Pussy Riot Releases First Video in a Year, Taking on Russian Oil Profits and Other High-Profile Targets

Russ­ian punk per­for­mance art col­lec­tive Pussy Riot will not be deterred. Despite two of their mem­bers still lan­guish­ing in prison labor camps for a musi­cal protest in Moscow’s Cathe­dral of Christ the Sav­ior, the band con­tin­ues to rail against its country’s cor­rup­tion and abus­es. This time, in their first music video in almost a year, they take on the Russ­ian oil indus­try and oth­er tar­gets in the song above called “Like in a Red Prison.” The Wall Street Jour­nal writes:

The con­fus­ing and caus­tic lyrics to the hard-to-lis­ten-to song decry sex­ism, “homo­pho­bic ver­min,” actor Ger­ard Depar­dieu (a recent recip­i­ent of Russ­ian cit­i­zen­ship cour­tesy of Mr. Putin), and likens Russia’s pres­i­dent to the Aya­tol­lah of Iran.

I don’t find the song hard to lis­ten to at all—quite the contrary—and the video’s pret­ty exhil­a­rat­ing too, with the band mem­bers, in trade­mark mul­ti-col­ored bal­a­clavas, clam­ber­ing atop an oil der­rick and defac­ing a por­trait of oil exec­u­tive Igor Sechin and a head of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee (Russia’s FBI). Def­i­nite­ly a lot going on here, but the cen­tral focus is the cri­tique of Russ­ian big oil. The band explains on their site that “Russia’s rev­enues from the oil indus­try amount­ed to 7 tril­lion rubles ($216 bil­lion), but only Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin and ‘sev­er­al of his friend see this’” [sic].  The new song’s lyrics were part­ly writ­ten by one of the still-impris­oned mem­bers, Nadezh­da Tolokon­niko­va.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Russ­ian Punk Band, Sen­tenced to Two Years in Prison for Derid­ing Putin, Releas­es New Sin­gle

Fear of a Female Plan­et: Kim Gor­don (Son­ic Youth) on Why Rus­sia and the US Need a Pussy Riot

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness