Юлия БЕЛЯКОВА  Burn, My Star!

True romance should be cool.

How one can explain the vitality of so archaic genre as Russian romance? It can only be explained by an awful gap in Russian history, by an urgent need of knowing one's roots - any roots. There is no other place like Russia in the attitude towards romance. Well, maybe somewhere in France they release Berange songs authentically performed, but they definitely please only small audience of antiquaries. Russian romance is still en vogue here.

We should confess that Yulia Beljakova's album does not cause such an abruption as many other CDs of this genre do. Maybe the thing is that Beljakova has the sense of proportion, to say nothing of her "perfect taste" (as said in the booklet). But the main thing is that true romance should be a bit cool.