Awkward Olympics music: Tatar cover of Queen's "We Are The Champions"

A Tatar performance group covers the Queen anthem "We Are The Champions." Apparently this has something to do with the 2010 Winter Olympics, which opened last night. Hey, beats Celine Dion. Video Link. (Thanks, Anatoliy Ulyanov)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

I hope I’m not the only person who actually really enjoyed that.
Anonymous

I know there are words in the English lexicon that would describe how I feel about this, but I don’t know how to fit them together. Some include: anxiety, joy, humility, mildly approriate. Either way, I agree, way better than what Celine could deliver.
Anonymous

When they disperse it looks like they are freezing cold, which could also explain the wooden performance. The ladies don’t even get hats!
Xopher

Hail Xenu! *bows down*

Hi, Xeni! *waves*

Fine distinction, but very real.
Anonymous

did this remind anyone else of the song the ewoks sing at the end of Return of the Jedi?
mgfarrelly

I think it’s glorious. Freddie Mercury would right there with them in costume.

A far more intense version of the same song from an Asian group (Mongolian?) ALSO at the Vancouver Games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NxuiWNTHUk&feature=player_embedded
danwarning

My favorite part of the video is the triumphant far-away look the bassist gets at the end after the last chord, he holds it- and then they all go walking off like, “enough horsing around, there’s shit to do.”
mrparallel

Guy Maddin’s “The Saddest Music in the World” just lost about 37% of its surrealism.
Alan

What did I do without YouTube the first 40 years of my life?
jacques45

@1: It appears to be Yakut, which is the Turkic folk from far western Russia.
JayConverse

And they had a jew’s harp! Take that, ukelele zealots!!
lewis stoole

Channel “Russia 24″ embodied in the life of an unusual idea: hit rock band Queen quail languages of the various regions of Russia to support our athletes going to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver to fight for the medals. Is there something of the ancient rites of divination – of the peoples of the country, eager and worthy of Olympic victories, merges together to help our athletes. Song recorded the best folk groups in Mordovia, Altai, Tatarstan, Yakutia, Karelia and Bashkortostan.

http://community.livejournal.com/rossiyatv/
lewis stoole

i have to say, after watching 10 or so of these videos, it is very surreal to see such an iconic rock anthem performed in various folk themed interpretations, especially from cultures not on my immediate radar. russia must have a rich and diverse ethnic background.
- girl mark
  
  yeah, thanks to Russian colonialism and empire-building under the tsars and later under Soviet rule, and it’s conquest of vast tracts of non-Russian territory, there are a HUGE number of ethnicities and language groups under it’s borders today. I can’t remember the numbers but actively spoken languages number in the hundreds I seem to recall.
  
  The history of Russia’s expansion into Siberia and elsewhere in Asia was very similar to the US conquest of Native Americans, although I think disease played a different role than in the Americas, because some of the diseases that wiped out Native Americans had originated in Central Asia, and there weren’t quite the same novel bugs that decimated Indians here in the US.
  
  In the Soviet era, there were varying policies for how to deal with cultural heterogeneity. At times traditional cultural expression was forbidden, people were forcibly relocated, several genocidal “artificial famine” situations were created (this is all early Stalin-era stuff), there were huge campaigns to stamp out the practices of shamanism and to forcibly settle nomadic peoples.
  
  Much of it is similar to what happened in the US during the various Indian Wars and during the Native American ‘indian boarding school era’, only it occurred a few decades later and with greater brutality under the Soviets.
  
  At other times, usually due to some need for political support, there was more of a ‘thawing’ towards native religious and cultural expression, which allowed some ethnicities’ cultural practices to survive to the present day.
  
  And then, on top of truly traditional cultural practices, there also existed a plethora of state-funded folk music and dance groups that performed highly orchestrated and sometimes Westernized forms of ‘folk music’ (hence, Tatars with balalaikas and violins).
Anonymous

I like Celine Dion’s version; it’s so obvious in here version she thinks she’s singing about mushrooms.
Xopher

Freddy Mercury was Asian, you know. His birth name was Farrokh Bulsara; his parents were Parsis and practiced Zoroastrianism. He was born on Zanzibar and educated near Mumbai.

I think he would have been amazed and delighted by the concept of this video, and a little appalled by the (IMO) lifeless performance.
freshacconci

I’m confused. As a proud Canadian, I’ve been ignoring the Olympics. Why are these various ethnic groups singing “We Are The Champions”? Why a song from a campy British band? I mean, shouldn’t it have been “Takin’ Care of Business”? Or “Tom Sawyer”?
toolbag

Sadly, I think cartoons have ruined the sound of the mouth harp for me. Literally as I was listening to that I was clicking through windows trying to figure out if I had a game running or if there was a flash popup causing that “springy” sound. Other than that I though it was top notch neato!
Anonymous

I heard someone say “beat Celine Dion”. Am I too late? Did I miss it?
pidg

Not sure what’s awkward about it? Is it because they aren’t American, Xeni?

Would be interested to know
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  “Is it because they aren’t American, Xeni?”
  
  Yep. Totally.
  
  Poor sheltered, insular Xeni.
blueelm

I have to admit I love the balalaika with a passion usually reserved on this blog for ukulele.

These are cheesy but I can’t help but like them (or rather the multiple Queen versions).
elleomnom

Better than Robbie Williams!
Jonathan Badger

These are mighty Tatars, for crying out loud, little Xeni. Members of the Golden Horde. One does not criticize the warriors of the Khan lightly.
regeya

I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought it was lovely. You know, ‘Xeni’ is awfully close to ‘Xeno’, the prefix of ‘xenophobia’…
- Cactaur
  
  You thetan heathens, Xeni/u will crush you.
- Sekino
  
  “You know, ‘Xeni’ is awfully close to ‘Xeno’, the prefix of ‘xenophobia’”
  
  Latin: You’re doing it wrong.
  - Xopher
    
    Um, especially since it’s Greek.
    - Sekino
      
      You’re right: I thought ‘phobos’ was also used in latin, but it’s not the same meaning.
      
      Regardless, I’d peg Xeni as quite a xenophile ;)
Machineintheghost

The awkward part isn’t that they’re from Tatarstan, it’s that they’re a cheesy Soviet-style Official Nationality Musical Ensemble, in Folk Costume, no less. I would love to see a Verka Serduchka (Ukraine, not Tatarstan) cover of … pretty much anything.
- Ted8305
  
  If you want something less cheesy, lifeless and Soviet, try the band Yat-Kha. They do classic 70′s rock with traditional
  Siberian instruments and even throat singing.
  
  Here they are covering Joy Divison’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GimODzNt_S8
naufragio

OK, now somebody mash up all the different versions.
arkizzle / Moderator

“You know, ‘Xeni’ is awfully close to ‘Xeno’, the prefix of ‘xenophobia’””

Xeni is xeniphobic? Self-hatred is a terribly sad thing.
naufragio

Also: this is what Eurovision should look like.
vettekaas

I got goosebumps
Xopher

Oh, puh-leeeeeze, people! The performance is lame and without energy. When they disperse at the end they look like they just want to get out of the costumes and go home as fast as possible.

It’s a pretty awkward juxtaposition, FM’s Asianness (Asianity?) notwithstanding. I mean, a balalaika? Jesusmaria,* as my grandmother would say.
____
*That’s pronounced YEZHushMAHdiyaH. Czech, or Bohemian as Gran always insisted it be called.
Anonymous

The best part is when they all run away chaotically at the end.
Antinous / Moderator

Is folksong, no?
Anonymous

I’ll agree this performance is awkward if it turns out no royalties were paid and no R*AA’s appeased with money and first-borns. That would be a bit of a tough nut for the committee.

Otherwise… go exotic national dress cover shows!
girl mark

Once more, with throat singers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec1PMRs0e_c&feature=related
The Altai version.

There’s a huge array of these videos on YouTube, all various Central Asian folks (also, Moldova and Karelians and a few other nationalities) doing pieces of this song. Amazing. There must have been some kind of contest- I had no idea this many of these soviet-style folks ensembles still did this.

Don’t like balalaika in your Folk Ensemble? Here’s some passionate Yakuts with a particularly sfi-fi-looking ice cave stage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NxuiWNTHUk&feature=player_embedded

Once more with Karelians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajXkx-OrABc

and again with the headgear of Mordovians:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jki5xQ_eaDU&feature=related

now with end-blown flute and particularly emotive Bashkirs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4hvOLwKB6w&feature=related
Anonymous

KD Lang’s rendition of Hallelujah was an… interesting choice as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmzLvC49D3I
Anonymous

Two more from this series of We Are the Champions covers from Russian TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec1PMRs0e_c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6sw8rc-UL0
Anonymous

They also did it for the Beijing Olympics in 08:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmb7cBJ7T4E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H8g1dCEVIc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ03bTaMiy0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqxGc9foBKs
Antinous / Moderator

The Tatar boys have the best hats. The tall Tuvan guy in the middle has the best robes. The Yakut really nail the song.

Western culture is anemic. We need to up our costume game and trade in some of those guitars for contrabass balalaikas.
- girl mark
  
  Sheesh- Tatars? Did you LOOK at the hats on the Mordovian ladies? (sorry, not Moldovans either, my bad). The Tatars have nothing on that!
Anonymous

This genuinely filled me with an inexplicable sense of joy. I did’t expect that. Actually, I’m currently living in Russia (siberia to be specific). If those people were in canada to film that, they weren’t necessarily cold, being that samara is colder than vancouver. If they were in Russia, they probably were