On discovering Mongolian pop music

It is seldom that Mongolia makes the news headlines but it did at the beginning of July. A rare republic in their part of the woods with Russia and China as neighbours, Mongolia’s people protested against alleged vote rigging forcing the President to declare a state of emergency.

I knew so little about Mongolia, I couldn’t even think of the name of its capital and decided to explore a bit starting with my evergreen favourite – Wikipedia. The country has an incredibly interesting history, with that particularly vicious conquerer Ghenghis Khaan certainly amassing a huge empire a few hundred years ago.

Mongolia has, over the centuries, shrunk to a more manageable size with a very sparsely populated large tract of rough and beautifully dramatic looking countryside. It boils down to just under 3 million people living in a country the size of Alaska.

This remote country, at least for somebody living in the UK, always conjures up images of horses and riders galloping across vast plains sporting wonderfully colourful coats and hats. And let’s not forget the legendary festival, The Great Naadam Festival, that is on my list of things to visit and enjoy before I kick the bucket.

What I had never imagined Mongolia to have any of, for some strange reason, was pop music. The entry on Wikipedia’s page under popular music listed a few bands and I went onto last.fm to check it out. In particular the band called Haranga seemed really successful.

In the end last.fm was not the right site to go to. YouTube of course was it. As I don’t visit YouTube that often, it never occurred to me that this is where I should have headed to in the first instance. Only the ever familiar logo on videos on last.fm got me thinking that I might be looking in the wrong spot.

What a treasure trove of music videos did I find. The two groups mentioned on the site, Haranga and Hurd, are producing some great music. For me some of the most amazing popular music in recent years has been where different influences mix together to form a new genre. Often the best of several worlds can combine into something fresh and fun.

Yeah for the internet. What a treat it’s been. A few hours of browsing and listening. I strayed onto videos of a National Youth singing competition held in China with entrants from neighbouring countries which made fascinating watching and listening too. But Mongolian pop is it. Now all I need to be totally happy is to be able to buy some of their music. iTunes perhaps?

Have yourself a break and watch Haranga. This track of theirs, which I consider the best I have found so far, is called Tolin Hul. No idea what the title means. Babel doesn’t do Mongolian to English regrettably. Whatever it means though must have some kind of gruesome background story. Warning – not for the totally squeamish! And the other great one is by Hurd, although the video quality is not that great. Still worth a listen.