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t.A.T.u. – Russia’s Musical Sensation

Whether you hate or rate the Russian pop music duo t.A.T.u., you simply cannot deny that for a while they were a world-wide sensation. The statistics speak for themselves and, though their fans ranged from adolescent girls to middle aged men, their appeal was certainly controversial enough to draw a lot of attention.

The pop duo is made up of two female vocalists – Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova – who were brought together in 1999 by Ivan Shapovalov. While many people loathed the music and the act, they are still one of the most internationally successful recording acts or musicians to ever come from Russia. While their success comes in the form of international gold status for their first album and a IFPI Platinum Europe Award for the English album “200km/h in the Wrong Lane”, the group had somewhat malevolent beginnings.

Ivan Shapovalov, along with co-founder Alexander Voitinskyi, admitted that their decision to form the music group came largely from an Internet search which revealed that underage girl pornography was the most looked up topic on the Internet. Since Ivan had similar preferences, he decided to organize auditions which focused specifically on teenage female vocalists and the ultimate outcome of the auditions were, of course, Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova, though initially only Katina was chosen. Both girls were from the group Neposedi and had previous singing experience and a good appearance. The name ‘Tatu’ (Тату) was chosen and it was often loosely translated as ‘this girl loves that girl’. The “t.A.T.u.” version of the name was chosen 2002 to differentiate it from a band of the same name from Australia when “All the Things She Says” was released in English on a global scale.

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