Svetlana Loboda
Anti-Crisis Girl

Actress, singer, songwriter, pianist, host, designer, photographer. Svetlana Loboda is all this and more.

A multifaceted 27-year-old Ukrainian personality, she rose to fame in 2004, after years of conservatory and apprenticeship.

Like many of her counterparts worldwide, Loboda began her career in a "girl band". She passed an audition, outperforming over five thousand participants, thus becoming the vocalist of the band "Nu Virgos", which was later renamed "Via Gra", and participated in a sort of Russian-Ukrainian X-Factor, called Star Factory.

However, her experience with Via Gra was very brief: after a few months, the enterprising and ambitious Svetlana left the band and ventured into a solo career: she recorded and released the track "Cherno-Belaya Zima" ("Black and White Winter"), for which she also shot a music video, and it was included in her first album, released in 2005, titled "Ty Ne Zabudeš" ("You Won't Forget Me").

Success came very quickly for Loboda, also because her artistic streak is not limited to producing pop-dance music: as mentioned earlier, the young Ukrainian is also a skilled actress, TV host, and photographer.

In 2008, along with the release of her fourth album titled "Ne Macho", Loboda launched her signature youth clothing collection, named "F*ck The Macho", a name that garnered significant attention in the CIS countries, but was a great hit among young people.

From the album, the title track, "Za Cto", and the collaboration with DJ Lutique "By Your Side" were released as singles.

In the spring of 2009, after winning the national selections, Svetlana Loboda represented her country at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow, with the piece "Be My Valentine/Anti-Crisis Girl", finishing eleventh in the final evening.

It was following her participation in ESC that an album for the European market was released, optimistically titled "Anti-Crisis Girl", which is nothing more than a compilation of the most successful tracks from her previous albums.

The work opens with the energetic, decidedly dance track presented at the continental event, which in its sound vaguely reminds of "Four Minutes" by Madonna and Justin Timberlake, but also features nuances of Ukrainian tradition, especially in the brass sections.

Following is the other English-language piece (the others are all in Ukrainian or Russian), "By Your Side". This one is also dance, probably more refined than the previous one, but with a style that continues to remind us of Madonna: I assume that Loboda draws her inspiration from her. The lyrics of the songs are almost all feminist: it must be said that the artist is highly involved in social causes, especially in the fight against violence towards women, primarily in the domestic sphere. The music video for this song is quite classic: DJ Lutique sings in a club and then the diva Loboda, beautiful and tantalizing, appears in the crowd, flaunting what remains of a shirt (from her F*ck The Macho collection) with a large inscription "No Silicon" on it. Probably Loboda hopes that people will think that her ample breasts and full lips are natural. Such a naïve soul!

The album then unfolds among more or less dance tracks, among which the hits "Ne Macho", "Miška Gadkij Malyciška", "Postoj Myšina" and "Za Cto" stand out, just to name a few.
Ballads are almost entirely absent (although in previous albums the artist had produced some very beautiful ones), except for "Cornyj Angel" ("Black Angel"). A highlight is "Ty Ne Zabudeš'e", a Ukrainian language cover of "Vivre La Vie" by Kelly Joyce.

Overall, the album is a good work if you like energetic yet smooth dance music: the singer is indeed decidedly beautiful and sensual, she knows it, and uses her striking physicality to mesmerize in videos with feline movements and seductive glances. After all, with a name like that...