Via Gra accepts yet another girl member, symbolizes “faceless” image of Ukrainian pop
The news of yet another member appearing in the pop girls’ band Via Gra sounds like a broken record. It appears that the group decided to beat the record (please pardon the pun) as the band which has changed its members the most. That’s the only way I can explain the fact that Via Gra still exists, with its producers never growing weary of looking for replacements when yet another band member marries or gets pregnant.
So the news is that Via Gra is once again a trio. After the blonde Vera Brezhneva abandoned the group some time ago, only two members remained – Albina and Meseda. But recently they were joined by Tatyana Kotova, Miss Russia 2006. Kotova is said to be the perfect replacement for Brezhneva, since she is also a beautiful long-haired blonde with the same type of supermodel body. Besides, Kotova is a pro at oriental dancing, so all she needs is to learn to sing – and we’ll have a new music star.
Via Gra was extremely successful once – every single it released was played so often on the radio and TV it made you dizzy – but not so anymore. Not only is it hard to keep track of the girls currently in it, but Konstantin Meladze, the author of many of the band’s songs, seems to have run out of inspiration, at least for Via Gra. The songs performed by the girls are now far from the hits the band used to “pop” out, making the group just one of a number of similar pop projects in Ukraine and Russia.
The Via Gra story in many ways reflects the situation on the Ukrainian pop scene in general. New “singers” keep emerging every other day it seems, with nothing to boast but relatively pretty faces and slim figures, trained in expensive gyms and tanned in solariums. Singing abilities, charisma and talent are purely second rate – all one needs is rich parents or benefactors willing to invest into the project which might well flop, being little different from hundreds of others.
