The debut English-language album of Gulnara Karimova entitled “GOOGOOSHA”, which is largely focused on the international audience, has appeared for sale in Uzbekistan.
The music album of Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s elder daughter, Gulnara, was released for sale about two weeks ago.
It can be bought exclusively in the NIRVANA chain of shops specialised in the sale of DVDs with music, software and film. The chain of shops belongs to PanTerra group with Gulnara herself behind it.
One of the shops in Tashkent posted at the entrance a huge photo of Googoosha, which had been published by the world’s famous music magazine Billboard.
Karimova tried to pose this picture as the one from the Billboard magazine cover, but journalists to discern a small inscription on the top of the picture, pointing out that it was published as advertising in one of the magazine inserts.
Gulnara, 40, advertises her album in other outlets in the Uzbek capital. Her undisguised public appearance is eloquent: having robbed the country and satiated herself with wealth, she now wants to rejoice her soul in people’s adoration and admiration.
“A mezzo-soprano, designer and exotic Uzbek beauty” - this is how Gulnara poses herself in a trailer. She describes her music as exotic potpourri consisting of modern music, “three-hop” and “soft-rock”.
NIRVANA shops offer the album at the price of 12,500 sums ($4.4 at the black market rate), which is about three times cheaper than any other of its products, most of them being pirated.
The album GOOGOOSHA is real. It looks quite presentable and illustrated with pictures of Karimova and song texts on the insert.
According to sellers, people are buying the album “quite actively”, but no-one knows the number of printed copies. They are just brought to the shops without any explanation.
The album includes a total of 13 tracks, including remix of the composition Round Run in the arrangement by DJ arrangement White Shadow, who is known for his work with Lady Gaga.
It is written on the album cover that the music for the songs was composed by well-known Russian musical producer and musician Maxim Fadeev and Googoosha, while all of the verses belong to Karimova, except for the song How To Fly – which is based on the interpretation of the text by Rumi, a well-known Persian philosopher, Sufi and poet of the eighth century.
As for the quality of songs, a Tashkent-based musician and critic commented on the album on condition of anonymity that they had been written, arranged and recorded with good quality, which is rare for Uzbekistan.
“It is no surprising because I am sure that the author of the music and arrangement is solely Max Fadeev who can quite successfully compile bits from works of well-known western groups without being noticed by inexperienced audience, but Googoosha is not a patch on him,” says the critic.
In some interviews, Karimova said that works by well-known singers such as Massive Attack, Adele, Moby, Imogen Heap, Kanye West and Sade had influenced on her music. Indeed, her lyrics are well reminiscent of Sade and some of them remind one of Enigma.
In general, this is purely ethno-rock, the musician continued. However, it is ethnic in the perception of the Western and American audience but not for Uzbekistan. In other words, they are arranged in a modern way of singing by peoples of Southeast Asia and Africa.
