In Russia, Katya Lel is an almost-forgotten ‘one hit wonder’ from the past. And this one hit was called ‘Moy Marmeladny’. It was released almost 20 years ago and it was a hit at the time, turning the singer into one of the main pop stars of the 2000s. However, these days, there’s nothing left of her popularity; one can only really hear her songs at retro-style parties and clubs.
But then, something unexpected occurred. At the beginning of November 2023, ‘Moy Marmeladny’ went viral on TikTok and spawned a new trend: with this song playing, users dress up in the so-called ‘Slavic Girl’ style (mostly consisting of a fur hat, a fur coat and red lipstick) and try to sing along, not really understanding the meaning of the words.
Several hundred thousand videos have already been recorded with this song, with some of them having millions of views. Because of this, by December, the song made it onto the top 3 of the most viral hits on Spotify, beating ‘Is It Over Now?’ by Taylor Swift and ‘My Love Mine All Mine’ by Mitski.
Her rediscovered fame was a big surprise for the singer and she perceived it as a victory “of our entire country”. This is what she had to say: “I congratulate my beloved and genius Max Fadeev, the author of this cool song, and our entire country with such a victory!”
“Try muah-muah, try dzhaga-dzhaga. Try ooh-ooh, I need it, need it. Once more it feels like my head is spinning. Moy marmeladny [my sweetheart], I’m wrong,” the catchy chorus goes in Russian.
The meaning of these words and the song, as a whole, was foggy even for the Russian-speaking audience when it first came out. And, if “muah-muah” could mean kisses, what in the world is “dzhaga-dzhaga”?
Many suggested that it was a euphemism to signify sexual intercourse, but the singer has since clarified: “Everyone thinks what they want: that’s sex, that’s pleasure. In my case, it’s simply: hey, what’s up? All cool! It’s love, tenderness, it’s the joy of life. Everything you want, all the best things – that’s ‘dzhaga-dzhaga’.”
If we are to summarize the meaning of the entire song, here it goes: The heroine of the song is confident in herself and her beauty; she’s still unsure if she wants to accept the advances of her suitor and take their relationship to a “new level” or continue to keep her distance, behaving quite toxic at times.
‘Moy Marmeladny’ was released in 2003 and became the main song of not just the album ‘Dzhaga-Dzhaga’ (2004), but the singer’s entire career.
Katya Lel (born Yekaterina Chuprinina) appeared on stage in the middle of the 1990s, after she graduated with a higher musical education and moved to Moscow from Nalchik. She then became a backing vocalist for Lev Leshchenko, a people’s artist, in all senses of this title, until she was noticed by businessman Alexander Volkov. They began dating and Katya launched her solo career.
At first, she sang, as music journalist Oleg Karmunin describes it, “pure-hearted, yet very simple music for the not-very pretentious masses; non-trendy, non-modern, about love and the weight of break-ups”. But, realizing that her career needed another revival, she banded together with Max Fadeev, one of the best producers and songwriters at the time. His task within the framework of crisis management was to release one hit album and change Katya Lel’s image, in order “to rejuvenate her”.
That’s how the track ‘Moy Marmeladny’ appeared, as well as an accompanying music video, for which Lel had to lose 7 kg. The singer’s image, which was used to ‘smokey ice’ makeup and bright lipstick, was “cleaned up” before shooting the video.
And it worked. The “new” Katya Lel, who mimicked a light foreign accent in the song and who was simply sitting on the backseat of a car singing in the video, exploded onto national hit charts. In 2003, this song was blasting on every radio station and, for a time, Katya Lel became a sex symbol of the country.
Soon, the English version of the song emerged: the singer even performed it on the comedy show ‘Ostorozhno, Modern!’
The producer hoped for international success, akin to the roaring success of the female duo ‘t.A.T.u’ at the time, but that never happened. The English version of the track went unnoticed.
There were to be no more significant successes in Lel’s career. Having rebranded the singer, Max Fadeev turned to other projects, while Lel continued her solo career without his active participation. In total, she released 10 albums with a diverse repertoire – from pop-chanson to tracks for rave discos. However, in the end, she never managed to break into the highest echelons of pop stardom.
Katya Lel in 2022
Artem Geodakyan/TASSIn the second half of the 2000s, her creative activity began to dwindle; up until this year, Katya Lel only reminded the Russian public of herself with weird tabloid stories about aliens (in these stories, she believes that they saved Earth from a nuclear war many times and also stole her teeth).
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