ДДТ

DDT (or ДДТ in Cyrillic) is a popular Russian rock band founded by its lead singer and the only remaining original member, Yuri Shevchuk (Юрий Шевчук), in Ufa (Bashkir ASSR, RSFSR) in 1980. Named after the pesticide DDT, they are one of the better known and most prolific Russian bands of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. In 1982, the Komsomolskaya Pravda paper sponsored a competition for young musicians called Zolotoy Kamerton (Golden Tuning Fork). DDT submitted three compositions - "Inoplanetyane" (Aliens), "Chyornoye solntse" (Black Sun), and "Ne strelyai!

" (Don't Shoot!). During the long-running competition, the group published their first album (on tape), Svinya na raduge (Pig on a Rainbow). The album contained elements of rock and roll, blues and country music. During this time, popular music in the former Soviet Union was split between sanctioned "official" performers who were admitted to the musicians' union, and underground artists.

Such underground artists were often highly trained musicians who also had other jobs. A complex underground network evolved in the 1980s and "unofficial" music became widely distributed (although the compensation for the artists was very limited), in a similar way to the underground channels that had existed for non-state sanctioned literature (samizdat). Such "underground" artists became widely known, and their unofficial albums were sometimes mentioned in the press. In the 1980s, DDT straddled the line between underground and sanctioned artists, but was close to the underground in their musical, lyrical, and performing styles.