The Rib Records

In the late 1950s, rock 'n' roll invaded the Soviet Union using an unprecedented medium: x-ray sheets stolen from clinics and hospitals, on which "crime songs" were engraved. Not an optimal sound, but the only way to ensure free musical expression.

Via “Poemas del rio Wang”.

They called them rib records. The only way for young people in Soviet countries to hear “blatnaya pesnya,” translated as criminal songs, banned by the regime. Thus, from about 1959, the Eastern bloc equipped itself with an original system of musical survival. This consisted of recording songs imported from American rock 'n' roll, mainly, on x-ray sheets. An unusual medium for music which, however, thanks to vinyl-like grooves, made it possible to create records 25-35 cm in diameter, with 7-inch rims and a central hole given by cigarette burns.

Via “The Pop Corporation”, 2023.

It all took place in city basements, by young smugglers called The Golden Dog Gang, who used old phonographs for the creation of their rock and roll gems. A laudable endeavor, but also extremely dangerous, as the perpetrators of such activity risked up to five years of hard labor in the gulags. That is why there was utmost care in the exchange, which took place in sudden transitions on park benches. Indeed, the extreme flexibility of the discs made it easy to fold them to hide under clothes or in pockets.

Soviet cartoon saying: “The stilyaga is the agent of the West!”. Via “Poemas del rio Wang”.

Not only that, but peculiar attention had to be paid to the Komsomol (Communist Youth Union) boys in charge of combing and searching incriminating places. They themselves were often the ones who circulated fake roentgenizdat (rëbra, the rib records) which, after a musical incipit, delivered a fierce message framing the culprit. However, even some young Stalinists liked American jazz and rock 'n' roll, so much so that they often covered the underground trade. And at the time, the price of a rib record was one ruble, since everyone knew about the incredible ease and speed of record wearing out. In contrast, commercially legalized music vinyls came at 5 rubles.

Komsomol’s. Via “Bored Panda”, 2022.

And to think that nowadays, rëbras are real collector's items, with a price ranging from 60 to 200 euros. The aesthetic and visual quality is undoubtedly intriguing, even if the sound quality is bad. However, this did not matter to the young Soviets, who could look forward to the much-loved Elvis Presley, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Pat Boone, Paul Anka, Bill Haley, and Louis Armstrong. Jazz, above all, was the real scourge for the regime, versus the waltzes and polkas it branded as socially acceptable music. Instead, the "corruption of Western capitalism" enthralled young Styliagi, pointed at by the more closed society as freaks.

Styliagi’s. Via “La Regione”, 2024.

While the men wore long hair but pulled back with grease, tight pants, and gaudy jackets and ties, the women adopted a boyish haircut, plaid skirts, and stiletto heels. The latter were clearly outnumbered by the boys but, like them, had been able to savor the postwar juncture of freedom, when Soviet soldiers had returned from foreign countries with Western books, records, and films. A true dream of a few years, before the Curtain closed with the beginning of the Cold War. Yet necessary and sufficient to fuel a picturesque and avant-garde youth subculture.

Via “Russia Beyond”, 2017.

Representing it was the 2008 Russian film Stilyagi, complete with music and Grease-style bell skirts to depict an era whose drama cannot be understood today, with music accessible on any platform. It was not just innocent entertainment, but a real matter of cultural survival, in an ivory cage that left no room for free thought. So much so that it was often the young people themselves who underwent x-rays just to have x-rays on which to engrave music when these were not retrieved from the garbage of hospitals or demanded under the table from friends and relatives in the medical field.

Such a revolution not only frames unprecedented musical experimentation but also offers guidance from the Westernized example of flexi-discs. These are products that are so flexible, pocket-friendly, and inexpensive that they are even sold as magazine attachments or in cereal boxes. Culture thus reshapes and modernizes itself by drawing lessons from historical realities that perhaps not everyone knows, but they should.