Anna Sedokova about attitude to age, self-acceptance and new music

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Anna, you have released a new album, but all the songs in it have long been known and loved by the audience. A sort of collection of golden hits. Why did you decide to release your old songs? What emotions did you experience when you returned to these songs?

This album called “Heart in Bandages” is not only a treasure trove of my hits and best songs. I’ll tell you a secret, it all started with the fact that my team said: “We need to release unreleased songs that you have been keeping for several years.” And I already had a completely new song ready, but the team insisted that we can’t move on until these songs lie and are not released. There are tracks that gave me the most ardent and devoted fans, a real such fan base – the same “Piranhas”, “Knives” or “Udaly” – they showed and revealed me, they could not be found, they were not on any music platform. Fans have been begging for them to be released.

Initially, we decided to release songs that were never published, or were published, but over time, contracts with companies ended and the songs simply disappeared. In order to find them, you had to type the names into YouTube, and they were there and on fan sites. When the album began to take shape, I thought, why not make a “golden collection” – the best and favorite songs and new, previously unreleased ones, so that I could turn on this record and spend the whole evening listening to it.

Does the album consist of all unreleased singles, or did you select them according to certain criteria? Why did you decide to release them now?

I didn’t define the criteria. There are several songs that I, to be honest, didn’t even remember, but when I turned them on, I realized that they have so much meaning that they are relevant today even in terms of sound due to the trend of the 2000s, which for some reason the second year does not go away and stays with us. In fact, everything is cyclical, everything returns, and right now it is time for the return of this music. Therefore, as always, this music is very relevant.

Why did you decide now? Because this year is the year of the 20th anniversary of my music and I didn’t just want to draw a line, I wanted those who really care about me not to look for my music and go through 36 quests in order to find it, but just click one album and listened to whatever they wanted to hear.

This is my first time releasing a 20 song album, I really don’t know who else has done it. I was told that Elena Vaenga has 40 best songs, and then let me be with my 20 songs (laughs). This is also such a slightly nostalgic move, when they released many, many songs, and now they only make EPs or one song at a time, albums basically do not work. Even 10-song albums are rarely released now… I decided to break all standards: when I started collecting songs, we had 20 of them, and it seemed symbolic: 20 years on stage, 20 songs, and I approved it on the 20th.

Why is the name 2Bandaged Heart2? Why is this song special to you?

There are two songs that I consider the most important in my career – “Heart in Bandages” and “Shantaram”, they became a turning point for me. My music has always been connected with the heart and I was a “drama queen” (laughs) and, in fact, I thought that the best name for the album could not be found.

The release is timed to coincide with your twentieth anniversary on stage. How much, in your opinion, has show business and the general perception of music changed? After all, once your songs were considered unformatted. Is everything different now?

I recently wrote a post: when we brought “Frozen” with Djigan to the radio, we were told that this was an absolute non-format and that such music had never been played on the air. When one radio station took “Cold Heart” on the air a year later, we were told: “Can you please bring such songs as” “Cold Heart”?

I always wrote music, and they told me: “Can you write easier? Your lyrics, lyrics are kind of complicated.” There was such a stereotype about me (now there is none, thank God) that I am a superficial, rather light girl, which means I should sing the same superficial songs, and not “Knives”, or “Remove”, or “Heart in Bandages” , or “Piranha”. If you are not familiar with my work, you can just take a walk and see what words and phrases I have in my songs.

ALL THE TIME, PEOPLE THOUGHT IS STEREOLOGICAL AND “THIS SING IS NOT GOOD FOR OUR RADIO” I’ve heard throughout my career. Fortunately, then the Internet appeared, and people began to choose what they like. If you now go and google some top chart (even the same VK), then you will not find there a single name that was published by you, in my favorite magazine. Because these people are completely new, different, and they have millions of plays that we will never even know due to the fact that we are already a slightly different generation. Music changes, new heroes come, but it seems to me that there are such legendary artists, images, cases that will always be fundamental anyway. And I sincerely believe that I was one of the founders of the genre – the beautiful, complex lyrics of a female performer. And I am partly involved in the fact that now the girls sing complex songs too.

How free is an artist in general in his work and life, or does the profession and listeners give a certain vector of development and influence it? How did everything affect you 20 years ago and now?

We have lived and existed with this issue for a long time. People said: “You need to sing this, why are you singing the wrong one?”, And the editors on the radio said: “You need to sing something else.” One could say: “You need to sing what your heart sings.” But sometimes, even if you do what it wants, without the right promotion tools it is impossible to get a result. Probably, after all, it has always been marketing, and there have always been ways to promote. You know this story with the popular monkey, when it was shown on TV for a very long time and then people began to take autographs from it. And, probably, this is why the right marketing, and really getting into your target audience, and the right conversations with your audience, reporting tools – that’s what has changed. But the heart has always come first.

Your social media shows that you study psychology and talk a lot about self-acceptance. But you did not always have such thoughts and understanding. What was the impetus for the study and coverage of this topic?

Look, to be honest, at 40, it’s time to accept yourself. (laughs). But here is another question: if at the age of 20 you have problems with self-acceptance, but you are young, thin, you have absolutely your whole life ahead of you, then at 40 a woman faces other problems, more serious – already half of her life is behind her and the body is no longer the same obedient, as in 20. I really like to talk on this topic, I speak solely because those who read me, follow me and my life, understand: there is no perfection, an ideal that would not put pressure on them, but would allow them to live in acceptance and happiness, so this does not exclude work on yourself, but it does not mean that life can only be happy if you are thin.

Can you say that you completely accept yourself for who you are, or is there a desire to change something?

I have just recently taken tremendous steps towards acceptance. A simple solution helped me: either you live today and feel this life in your body, with your brains, your capabilities and are already happy today, or you think that tomorrow will be better. Only we do not know what will happen tomorrow, so you just need to be happy today. This does not mean that you can eat spaghetti at 11 p.m., but that at 3 p.m. you can afford them.

Are you happy now? What is your recipe for personal happiness?

Yes, I am filled with the album and I feel such a very correct implementation. I’m recording a new album and it will be completely different, something that you have never heard from me and do not expect to hear. I work, I am a happy mother, literally today all my children flock to me, everyone is healthy, everyone is happy. I have a loving husband who loves me. I give interviews to excellent journalists, I have excellent listeners, I have the opportunity to talk about important things in life. I don’t know of any reason why I shouldn’t be grateful for what I have now.