Tracklist & English Titles

1. Угонщица — The One Who Wins
2. Сквозняки — Wind Drafts
3. Сама — By Myself
4. Над пропастью во ржи — The Catcher in the Rye
5. Ключи — Keys
6. Войди в меня — Enter Me
7. Ты мне нужен — I Need You
8. Золото любви — The Gold of Love
9. Нежданный гость — Unexpected Guest
10. Я тебя отвоюю — I Shall Win You Over
11. Безответная любовь — Unrequited Love
12. Привет, Андрей! — Hi, Andrei!

The album Угонщица, pronounced Ugonshchitsa, is, in my professional artistic opinion, the greatest pop album of all time.

In the United States, and through institutions such as the Grammys, recognition has historically centered overwhelmingly on American and English-language artists. To me, this creates an absurdly incomplete picture of world music. Irina Allegrova, the Russian Dramatic Pop Diva and Imperatritsa of Russian music, belongs to the same rare international echelon as Yma Sumac, the extraordinary Peruvian singer renowned for her phenomenal vocal range. Artists of this stature deserve recognition on the level of Lifetime Achievement Awards.

What makes Угонщица such a thematic masterpiece is its multitude of counterparts and contrasts.

This was Irina’s sophomore solo album, created through a remarkable convergence of writers, composers, poets, and producers: the Super Igors — Igor Krutoi and Igor Nikolaev; the exceptionally talented Viktor Chaika; distinguished poets Rimma Kazakova and Larisa Rubalskaya; the immortal poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva; and musical greats including Vyacheslav Dobrynin and Irina’s musical godfather, Oscar Feltsman.

This extraordinary meeting of generations — some of Russia’s best of the best, from different eras and artistic traditions — helped create an album that feels not manufactured, but organic.

The original 1994/1995 release was mastered AAD and possesses an exceptionally warm sound. Irina’s daughter, Lala, also provided background vocals on several tracks.

The original Jeff Records / Russian Supply releases — across four versions — contain different mixes or masters of tracks 1, 6, 8, and 12 from those heard on the 2021 Warner Music Russia digital release, now available through major streaming platforms. Tracks 3, 6, and 9 also contain additional spoken elements or ad-libs on the original masters.

I would love to one day see a definitive CD and vinyl reissue: the complete original master alongside the later digital variations of the aforementioned tracks, the tremendous number of versions and remixes of the title song, and, if they survive, potential demos and other archival material.

My favorite song of all time is Track 10, Я тебя отвоюю (I Shall Win You Over), which I had the great privilege of asking Irina about personally.

The song was performed in two takes. The first was used for the music video — itself one of my five favorite music videos of all time — while the second became the album performance. Both the original master and the later digital album preserve that same perfect second take.

Irina entered the studio in tears following the passing of her beloved father, Alexander Allegrov, a great stage director and artist — God bless his Soul.

The meaning she placed into the song was therefore Soulful, Spiritual, exceptionally deep, and profoundly platonic. What we hear is not merely a vocal performance. It is grief, devotion, memory, love, and spiritual force passing through a voice.

It was Irina herself who asked Igor Krutoi to compose music for the Marina Tsvetaeva poem she had chosen — words that corresponded to the tremendous emotions she was experiencing.

That history is why, for me, no cover of this song can ever win over the original. It is encapsulated in pure magic.

Tsvetaeva's poem moves through an almost elemental act of claiming love: across earth and heaven, time and night, banners and swords, and finally into a biblical confrontation with the mysterious being with whom Jacob wrestled through the night. And then comes the epilogue.

Its final incantatory thought is repeated three times.

That repetition transforms the ending. It ceases to feel like an ordinary conclusion to a pop song. It becomes something ritualistic — a declaration repeated until it acquires another kind of force.

To me, it sounds like a Soul Spell.

— Marina Tsvetaeva

The album moves through an extraordinary emotional storyline.

It begins with the heroine single-handedly winning over her love by literally driving him away in a car — the enormous title hit, Угонщица, which would inspire numerous versions and remixes through the years.

Then comes Сквозняки. During a quarrel, she calms her lover with a wonderful metaphor: rather than infidelity or catastrophic emotional “storms,” perhaps what exists between them are merely drafts — temporary currents of misunderstanding.

In Сама, she is alone, awaiting his return with a telephone resting upon her pillow.

Then comes the honeymoon of complete emotional surrender in Над пропастью во ржи, before that idyllic period abruptly gives way.

Ключи brings us into separation, delay, access, and distance.

Then the album becomes intensely sensual. Войди в меня — Enter Me / Enter My Dreams — is propelled by a backbeat that, to my ears, sounds almost like a moving bed. The arrangement itself seems to participate in the physical heat of the song.

It is followed by my second-favorite track on the album, Ты мне нужен (I Need You), with its subtle jazz flair.

Then the flakes of Золото любви — The Gold of Love — begin to fall away. Of its two principal versions, the original remains my favorite.

Next comes Oscar Feltsman’s playful, familial warning of Нежданный гость, before the record reaches its spiritual summit:

Я тебя отвоюю.

The Song of Songs within this album.

Here, “winning over” transcends romance. The scale expands beyond one person and another — beyond land, beyond night, beyond time, and ultimately toward the Divine and mortality itself.

After that extraordinary summit comes the intensely melodic and poetic Безответная любовь (Unrequited Love). Irina’s magnificent Pesnya Goda performance — with the flower — is essential viewing.

Finally, the album closes with the buoyant, mischievous Привет, Андрей! (Hi, Andrei!), a song whose cultural life continued far beyond the album itself and became associated with the major Russian television program bearing its name.

The backbone of this record is the concept of winning over what is true and truly beloved — spiritually, Soulfully, and masterfully.

At first, that idea exists on the physical plane: movement, possession, the automobile, material symbolism, pursuit.

But as the album develops, “winning” becomes progressively less literal.

The journey moves through attraction, misunderstanding, solitude, surrender, separation, sensuality, need, the erosion of love, warning, unrequited love — and finally into something much greater.

By Track 10, the automobile of the opening song has become almost irrelevant.

We have traveled from winning over a lover on Earth to confronting the boundaries of Heaven, God, and death itself.

That is the hidden architecture that makes Угонщица much more than a collection of exceptional pop songs.

It is a complete emotional and spiritual journey.

I remember being 15 years old in 1995. Following Irina’s Ovation Award recognition as Russia’s Best Pop Singer, Allegrova embarked upon her first American tour.

I had a front-row seat.

I met her briefly afterward.

And her final encore was Я тебя отвоюю.

I have since been fortunate enough to see many of Irina’s exceptional live performances from the front row, but that first experience of Я тебя отвоюю has never left me.

More than thirty years later, it still lives like a Fire of Inspiration within my Strong Soul.

And there is even a spiritual continuation: Part II of Я тебя отвоюю ~ Имя твое, released in August 2021.

Some great albums belong to a year.

Some belong to a generation.

And a very rare few become timeless because the music, poetry, voice, circumstance, and Soul converge at exactly the right moment.

For me, Угонщица is one of those records.

It begins with a woman stealing away the man she desires in a car.

It ends having traveled through love, desire, solitude, loss, poetry, mortality, and the Divine.

That is why, in my professional artistic opinion, Угонщица remains The Best Pop Album of All Time.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️