t.A.T.u. story: Reconstruction of the rise and fall of the most controversial Pop duo of the 2000s

This is the story of the Russian pop duo t.A.T.u., consisting of Lena Katina and Julia Volkova, who found themselves in the midst of worldwide fame already as teenagers. The girls struck gold with hits like «All The Things She Said», «Not Gonna Get Us» and their cover of The Smiths «How Soon Is Now?» (that even Morrissey appreciated) in 2002. From their second album they had a hit with «All About Us».They released their 3 albums in both Russian and English language editions: «200 km/h Inn The Wrong Lane» (2002), «Dangerous & Moving» (2005) and «Waste Management» (2009).The duo got into the international charts by the help of a «lesbian act» that involved kissing and holding hands on stage, while they in reality were not romanticly involved with each other. This extra «hype» gave them easier access to the front pages, but also gave them some harsh critique. But many serious music critics could not deny the high quality and the orginality of their music.This book does not claim to be an official biography, still it must be said to be semi-official, as some of the most central people in this project has given their personal accounts of events to the author directly, including Lena Katina, songwriter/producer Sergio Galoyan and keyboardist/musical director Sven Martin. The author also has close ties to Lena Katinas solo project, being an executive producer on her latest music video «Lift Me Up» (2013).This book gives us a story of their career from the beginning in 1999 to their dramatic and seemingly final breakup as a group in early 2014, closely after performing at the Olympics in Sochi where also their hit «Not Gonna Get Us» was used as background music when the Russian athletes entered the arena in the opening ceremony.The book shows a remarkable research job, Paolinelli provides dates and venues to what seems like all relevant events in their career, concerts, recordings, shooting of music videos, television appearances etc. And he gives a detailed account of the input of all the central characters behind the group. Being a long time fan myself, with a vast knowledge of the duos history, I could not find any factual mistakes in the book. Only the translation (it was first publish in the authors home country Italy) has a few language mistakes here and there, but nothing major. I am absolutely impressed by the thoroughness of the author. And he also provides us with his conclusions as to the many mistakes taken that influenced their career and lead to a rapid fall of the fame the group enjoyed in the early 2000s, but still he also makes sure to highlight the talent of everyone involved with the creation of their musical input and does not point fingers to any one person, but shows a wide range of contributing factors.I can without a doubt recommend this book to any fan or anyone slightly interested in the story behind the two girls that used to kiss in a music video years back, not to mention newcomers with a love for timeless pop music. The book is a massive achievement, with a quality that easily surpasses most music biographies out there. Bravo.

el libro basicamente es una reconstruccion desde inicios hasta el fin de t.a.t.u. basicamente el autor se basa en en viejos reportajes, entrevistas, y algunas platicas que tuvo con lena katina y sven martin, de hecho el autor por medio de su amistad con el equipo de lena katina termina siendo productor ejecutivo del video del segundo sencillo de lena "lift me up".es interesante ya que recapitula los hechos del principio de t.a.t.u. y sus problemas con su primer manager, los problemas que tuvieron con su 2do disco dangerous and moving, sin embargo lo que encontre decepcionante es que gran parte del libro se centra en el ascenso a la fama y no el descenso, esperaba mas informacion respecto a los problemas con happy smiles, waste management y el fallido re-encuentro. sin embargo tal vez por respeto a las chicas el autor no publico muchos detalles, de igual manera es un buen libro para cualquier fan de t.a.t.u. pero si no lo eres, este libro no tiene nada que ofrecer para ti...

Livro maravilhoso pra quem é fã de T.a.t.u. e quer saber um pouco mais sobre os bastidores da sua história.

Excellent book to learn all t.A.T.u. history, a must-have for all the fans. I learnt a lot of things I wasn't aware of.The only inconvenient is that there are a few mistakes in the text, and (even if I am not English fluent) I think that the translation is a little random sometimes.Despite that, a great book that I read in one day.

this feels like a book cobbled together with press clippings and quotes mostly already in the media, although the author has done some interviews of his own (in fairness: in the introduction the author states as much: the book draws mostly on press reports at the time, blog entries, web site texts, press releases, etc.).another reviewer pointed out that all the key insiders participated. it's true; and there are a handful of short quotes, but they are usually very brief; nothing too expansiveideally, the book would draw much more heavily on the participants, to get the true inside story, in detail. there is some of that, but not nearly enough (i'm guessing the author did not have enough time or oppty to ask many, many questions)ultimately, this is a nice recounting of events as they happened. you get a lot of tour dates, song release dates, video shoot dates, but not enough in the way of inside information re how the girls (or others in the inner circle) might be feeling at any given time. it feels more like a chronology peppered with a quote here or there, than the inside story. the closest it comes is a little extrapolation and speculation based on some of these quotesfor a tatu fan—or any fan of pop music history—it's still a worthy read; there's a lot of information here, but i want it stated that this book won't go very far to address the wishes of hard core fans who want the real story with lots of detail and lengthy quotes/insights from the key playersthat will probably only happen when one (or both) gals take pen (or ghostwriter) in hand and tell the story themselveshowever, if you are willing to settle for a comprehensive retelling of their history, this book will provide that. i have to admit, that i'm such a big fan of the band, i read the book twice! that, despite my opinion that the book only tells so much—it's an interesting story!lastly, not to nitpick, but the author could have used a top-rate editor for the english edition; it has more than a few mistakes and unclear passages that could've benefited from editing for correction and clarification