, and only time will tell what will happen next!
