On June 28, 2012, the audience gathered in the Moscow Muzeon park became aware of the winners of the Steppenwolf Prize, which is being awarded for the fifth time this year. The experts, who determined the winners in sixteen nominations, considered the groups "DDT", "Bird Em", Ifwe, the Internet project "Re: Aquarium" and the China-Town-Cafe club worthy of the awards.
The Steppenwolf Prize, named after the novel by Hermann Hesse, has been awarded for musical achievements since 2008. The nominees for this award are selected by a panel of journalists and critics, and the winners are determined through a survey of experts. According to one of the founders of "Steppenwolf", critic A. Troitsky, this is the only music award that is presented for talent.
In the "Debut" nomination, the experts' sympathies were on the side of the Ifwe band from St. Petersburg, playing in the genre of indie-pop. The group, formed in 2011, recorded their debut album "All my joy", released by the independent Russian label "Snegiri" in the summer of 2012.
The wolf figurine went to the Red Banner Division named after My Grandmother, whose track “Astronauts” from the mini-album “Oboe” won in the “Song” nomination. The 13-member Moscow India Orchestra bypassed the recordings of other nominees, among which were the songs of the Aquarium and DDT groups. However, these groups also did not remain without awards.
The CD “Otherwise”, released by the DDT group in autumn 2011, became a laureate in the “Album” nomination. The concept of the first of the two parts of the album was compared by a number of critics with the ideas characteristic of Pink Floyd's The Wall. The second part "Otherwise" is a collection of songs recorded in different years. The group's Moscow show was recognized as worthy of victory in the "Concert" nomination.
In the category "Voice" the winner was Galya Chikis, the vocalist of the St. Petersburg group Chikiss, for whom critics recognize her amazing romanticism and ability to work in different genres. The prize in the "Text" nomination went to the rap-style project "Bird Em", created by members of the Ekaterinburg group "4 Positions of Bruno" Nikolai Babak and Alexander Sitnikov. In the "Music" category, the winner was guitarist Pavel Dodonov, who works with Andrei Lysikov, better known as Dolphin.
The cover of the disc "Disappointment of the Year", the second album released by the Moscow group NRKTK, was recognized by experts as a worthy victory in the "Design" category. In the "Video" nomination, the best was the clip of director Andrey Airapetov, made for the song I Awoke by the group Scofferlane. The video was filmed at the China-Town-Cafe club, which won an award in the "Institution" category. In the "Film" category, the winner was Sergei Lobanov's musical comedy "Shapito-show", which was awarded a special prize in 2011 by the jury of the Moscow International Film Festival.
In 2012, "Steppenwolf" got the nomination "Musical Resource". The Thankyou.ru portal was declared a laureate in this category. This resource with a literary and music section operates on a pay-what-you-want basis. This principle of content distribution differs from the traditional one, in which shops and record companies act as an intermediary between the listener and the author.
In the Media category, the Afisha magazine was awarded the experts' sympathy, and in the Internet category, the joint project of Lenta.ru and Kroogi.com Re: Aquarium, dedicated to the group's anniversary, was worthy of Steppenwolf.
The winner in the "Catalyst" nomination was Vasily Shumov, the leader of the Center group created in Moscow in the late 1970s, known as a poet, musician and creator of projects in the field of photo and video art.
In the category with the mysterious name "Something" the title of laureate was awarded to the project of Vasya Oblomov, Leonid Parfenov and Ksenia Sobchak. The premiere of the first rap music video recorded by the participants of this project took place on the Dozhd channel in early 2012. The song on behalf of the Russian people, published on the YouTube service, gained over a million views in the first days.
