Fortunately, in contemporary art there are creative personalities of a special kind. Bulgakov called this not because he belonged to a creative craft, but as a Master. Nesterov Oleg Anatolyevich refers to just such. He has taken place and mature, both in his views on life and on the role of art in it. A professional with a capital letter is respected, behind his shoulders is the baggage of a successful group leader and a sought-after producer. At a time when the musical world is painted in the fading colors of decadence, Nesterov, acting on the principle of “do as I do”, indicates the path of real creative development.
When he speaks in his low voice, he can still be heard. Because people involuntarily fall silent and heed the words spoken. This person really has something to tell, because he looks at the world with a smile and speaks with people in the language of compassion, care, intuition, forgiveness and, of course, love.
Childhood, youth
The future leader of Megapolis was born in Moscow on March 9, 1961. Oleg Nesterov thoroughly learned this language during his studies at the school with in-depth study of German. He received higher technical education, having graduated from the capital's Electrotechnical Institute of Communications. In one of his interviews, Oleg Anatolyevich admitted that from a young age for him the dominant feature in life was music. Everything else seemed to be attached to this. The works of The Beatles and Vysotsky, recorded on a tape reel, once woke up the thirst for creativity in him.
The musician today loves to perform songs of Vladimir Vysotsky at his concerts in a special psychedelic manner. These hits of the 70s and 80s sound absolutely unique in Nesterov’s performance. Listening reviews are unanimous: he sings not as a performer, but as an author. It seems that the songs about the beloved's tattoo, about the sprinter, who were forced to flee the styer's distance, were composed by Oleg Nesterov himself. The working biography of a young man began typically, in the spirit of his time - with work in a specialty.
After graduation, he worked for five years at an international communications station with Germany. However, Oleg soon made a choice in the direction of creativity. The Rubicon was completed on 08/08/1988 (an interesting date, isn't it). Such decisiveness can be appreciated by those who lived in those days of egalitarianism and planning. Nesterov only longed for intellectual freedom, about which he would later say: "Ideally, a person should simply do what he cannot live without."
Creation of a rock band
05/27/1987, young, then still curly, Nesterov, as a soloist and leader, organized a team of like-minded people. At first it was called underlined coolly: "Christmas Bazaar." However, since the guys set serious goals for themselves, serious reappraisal of values and, accordingly, a kind of rebranding soon took place. That is how the Megapolis group appeared.
A month later, young musicians loudly declared themselves in the capital's Palace of Culture. Gorbunkova in the framework of the national concert of the rock laboratory. As the press noted, their composition “Fishermen” tore the room and became the most popular on this show. In addition to the soloist, as part of the musical collective played:
- on keyboards - Arkady Martynenko, Alexander Suzdalev;
- on drums Mikhail Alesin;
- on the bass Andrei Belov.
From the very beginning, Nesterov’s associates paid great attention to the lyrics of their songs. They were respected for the high style they maintained in a motley Moscow rock party. In their performance, they found the original sound of the string:
- Debut
- "Christmas romance";
- "There" from Brodsky;
- "Wet lies";
- "Mary of Egypt";
- "Dedications to Denis Silk" from Alexander Barash;
- "New Moscow Sirtaki" by Andrei Voznesensky.
First and second albums
A year later, Megapolis, which has demonstrated its class, is already professionally produced by Stas Namin. The recording company "Melody" releases their starting album "Morning", in collaboration with colleagues in the group creates songs Oleg Nesterov. The musician burns with creativity, and already in 1989 the album “Poor People” appears. The disc in the capital is becoming very popular, the press calls Megapolis a “purely Moscow group”.
The creative team actively performs at domestic rock festivals. The next rise in their popularity follows naturally, thanks to the clips “Christmas Romance” and “Moskvichka”, shot by producer Ivan Demidov. These songs are lyrical, sentimental, good for the 90s. There is no second bottom in them, young people just sing about things that are close to themselves: about love, about their hometown.
But fate favors the talented, and Oleg Nesterov will soon take full advantage of the chance. The group’s discography will be replenished with a new album - the highest creative point of the rise of Megalopolis of the 20th century.
German speaking experiment
Oleg Anatolyevich talks about this page of his group’s creativity with a smile. Suddenly, completely unexpectedly for young musicians, they received an invitation to perform in Karl-Marx-Stadt. At first everyone was dumbfounded. However, Oleg Nesterov is a creative musician. At a brainstorming session conducted by the group, it was decided, firstly, to translate into German and adapt to the understanding of the Germans the Soviet time-tested Soviet hits, and secondly, to translate German hits of 30 - 40s from cult films into Russian.
Just a week after the signal disk was sent to Germany, a representative of the inviting party came unexpectedly to Moscow to sign the contract. The guys were dumbfounded: the Megapolis group itself did not have a legal signature right, it was necessary to obtain both the “good” and the signature from the Russian music community. Nesterov guessed to bring the German to Oscar Borisovich Feltsman, the author of the source songs of his cover versions. The famous composer vouched for the guys.
The funny thing is that the German who arrived didn’t understand a word in Russian, but he constantly hummed with emotion: "Karl-Marx-Stadt, Karl-Marx-Stadt." Then Feltsman told Oleg that this song would go with him through his whole life.
The tracks created for the tour, according to the contract, were recorded at a German studio and entered the new Megapolis album, released in 1994. The disc was called the Berlin Postman Chapel and gained popularity in both countries at once. This album has become a disco club hit for several years.
Creativity Timeout
The era of postmodernism and its style in creativity have become obsolete. The musicians of the group, being in excellent relations with each other, agreed to temporarily suspend active performances. Later, Nesterov will explain the motivation for this step figuratively: to continue to create unpromising musicians during the crisis of the genre in the style of rehashing jokes or transcribing poems to music
The finishing touch to the history of Megalopolis of the 20th century was its award with the Golden Gramophone Award for the song “Asterisk”.
Subsequently, the money earned in Germany allowed each musician to go about their projects.
Producer
A special facet of the creativity of the leader of the "Megapolis" was the production activity. Music lovers of the 90s and the first decade of the new century were happy to buy the music discs of the vocalists he led, where the details of the recording studio, which Oleg Nesterov unobtrusively and tastefully called: Bullfinches, were written in small letters. He began to engage in musicians who requested support in planning their careers from the mid-90s until 2010, respectively, sacrificing his work. This period of a fourteen-year pause in the writing and performance of his songs Nesterov called musical austerity.
Since 1997, the promotion of the project of the singer Masha Makarova “Masha and the Bears” began. Then other hit projects followed in collaboration with Nike Borzov, Alina Orlova, Yevgeny Grishkovets, as well as a number of rock groups. In total, over 1200 compositions were recorded at the Snegiri studio.
Two years ago, Oleg Nesterov temporarily suspended this project, selling exclusive rights to his compositions to the Russian monopolist of the recording company “Warner Music Russia”. The production gave an opportunity to the leader of Megapolis to realize and formulate his new approaches to creativity. Further, he simply could not write or perform songs.
Maturity. Supertango Album
In 2010, the press was perplexed. What was the reason that Oleg Nesterov returned to the hypostasis of the group leader? Inspiration received from stars produced by him? Meet and chat with celebrities?
Megapolis, 14 years later, in 2010, presented to the music community its new album, Super Tango. Criticism immediately noted: the disc is completely different from the previous ones and is made in a completely different, deep and dynamic style. Music and lyrics are relevant and in demand. The album is manly laconic, emotionally restrained, but at the same time over-expressive. This release was a true statement of the creativity of the 21st century Megapolis group, which opens a new direction in Russian rock.
What is its novelty manifested? Oleg Nesterov, who emerged as a personality in the 60s, was perhaps the first among modern musicians to finally abandon fruitless attempts to reanimate his outdated decadence. He decided to encapsulate in modern music the sprouts of humanistic ideals of the 60s, barely awakened to life, but strangled by totalitarianism. Note: the public positively accepted this fundamentally new direction in creativity, as if it had long been expecting such changes.
Project “From the life of the planets”
The leader of Megapolis in the presentation emphasizes that this project is not about the past, but about the future. The objective of the project is to tell the current twenty-year-old about the twenty-year-old sixties, the same talented people who succeeded in everything in their work. At the same time, they, like the creative people of the 21st century, mired in decadence, do practically nothing.
The founder of the project asks a difficult question: could our present day be brighter only thanks to a different movie? And Nesterov Oleg Anatolyevich himself answers that yes, he could. After all, the decade of the 60s for the development of Russian culture meant no less than the Silver Age.
Representatives of the older generation still remember how our cinema suddenly burst into the vanguard of the world. Soviet directors, not favored by the partisan authorities, were recognized as world-class masters and received annual awards in Cannes and Venice. The fact that this positive ended abruptly and abruptly is clearly traced. Totalitarianism, having absolute leverage, imperiously strangled advanced and truthful cinema.
Directors and Fates
Oleg Nesterov in his project awakens the civil conscience of society. Remember the great American film-allegory with Jack Nicholson and the key phrase of the protagonist: “At least I tried!”
The musician and producer recalls the civic courage of Soviet filmmakers trying to break the stereotypes that are present with us and have become obsolete all over the world. He tells the audience about the wonderful personalities who were oppressed, who strove to create truthful images long sought after by society.
“What would happen if their creations reached people?” - asks the audience Oleg Anatolyevich. The answer is clear: the Russians would have differently positioned themselves in the state. If there were other heroes, there would be another firmware in the brains of people. If Shukshin were given the option to film “Stepan Razin” in the 60s, perhaps they would have imagined quite differently who the Russian man is ... But that did not happen.
As an example of rejection, the leader of Megapolis cites Motyl’s unreleased film about Gulag prisoners who chose to flee to Norway after the Nazi air raid to join the soldiers defending the island from the Nazis - a piece of Soviet land. Why was this movie closed? Is it not clear? In spite of official propaganda, another, righteous patriotism of a simple but high-spirited man who, in a Christian way, humbly sacrifices his life in a difficult year for the Motherland, was shown. Not for Great Russia, not for the party, for Stalin, but because he simply cannot live differently.
And the fate of Gennady Fedorovich Shpalikov, the creator of the famous song “And I am walking, walking in Moscow ...” is absolutely tragic. In the 60s, he tried to create a film that inspired the spirit of his native metropolis, his ability to inspire, instill a love of life. He was rotten, talent, as if on a wolf hunt, overlaid with flags of prohibitions, deprived of the opportunity to create and work. He drank from grief and died.
Thanks to Nesterov, disgraced directors appear before the deceived generation as they were - heroes who defend the right of the fooled people for the Future. And the Master asks his listeners and viewers the question: "Was all this in vain?"
Literary work
As follows from the interview, Oleg Nesterov prefers to write novels while on creative leave. He does not diplomatically name the name of his comrade who kindly provides him with a house on the seashore. Books are born - he believes - when their theme is really loved by the author. Then the plan is built, as if by notes.
Such was his first novel, Skirt, telling the author’s boring version of the birth of the rock musical style in Nazi Germany. The second book, “Heavenly Stockholm,” the musician wrote about the time of the 60s.
Judging by the reviews, Oleg Anatolyevich has an easy syllable; it is easy and interesting to read.
Passion for travel
Another facet of this personality is a passion for travel. “Staying on other lands,” says the leader of Megapolis, “awakens inspiration, makes you look at people with a fresh, unshielded look, and see your perspective more clearly.”
Conclusion
He ends his concerts with two favorite phrases. The first is “thank you, my love,” the second is “more fun, youth.” Oleg Nesterov always talks with the audience in the simple and understandable language of a wise and kind person.
Getting acquainted with his work, it remains to regret only one thing. The fact that today, and not only in music, we have very few Masters related to him in spirit, delighting us with their creativity and awakening people to awareness.