Viktor Tsoi

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Viktor Tsoi was born in 1962 in Leningrad, today's St Petersburg, the son of a Russian mother and a Korean father from Kazakhstan. He began writing songs as a teenager and from 1974 to 1977 played in the school band Palata No. 6. Later he followed an art course. He was a singer and songwriter, painter and actor, and co-founded Kino. In the autumn of 1981 that band became a member of the Leningrad Rock Club, a place where music could exist outside the official channels.

Music and breakthrough

Kino grew into one of the most popular and influential groups in Russian music history. After the film Assa in 1987, in which the band performed, its popularity shot up, a period that was called Kinomania. In 1988 Tsoi played the lead role in the film The Needle. He made ten albums. In 1990 he gave a major concert in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. Two months later he was killed in a traffic accident, on 15 August 1990.

Influence

Tsoi is regarded as one of the pioneers of rock music in Russia and he made the genre popular throughout the Soviet Union. His songs combine simple melodies with lyrics that feel philosophical. Later, too, recordings of him appeared with only his voice and guitar, such as Akusticheskiy kontsert from 1994. In School of Rock's story of rock behind the Iron Curtain, he is the face of a generation that expressed itself through music.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1994Akusticheskiy kontsert
• 1996Pesni pod gitaru

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• Magazine: Rock Behind the Iron Curtain^NL Magazine